This Man Can't Die

A B-movie star in the 1950s and most well known for playing Wild Bill Hickok for seven seasons on The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, Guy Madison's star had faded some by the 1960s. He went the route so many actors went in that decade, heading to Europe for a variety of westerns, epics and war movies, including a 1968 spaghetti western called This Man Can't Die. 

Working as an undercover agent for the cavalry, Martin Benson (Madison) has been assigned a mission where he must break up a gang of gunrunners who are selling and trading repeating rifles and whiskey with the Indian tribes. He somewhat unwillingly takes the job, but the gunrunners are on to him. The gang attacks the Benson ranch, killing Martin's parents, but his brother Daniel (Alberto Dell'Acqua), sisters Susan (Lucienne Bridou) and Jenny (Anna Liotti) and youngest brother Arias all survive the attack. Tracking the gang, Martin finds out about the attack. Hoping that with his help the now-hiding family can hold off the gang, Martin races home.

This is pretty typical of many of the spaghetti westerns made in Italy in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  It is neither classic nor awful, just entertaining in a mindless sort of way. Because it is in that middle ground, it has little to no following with very little information even available on it wherever you look. The cast listing is especially bad with some main characters/villains not even listed by the names they're addressed as. Dell'Acqua is listed as 'Rooney' but is clearly called Daniel. The person listed as his younger brother -- Steve Merrick -- would have been 46 years old at the time. Now something ain't right there. Those "criticisms" aside, I did enjoy it for all its dumb qualities, some in a 'so bad it's good' fashion.

Looking like he aged quite a bit since his TV days in the 1950s, Madison looks somewhat out of place in this western. If he was getting paid by the line, the studios got off cheap. His Martin has maybe 12 lines of dialogue the whole movie, and on top of that, he's dubbed by someone else. It just sounds a little off. He also looks like he got lifted off the set of an American western and dropped into this Italian western, but I'll give credit when it's due. He handles most of his own stunts -- and there's a lot of them -- and does bring a cool, laid back appeal to the hero part. I wish they could have paired Madison and Dell'Acqua's Daniel earlier because the revenge-seeking gunslinging brothers could have been a cool addition.

Introducing someone to spaghetti westerns, I never claim the acting is anything special. Making it better or worse is that dubbing can ruin an already wooden or over the top performance. The villains here are pretty weak starting with Graham (Rik Battaglia), the leading businessman in town who's secretly running this gang of gunrunners. The gang leader isn't credited by the name I heard so I can't list him, but he's a creepy enough dude. When he rapes Jenny in the attack, you know it won't end well for him. Dell'Acqua is a solid, cool second banana, French beauty Bridou looks pretty, and Rosalba Neri makes the most of a smaller part as Martin's girl, Melina, a saloon girl. 

Like any spaghetti western, there are some odd to really odd moments. For one, the score liberally borrows from Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars. It's weird because the rest of the score is good if not great, and then all the sudden BAM! You're thinking 'I recognize that score," and you should. The violence is ratcheted up with the appearance of blood after some shootings, and 'Can't Die' features more nudity than I've seen in other spaghetti westerns. Those bad guys, they're always trying to rape somebody. It is a fun movie though, especially the last half hour with gunplay around every corner. There's better and there is worse, but not bad as far as spaghettis go. You can watch the full movie HERE at Youtube.

This Man Can't Die (1968): ** 1/2 /****

Trinity and Sartana

Spaghetti westerns produced countless very cool characters that popped up in multiple movies, the Man With No Name, Sabata, Django, Cuchillo, Sartana, Trinity, among others. It was only inevitable then before crossovers, remakes, and unofficial sequels, combining all the different, cool, and badass characters in half-hearted westerns. One of the worst I've ever seen? 1972's Trinity and Sartana are Coming...Those Dirty Sons of Bitches.  Sad thing is, the title's the best thing going here.

Drifting across Texas, outlaw buddies Trinity (Harry Baird) and Sartana (Alberto Dell-Acqua) can't seem to hold on to any movie they rob/steal/earn. That issue can be chalked up to the affable Trinity who is constantly giving their money away to anyone who needs it. Finally they've come across a can't-miss plan with a shipment of gold being moved across the border. The only problem is they're not the only ones who know about it. Shady businessman Burton (Stelio Candelli) is working with a bandit, El Tigre (Ezio Marano), and his gang to get the gold too, and it seems they're all on a collision course. 

For starters to anyone not really familiar with the spaghetti western genre, this is a ridiculous knock-off. Trinity was originally played by the very white Terrence Hill, but here is played by a black actor. Sartana was played by Gianni Garko and was a quiet, tough sharp-shooting gunman. Here, he is a young, annoying, acrobatic gunfighter. In other words? This is a "sequel" in name only.  The original Trinity movies with Hill are tolerable in terms of a comedic, slapstick western, but this is an awful, awful movie with little in the way of redeeming qualities.

Putting their own unique spin on two known characters (I guess that's a nice way of saying 'steal'), Dell'Acqua and Baird just don't work well together. Trinity is just trying to round up some money to get back home to Trinidad, but inexplicably keeps giving the money away. He looks like a 1830s sailor and talks like a simpleton, basically playing the biggest stereotype ever. Dell'Acqua is duded up like the ultimate gay caballero, jumping, twirling, and doing all the gymnastics moves you would expect in a western (translated: Gymnastics doesn't really belong in westerns; read: sarcasm). The dubbing is atrocious so it's hard to judge them as actors completely on their own, but somebody has to be blamed for turning two very cool characters into such annoying, idiotic dolts.

Comedy westerns like Blazing Saddles are one thing, spoofs that still manage to be smart. The Trinity westerns are just tolerable in terms of the comedy, mostly because of Hill and frequent co-star Bud Spencer working together. But as one IMDB reviewer so nicely put it, this movie has all the sophistication of a Three Stooges short, but without the laughs. El Tigre at one point falls into a pile of manure...twice. Hilarious! Sartana slaps people repeatedly (channeling Hill's Trinity), hitting them with logs, pots and pans, anything he can get his hands on. At one point, Trinity and Sartana stop their horses at a dead run, and the sound effect of a car screeching to a halt is heard. I almost stopped the movie right there. Humor is one thing, but stupidity is another.

"Doing battle" with El Tigre and his gang of 32 bandits, Trinity and Sartana push the limit a little too far. I realize it's a comedy western without the cynicism or darkness of a Leone spaghetti western, but come on. This is ridiculous. They don't actually shoot anyone. Not a single person. They shoot around them, at their feet, near them, over their head, shooting things that fall on them, but never actually hit anything. Sartana actually uses a Gatling Gun-like machine gun to sign his name into a wall. Also hilarious! El Tigre's gang surrenders without a wound received. Oh, man, I'm liking this movie less as I write more about it.

As for the rest of the cast, Candelli's Burton is a boring villain and Marano's El Tigre grating and less than sinister. Beatrice Pella plays Maribel, Burton's conniving woman, Daniela Giordano is Martha, a Mormon woman drawn to Trinity for some reason, and in a relative bright spot, Dante Maggio plays Bud Benny Bud, a traveling musician and con man. You should really steer clear of this one. Horrible soundtrack with a player piano balancing out a folksy, whistling theme, bad acting, horrible dubbing, and slapstick comedy most little kids wouldn't even laugh at.

Trinity and Sartana Are Coming <---random Youtube clip (1972): */****

Seven Women for the MacGregors

Spaghetti westerns have a stigma of being ultra-violent, extremely cynical looks at the wild west -- from an Italian perspective that is.  The Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci westerns certainly helped perpetuate that stigma, and overall the best movies to come out of this genre are the darker ones.  Of course, not ALL of them are dark, serious looks.  Italian westerns had their comedic westerns too, but for the most part, they're often left in the dust compared to the more serious entries.

A sequel to 1966's Seven Guns for the MacGregors (which I haven't seen), 1967's Seven Women for the MacGregors is one of those comedic Italian westerns.  It is not as well known as the Terrence Hill/Bud Spencer pairings which to a point legitimized comedic westerns, mostly because the cast just isn't up to the task.  This is a big, sprawling comedy with pretty base humor and a fistfight or a gunfight whenever the story starts to lag.  Not to be taken seriously at all, it is an odd mix of that ultra-violence and humor. 

The MacGregor patriarch Alastair (George Rigaud) is hosting a huge party for his family and friends and Irish neighbors, the Donovans, led by their own aging father (Roberto Camardiel).  But during the party, a bandit gang attacks.  The MacGregors and Donovans team to drive them off but discover it was all a decoy while the bandits dug up the hidden MacGregor gold treasure.  The seven MacGregor sons mount up and head off in search of the gold that's been in their family for generations.  On the trail, they meet an old drifter who says a bandit named Maldonado (Leo Anchoriz) was most likely behind the robbery and so off they go, trying to find Maldonado's well-guarded hideout.

What humor is there is pretty broad with those brawling fistfights with all sorts of dangerous weapons and blunt objects are used, but no one is ever really hurt.  As the brothers try to find out where Maldonado is, they always find someone who can point out where he is, but right at the reveal they're always dragged off to jail or picked off by a waiting posse.  Pretty hysterical, right?  Surprisingly though, it does provide some laughs because it is all pretty ridiculous.  As an added bonus, the Donovan girls are all single and what do you know? There's seven of them.  So if you ever wanted to see Seven Brides for Seven Brothers: Italian Style, this is your movie.  Don't believe me? There's even a dance scene reminiscent of that American musical.

Humor aside, 'MacGregors' does feature some great action and some impressive stuntwork.  The opening attack is a pretty run of the mill shootout with the bandits attacking the MacGregor household.  Any action through the middle of the movie is restricted to the already-mentioned fistfights with all the gunplay saved for the end as the seven MacGregor boys sneak into Maldonado's fortress and go for the gold.  All of this crashes together on a deserted railway yard with Scots, Irish, bandits, and an antique cannon all playing a part.  How does that not sound appealing?

Watching a sequel before the original is typically a bad idea, but here it doesn't really make a huge difference.  It's a good stand alone movie that doesn't need a whole lot of background -- although I would like to see '7 Guns' just out of curiosity.  The one thing I question is whether the 7 brothers are developed any better than they were here.  American actor David Bailey plays Gregor, the leader of the brothers who also gets the romantic subplot.  I recognized two of the other brothers from other spaghetti westerns, Saturno Cerra who plays Johnny MacGregor, an albino-looking priest and Alberto Dell'Acqua as Dick MacGregor, the youngest of the brothers who's got a crush on the youngest Donovan girl.  The other four brothers are pretty bland overall and given little background, some of them I didn't even hear a name during the movie.

Being at least fairly familiar with spaghetti westerns -- which typically weren't character-driven spectacles -- I feel safe saying the first MacGregor movie probably didn't flesh these characters out too much.  Most of the cast returns for this sequel, reprising their same roles.  And worth mentioning, the Italian westerns filmed throughout the Spanish countryside which look surprisingly a lot like parts of the American southwest.  Throw in a solid score from Ennio Morricone (who uses an exact sample from his Fistful of Dollars soundtrack), mix it all together, and you've got this very average but still enjoyable comedic spaghetti western.

Seven Women for the MacGregors <---trailer (1967): ** 1/2 /****