Euro Westerns

  • Monte Hellman – Amore, piombo e furore AKA China 9, Liberty 37 (1978)

    Monte Hellman1971-1980Euro WesternsItalyRomanceWestern

    China 9, Liberty 37 falls halfway between the Hollywood backlot-western school and the Italian “spaghetti” western genre, borrowing the best elements from both. Fabio Testi plays a gunfighter who is saved at the last moment from a hangman’s noose. His liberators are a cartel of railroad men who want Testi to kill farmer (and former hired gun) Warren Oates, who has refused all entreaties to sell his land. As part of the scheme, Testi befriends Oates; on his own volition, he sleeps with Oates’ wife Jenny Agutter. When the railroad barons insist that Testi go through with his mission, he refuses, and helps the farmer fight off the train moguls’ hired thugs. Also known as Gunfire, China 9 Liberty 37 features a cameo by director Monte Hellman’s role model, Sam Peckinpah, who plays a bombastic Ned Buntline-style novelist. And the significance of the title? It’s the location of Warren Oates’ spread: Nine miles from the town of China, 37 miles from the town of Liberty.Read More »

  • Sergio Corbucci – Il grande silenzio AKA The Great Silence (1968)

    Sergio Corbucci1961-1970Euro WesternsItalyWestern

    On an unforgiving, snow swept frontier, a group of bloodthirsty bounty hunters, led by the vicious Loco (Klaus Kinski Nosferatu, For a Few Dollars More) prey on a band of persecuted outlaws who have taken to the hills. As the price on each head is collected one-by-one, only a mute gunslinger named Silence (Jean-Louis Trintignant The Conformist) stands between the innocent refuges and the greed and corruption that the bounty hunters represent. But, in this harsh, brutal world, the lines between right and wrong aren’t always clear and good doesn’t always triumph. Featuring superb photography and a haunting score from maestro Ennio Morricone, director Sergio Corbucci’s bleak, brilliant and violent vision of an immoral, honorless west is widely considered to be among the very best and most influential Euro-Westerns ever made.Read More »

  • Giorgio Capitani – Ognuno per sé AKA The Ruthless Four (1968)

    1961-1970CultEuro WesternsGiorgio CapitaniItalyWestern

    SYNOPSIS:
    Sam Cooper (Heflin) finds gold and then is double-crossed by his partner. He survives and calls on the only person he can trust, Manolo (Hilton), who is soon joined by Brent (Kinski), who has a strong hold over him. Sam is warned that something is wrong with the young man and his friend, so he asks an old acquaintance, Mason (Roland), to join the group. But their preparations for the journey to retrieve the gold have attracted the attention of the vermin hanging about in the prospecting town.Read More »

  • Franco Rossetti – El Desperado AKA The Dirty Outlaws (1967)

    1961-1970CultEuro WesternsFranco RossettiItalyWestern

    WDB wrote:
    In this spaghetti western, set during the last days of the Civil War, an outlaw finds a dying Confederate officer. As the officer expires, he tells the outlaw about a cache of gold hidden in his blind father’s home. The enterprising thief takes the dead man’s clothes and tricks the father and his housekeeper into believing that he is the son. He is just about ready to begin looking for the gold when an outlaw gang comes to town and forces him to help them rob an army payroll wagon. He then tries to abscond with the loot. The bandits torture him, shoot him, and leave him for dead. Then they shoot the blind father. The hero gets better and gets grisly revenge upon the outlaws. He saves a special treat for the gang leader. First he uses mud to blind him. Then he puts a gun in his hand and kills him.Read More »

  • Luigi Vanzi – Un Dollaro tra i denti AKA A Stranger In Town (1967)

    1961-1970Euro WesternsItalyLuigi VanziWestern

    From iMDB:
    There are few films that can demonstrate in a nutshell what spaghetti westerns are about. The particular strength of “Un dollaro tra i denti” is that everything that isn’t required was stripped off. Here you get the basic ingredients straight in your face: a mysterious stranger (Tony Anthony) arrives in a town. He is not a hero – his only motivation is money, and he offers the villain (Frank Wolff) a deal. After the deal isn’t kept, i.e. the money isn’t shared, the stranger will have his revenge. Nobody talks very much, the first minutes are without any dialogue at all. The musical theme is returning again and again, supplying the feeling that whatever is going to happen will be inevitable. Doomed to die with his boots on, Wolff may fire as many bullets with his machine-gun on Anthony as he likes, there’s no escape…Read More »

  • Robert Hossein – Une corde, un Colt… AKA Cemetery Without Crosses (1969)

    Robert Hossein1961-1970DramaEuro WesternsFranceWestern

    This western finds Manuel (Robert Hossein) visiting his friends only to discover the husband has been murdered in a feud between two rival families. He promises the widow he will kidnap the daughter of the other family to avenge the killing. Manuel manages to apprehend the girl, and the widow has the girl raped. She offers the young woman back to her family in exchange for a decent burial for her murdered husband. The family of the kidnapped girl rides into town for the inevitable showdown in this violent story of murder and revenge. (allmovie)Read More »

  • Tonino Valerii – Il prezzo del potere AKA The Price of Power AKA A Bullet for the President (1969)

    Tonino Valerii1961-1970ActionEuro WesternsItalyWestern

    The Price of Power (Italian: Il prezzo del potere, 1969) is a Spaghetti Western directed by Tonino Valerii. The film stars Giuliano Gemma as the hero Bill Willer who tries to get revenge against the killers of his father while at the same time trying to prevent an assassination plot against president James Garfield (played by Van Johnson, with José Suárez playing Vice President Chester A. Arthur) in 1881.Read More »

  • Enzo G. Castellari – Quella sporca storia nel west AKA Johnny Hamlet (1968)

    1961-1970DramaEnzo G. CastellariEuro WesternsItalyWestern

    Back from the Civil War, Johnny Hamilton learns that his father was murdered by Santana the bandit and that his mother Gertrude married his uncle Claude but Johnny is determined to find out the truth.Read More »

  • Jerzy Hoffman & Edward Skórzewski – Prawo i piesc AKA The Law and the Fist (1964)

    1961-1970DramaEdward SkórzewskiEuro WesternsJerzy HoffmanPolandWestern

    Quote:
    At the end of World War Two, Polish people move to the western lands vacated by Germans. But some ruthless profiteers pose as government representatives and intend to make off with loot from a deserted town they took over. One honest man stands up against them because he believes these goods belong to the people.Read More »

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