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Authors: Howard Hughes
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the money back to town in lieu of Joe), though other aspects of the movie (the Indian hero, the downbeat ending) are obviously influenced by bleaker, more considered fifties ‘Cowboy and Indian’ Westerns, including Burt Lancaster’s action-packed Apache (1954), the brutal The Last Wagon (1956) and Kirk Douglas’s The Indian Fighter (1955).
The Verdict
Reynolds said this film was so bad that it was only shown in prisons and on aeroplanes because no one could leave – ‘I killed 10,000 guys, wore a Japanese slingshot and a fright wig.’ Ignore Reynolds’ opinion.
A Stranger in Town (1966)
Directed by: Luigi Vanzi
Music by: Benedetto Ghiglia
Cast: Tony Anthony (The Stranger), Frank Wolff (Aguila)
84 minutes
Story
A fast-drawing stranger arrives in a desolate Mexican border settlement and witnesses a bandit gang, led by their sadistic leader Aguila, wipe out a company of Mexican Federales and make off with their uniforms. The stranger joins the band to steal a gold shipment from the US Army, but he’s double-crossed and beaten. Facing the gang alone, he picks them off one by one and kills Aguila, before returning the money to the US Army.
Background
If the story seems familiar, that’s because it is. This is by far the most blatant rip-off of A Fistful of Dollars , made clearer under its alternate title, For a Dollar in the Teeth . Not only does Vanzi use a simplified version of the same plot, but Anthony plays a nameless stranger dressed exactly like Eastwood’s poncho-wearing stranger and sucks meanly on cigars. But this film had American backing (it’s a US/Spanish co-production) and, like Eastwood’s Hang ’ Em High (1968), it represents an American’s idea of a Spaghetti Western – short on plot and characterisation, long on violence. But the whole package (including an appalling performance by Wolff in the Ramon Rojo role) is so poorly executed that its success, especially in America, is difficult to fathom. The finale is memorable, however. In A Fistful of Dollars the stranger uses a square of iron cut from an old mining railcar as a makeshift bullet-proof vest. In A Stranger in Town the hero uses a whole railcar (which runs on tracks down the main street) as he faces Aguila, who is armed with a machinegun.
The film’s success made Anthony a star and resulted in three ‘Stranger’ sequels – The Stranger Returns (1967), The Silent Stranger (1969) and Get Mean (1976) – and several other similar outings, including the surreal Blindman (1971), Anthony’s best film. If The Silent Stranger (wherein the stranger finds himself in Japan) is the weakest of the ‘Stranger’ films and Get Mean is the oddest (the Stranger battles Moors and Vikings in Spain), then The Stranger Returns is the most accomplished. Also called A Man , a Horse , a Gun and Shoot First , Laugh Last , this is more imaginative and better plotted than its predecessor, set in a truly wild West. Anthony’s stranger (again in a poncho) tracks down a renegade (played by Italian strongman Dan Vadis) and his gang, known as the ‘Treasure of the Border’ because of the massive bounty on their heads. The bandits steal a solid-gold stagecoach (yes, you read it right) and the stranger gets beaten up and dragged behind the coach before levelling the gang with his four-barrelled shotgun. But the details of the film – which is more parodic and less slavishly imitative than A Stranger in Town – work a lot better. The stranger sunbathes under a pink parasol, has a natty sidekick (called the Prophet) with a box full of fireworks, christens his horse Pussy (which makes for some rather strange dialogue) and never finishes his ineptly rolled cigarettes – they taste so bad.
The Verdict
The most successful imitators of the Eastwood movies, the ‘Stranger’ films demonstrate just how powerful and popular an icon the poncho-draped Western hero had become in the sixties.
A Bullet for the General
The Verdict
Reynolds said this film was so bad that it was only shown in prisons and on aeroplanes because no one could leave – ‘I killed 10,000 guys, wore a Japanese slingshot and a fright wig.’ Ignore Reynolds’ opinion.
A Stranger in Town (1966)
Directed by: Luigi Vanzi
Music by: Benedetto Ghiglia
Cast: Tony Anthony (The Stranger), Frank Wolff (Aguila)
84 minutes
Story
A fast-drawing stranger arrives in a desolate Mexican border settlement and witnesses a bandit gang, led by their sadistic leader Aguila, wipe out a company of Mexican Federales and make off with their uniforms. The stranger joins the band to steal a gold shipment from the US Army, but he’s double-crossed and beaten. Facing the gang alone, he picks them off one by one and kills Aguila, before returning the money to the US Army.
Background
If the story seems familiar, that’s because it is. This is by far the most blatant rip-off of A Fistful of Dollars , made clearer under its alternate title, For a Dollar in the Teeth . Not only does Vanzi use a simplified version of the same plot, but Anthony plays a nameless stranger dressed exactly like Eastwood’s poncho-wearing stranger and sucks meanly on cigars. But this film had American backing (it’s a US/Spanish co-production) and, like Eastwood’s Hang ’ Em High (1968), it represents an American’s idea of a Spaghetti Western – short on plot and characterisation, long on violence. But the whole package (including an appalling performance by Wolff in the Ramon Rojo role) is so poorly executed that its success, especially in America, is difficult to fathom. The finale is memorable, however. In A Fistful of Dollars the stranger uses a square of iron cut from an old mining railcar as a makeshift bullet-proof vest. In A Stranger in Town the hero uses a whole railcar (which runs on tracks down the main street) as he faces Aguila, who is armed with a machinegun.
The film’s success made Anthony a star and resulted in three ‘Stranger’ sequels – The Stranger Returns (1967), The Silent Stranger (1969) and Get Mean (1976) – and several other similar outings, including the surreal Blindman (1971), Anthony’s best film. If The Silent Stranger (wherein the stranger finds himself in Japan) is the weakest of the ‘Stranger’ films and Get Mean is the oddest (the Stranger battles Moors and Vikings in Spain), then The Stranger Returns is the most accomplished. Also called A Man , a Horse , a Gun and Shoot First , Laugh Last , this is more imaginative and better plotted than its predecessor, set in a truly wild West. Anthony’s stranger (again in a poncho) tracks down a renegade (played by Italian strongman Dan Vadis) and his gang, known as the ‘Treasure of the Border’ because of the massive bounty on their heads. The bandits steal a solid-gold stagecoach (yes, you read it right) and the stranger gets beaten up and dragged behind the coach before levelling the gang with his four-barrelled shotgun. But the details of the film – which is more parodic and less slavishly imitative than A Stranger in Town – work a lot better. The stranger sunbathes under a pink parasol, has a natty sidekick (called the Prophet) with a box full of fireworks, christens his horse Pussy (which makes for some rather strange dialogue) and never finishes his ineptly rolled cigarettes – they taste so bad.
The Verdict
The most successful imitators of the Eastwood movies, the ‘Stranger’ films demonstrate just how powerful and popular an icon the poncho-draped Western hero had become in the sixties.
A Bullet for the General
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