DJANGO KILLS SILENTLY (1967)

  The idea of casting George Eastman of ANTHROPOPHAGUS fame as the hero in this appeals greatly to me. Sadly most of the film isn't all that exciting despite having the tallest guy to ever play Django in it. You get women and kid-killing Mexican bandits and the usual spaghetti-western plot. For completists or big Eastman fanatics only. 

              AKA DJANGO KILL SOFTLY(that's sounds pretty nice!):

DJANGO AND SARTANA'S SHOWDOWN IN THE WEST (1970)

 You know how in biker movies they have a bunch of long scenes of guys riding their bikes to stretch out the run time? Well here we get them riding their horses instead. You also get former Hercules star Gordon Mitchell as the head of a gang of outlaws, Django(not played by Franco nero) and Sartana(not played by Gianni Garko) who despite the title promising us will have a showdown actually team-up towards the very end of the movie. Not the best spaghetti-western I've seen but it seems to have been shot pretty well with the usual beautiful scenery on display. AKA DJANGO AND SARTAN ARE COMING... IT'S THE END, FINAL CONFLICT... DJANGO AGAINST SARTANA and SARTANA IF YOUR LEFT ARM OFFENDS CUT IF OFF. 

 Director Demofilo Fidani had made a couple of previous Sartana movies(SHADOW OF SARTANA and FOUR CAME TO KILL SARTANA) and one previous Sartana Meets Django film(ONE DAMN DAY AT DAWN... DJANGO MEETS SARTANA!) all with various Sartanas and Djangos.

 

RETURN OF DJANGO (1967)

 This has got to be the only Django spaghetti-western where Django gets killed within the first five minutes of the film. Luckily the alternate title of this one is SON OF DJANGO because that's the character(played by Gabriele Tinti who would go on to marry Laura Gemser, lucky fella!) that we follow for most of the film as he tries to get revenge for his daddy. There's a bit more music in this one than your typical Eurowestern but besides that it's pretty typical stuff. Two groups are fighting and Django Jr. gets stuck in the middle. A priest, who used to be a gunslinger(Guy Madison who would go on to be in one of those SUPERARGO movies) gives him a hand and it all winds up in a big shootout followed by a rather anticlimactic ending. I would give this one a pretty average rating. AKA VENGEANCE IS A COLT 45


 

DJANGO: A BULLET FOR YOU (1966)

 One of the seemingly hundred of fake Django spaghetti-westerns this one stars Anthony Steffen as a bounty hunter who looks nothing like the real Django(Franco Nero) but that doesn't matter to whoever decided to name it this. The Django here(who strangely enough is called Regan?) is a bounty hunter who ends up posing as the sheriff of a town hunting down some bad-ass criminal named Jim Norton(Frank Wolf). Now anyone who's familiar with stand-up comedian Jim Norton(probably best known for being the sidekick of shock radio bad boys Opie & Anthony back when they were on the air) may get a few chuckles out of this one where they keep reiterating about how much of a terrible outlaw this Jim Norton is. Besides that weird footnote(and the fact that this is credited to director Leon Klimovsky but was actually directed by Enzo G. Castellari(according to Enzo himself)) this is a pretty by-the-books tale that seems to pretty blatantly crib from Sergio Leone. AKA A FEW DOLLARS FOR DJANGO, SOME DOLLARS FOR DJANGO and A FEW DOLLARS FOR GYPSY

 

DJANGO THE RUNNER (1966)

 Italian splatter-master Lucio Fulci made 3 spaghetti-westerns and this is the first one. Most commonly known as MASSACRE TIME they slapped an alternate DJANGO titte on it at some point because it stars Mr. Django himself Franco Nero and just about every western he starred in got that kind of treatment. The story here deals with Django, who is never called that of course but instead called Tom Corbett, having to return to his hometown that has been taken over by a rich jerk(Giusseppe Addobbati) and his sadistic son(Nino Castelnuovo) who always seems to wear the same white suit and looks vaguely like Oliver Reed. George Hilton also stars as Franco's alcoholic gunslinging brother. Things turn out pretty much how you would expect with one big reveal thrown in. There is one incongruous scene where Franco does a flip over a group of people which seems like something out of a kung fu flick and is quite jarring. If you're looking for gore there's not really any of that on display but for 1966 there's a pretty bloody whipping scene that results in a  bloody faced Franco that looks like he lost a steel cage wrasslin' match and a guy gets torn apart by dogs which is bloodless but you can just imagine what Fulci would have done in that scene just a decade later. AKA THE BRUTE AND THE BEAST and COLT CONCERT


                                            Bullet-blasting excitement!:

 

A MAN CALLED DJANGO! (1971)

 What you get here is your basic revenge flick set in spaghetti-western land. It's also a fake Django movie(aka VIVA! DJANGO(also the title of a Terence Hill DJANGO flick) and W DJANGO!) with Anthony Steffen as the black-clad bad-ass this time. He does an o.k. job except he always seems to have a weird look on his face almost like he smelled something fishy right before they started shooting every scene. There are a couple of double-crosses to keep things mildly interesting and, as usual, a killer soundtrack besides these elements though a pretty generic film. The Carranza character(Glauco Onorato) is definitely doing his best Tuco from THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY impersonation. So that's something to look for.

DJANGO'S CUT PRICE CORPSES (1971)

 Some guy named Jeff Cameron, who was also a stuntman, plays Django here and as with pretty much all of these Django rip-off movies this one has nothing to do with the original character. Here he's just a bounty hunter looking to collect the price on some Mexican banditos but at least he is named Django which makes it more authentic than some of these so-called DJANGO movies. The plot moves along quick enough and they throw in some light-hearted almost comedic bits which seem a bit out of place in a movie like this but might give you a chuckle. There's also a Mexican barmaid who was pretty hot so I guess that's at least something to look at. I guess this might be enjoyable to hardcore spaghetti-western fans but anyone else should just stick with the original Franco Nero classic for more exciting action. AKA A PISTOL FOR DJANGO and EVEN DJANGO HAS HIS PRICE

PREPARE A COFFIN! (1968)

 Unlike almost all of the other DJANGO-Rip-off movies out there this one is sort-of an official pre-quel to the original movie. It actually features the character of Django and was originally  supposed to have starred Franco Nero. Instead of Nero though we get Terence Hill in the lead role and while he's not bad, after seeing him in so many comedy-type westerns, it's sometimes hard to take him super seriously here. The great George Eastman also appears in his usual role of a large bad-ass villain.
 There's not really much here plot-wise that's all that unique. Django's wife gets killed, he becomes a hangman and a bunch of gold is fought over. It does get a little exciting when Django's Gatling-gun shows up but you have to wait almost the whole movie for that. This is only really interesting as a footnote to the vastly superior original iconic spaghetti-western classic. AKA VIVA DJANGO, DJANGO SEES RED and   DJANGO, PREPARE A COFFIN.

$10,000 BLOOD MONEY (1967)

 This is one of the hundreds of DJANGO-rip-off westerns made in Italy over the years. This one really has nothing to do with DJANGO except for giving the main character, played by Gianni Garko, his name. It deals with a couple of expert bounty-hunters who end up getting pitted against each other. Why every spaghetti-western, or every action movie in general for that matter, isn't about bounty-hunters I'm not sure since they make great characters in these types of films. The story is pretty standard with revenge and greed thrown in and it turns out pretty much how you would expect it to but it's shot really beautifully so it has that going for it. One thing I couldn't help but notice, watching this on a big screen recently, is that there's a lot of black eye-liner used by a few people here which was a little distracting but besides this it's a decent watch with lots of folks getting shot up. AKA GUNS OF VIOLENCE, 10,000 DOLLARS FOR A MASSACRE and a few DJANGO-something-something titles in various countries.
  There was a very similar film as this titled VENGEANCE IS MINE which came out a year later, starred the same two leads as this also going up against each other and was probably shot around the same time.

DJANGO, KILL!: IF YOU LIVE SHOOT! (1967)

 Finally got a chance to see the uncut version of this spaghetti-western classic.  One of the big differences is an ultra-bloody scalping scene that I don't recall in the English version.  This has always been one of my favorites in this genre just because of the weird elements they throw into it.  You get an openly homosexual gang of black-clad, stylishly-dressed villains led by a guy named Zorro who kidnap a young boy and make goo-goo eyes at him. Our hero, played by Tomas Milian(who's not actually called Django) uses solid gold bullets, so we get a scene where a guy is ripped apart after being shot up to get to the gold(this is also more graphic in the longer cut).  If that's not weird enough you also get an alcoholic parrot and a bit where Milian is tortured by iguanas and vampire bats, which is a pretty odd idea. Also there's Indian characters which you don't see in a lot of spaghetti-westerns. Director Giulio Questi would go on to make the equally strange giallo DEATH LAID AN EGG.

DJANGO STRIKES AGAIN (1987)

DJANGO was a classic western starring Franco Nero. So, being that it was made in Italy, a gazillion rip-off's and unofficial sequels followed. Finally, 20 years later, this official sequel comes. My main problem with this is that it's not a western. While it could have been a good idea to put the character in a different setting, I don't think it works in this. Django is basically turned into Rambo in this. Just take a look at that silly depiction of Nero with the rippling muscly arms up there. The whole thing just comes off as a typical 80's action flick. Being more of a fan of spaghetti-westerns than 80's muscle-head action flicks I suppose I was bound to be disappointed. They even have him spouting off those cliched one-liners while killing bad guys. Ugh! Avoid this and watch the original. DJANGO KILL is a good movie too and features a gang of gay cowboys. Yeah, I should really watch that one next.