This movie must have been pretty popular in Italy when it was released since there seem to have been about a million movies that threw Ringo into their title for years after this one came out. I'd seen a bunch of the follow-up/rip-off films but none of them really stood out as being all that special. I'm sorry it took me so long to find the original since this was a really fun spaghetti-western flick. It straddles that fine-line between silly-comedy western and serious action film really well. It never gets as goofy as the TRINITY films and never as deadly serious as something like CUT-THROATS NINE and I think that's why it worked for me. Giuliano Gemma is good as the slick gunslinging Ringo who has some memorable sayings like "Early to bed, early to rise, gets you shot between the eyes." but my favorite character has got to be the head of the Mexican-bandits Sancho who shoots his own gang-members in the head if they dare to say the wrong thing to him and generally doesn't give a shit who he has to screw over to keep his stolen gold. He's the perfect embodiment of every slimy lowlife Mexican outlaw character in these type of films and would probably also be perfectly at home in a 70's biker flick playing a bad-ass. I think I also appreciate his work cuz he has a Shemp from the Three Stooges haircut and that right there is comedy gold! While nowhere near as epic as the Leone films and the score by Ennio Morricone is pretty subdued I can see why this one stood out in the sea of more bland euro-westerns. Another unique thing is the movie takes place on Christmas. I don't think I've ever seen a Christmas spaghetti-western before so that's something. There was a follow-up the same year also by the same director(Duccio Tessari) with some of the same cast titled THE RETURN OF RINGO and I think that I need to check that one out soon as well now.
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