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Tel Aviv trashy
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Matzo-ball Westerns filmed in Israel were sort of American spaghettis. Lee Van Cleef had made one the year before this (probably on the same visit to the country) called God’s Gun, also with the boy Leif Garrett. This one is slightly less spag because it wasn’t directed by Signor Parolini but by a TV director named Joseph Manduke.
The funniest thing is the bit-part sheriff early on. You should see his costume: short bum-freezer jacket and double white gunbelt. It’s hilarious.
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Bandido Lee
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Lee this time is a bald bandido chief with a headband. He isn’t in the movie enough but he does have time to rape young Leif’s wholesome English mother while his men kill Leif’s decent pa. So the boy, a willowy, skinny kid of about 15 (though he looks 10), sets out on the path of revenge. He manages to kill six or eight of the heavies with a variety of wildlife (snake in a saddlebag, scorpion in a boot) but also with rope or arrow. You’d think he was Rambo.
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Ma, Pa, oh no…
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He is aided by Jim Brown who is a black gold miner also abused by the badmen.
It’s actually the same plot as Joshua (Lone Star, 1976) only it’s more blondploitation.
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The sad thing is it was Lee’s last Western. What a great career. He hardly went out in a glorious burst of gunfire but still, 101 Westerns from High Noon in 1952 to this one is a great record and a noble contribution to the genre. So long, Lee.
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One Response
my brother is the one who gets strangled by jim brown outside of the cantinna near the end of the movie.