A TOWN CALLED BASTARD (1971)

                   

                                            "The devil has the largest congregation"

  This is clearly a spaghetti-western despite it being a British/Spanish production and it features quite the all-star cast including Robert Shaw, Martin Landau, Telly Savalas and Stella Stevens. It concerns itself with Mexican revolutionaries and Stevens search for her husband's killer. Shaw is the main focus though and he goes from murdering a church full of people right in the opening of the film to being a fairly sympathetic character which is a big feat. A pretty good(despite not believing half of these people are actually Mexican for one minute) non-Italian western with a few little horror touches and look out for the unexpected use of that "Battle of New Orleans" song in one wacky scene. AKA A TOWN CALLED HELL

You would really think Telly Savalas had a much bigger role if you believe all these posters!:

Played with that classic 60s French gangster film: 

FACELESS (1987)

  Jess Franco basically rehashes his AWFUL DR. ORLOFF plot here once again. He even gets Howard Vernon to play a character named Doctor Orloff. In addition to the standard searching-for-a-new-face-for-my-disfigured-love storyline this one throws in a bunch of ultra-gory scenes of driller killing, acid-melting faces, scissors in throats, needles in eyeballs and of course faces being peeled right off of living patients. There's also a decent budget and some bigger-named stars than usual for one of these Eurotrash horror flicks including Telly Savalas and Caroline Munro who don't really do much but appear in a few scenes. Helmut Berger is our main evil doctor and Christopher Mitchum gets the heroic detective role. 

 One of the weirdest decisions in this movie is to not bother dubbing the final line, uttered by Telly Savalas, which is integral to the conclusion of the whole plot! I assume this isn't a problem outside of the English version. 

               Known in France, and a few other places, as PREDATORS OF THE NIGHT:

HORROR EXPRESS (1972)

 

 1972 is one of the greatest years for horror films and this Spanish/British co-production is further proof of that. You get the rare treat of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee both being on the same side, a plot that mixes horror and sci-fi in an ORIENT EXPRESS setting featuring a prehistoric monster and an alien force, and most importantly the great Telly Savalas acting his ass off. Bloody eyeballs, dodgy science, white-eyed zombies and good claustrophobic horror elements make for a great ride. 

 The original Spanish version, titled PANIC ON THE TRANSIBERIAN, features a funkier soundtrack. This version is 88 minutes long while there's a shorter, 85 minute T.V. version out there also. Allegedly re-released at some point as THE POSSESSOR. Known in Japan under the snazzy title of ZOMBIE EXPRESS TO HELL.

REDNECK (1973)

 I like the idea of a team-up of Franco Nero and Telly Savalas as a couple of criminal types on the run from the law but I don't think it's done all that well in this film. The main drawback is the tone of this movie, which is all over the place. It goes from hard-driving crime film where people are getting gunned down by Savalas(who's playing the title character as a real over-the-top nutjob) to an almost-slapstick comedy with goofy music playing over wacky car crashes until finally becoming basically a drama. There's also some kinda message in here, I think, but I'm not sure what it is except maybe that kids are influenced by adults bad actions. Which might be one of the most simplistic and stupid messages of anything I've ever seen. On the plus side young kids get shot and murdered which is very rare in American films. On the weird side there's a scene where Franco Nero shaves his face while standing in front of a mirror completely naked while a 14-year old boy stares at his bare ass and crotch?? So that's something you probably won't see again.
 The version I watched of this felt like it might have been cut since whenever things started to get too nasty(a possible rape scene, a dog getting shot etc.) it cut away, which I'm guessing isn't the way it originally played so the full version may be a little more disturbing.

This movie starts out in a pretty awesome way before getting lost in its psychological drama trappings:

PANCHO VILLA (1972)

 Uneven little Spanish historical/action/comedy/western mix that doesn't really work very well as any of those things.  Telly Savalas stars as the title character who doesn't seem one little bit Mexican but I guess no one noticed while filming.  Chuck Connors plays an American Colonel who plays it even more over the top than Savalas.  The filmmakers just don't seem to know exactly what they were trying to accomplish with this one.  As an historical epic it isn't very accurate at all, as a comedy it isn't very funny, just sorta goofy at times and even the action scenes are just so-so with nothing particularly spectacular or memorable besides maybe the scene where two trains collide head on in a blaze of stupidity.  Anne Frances from FORBIDDEN PLANET shows up in a few scenes that add nothing to the plot.  You also get a delightful tune sung by Mr. Savalas himself at the silly climax.  I would say skip this one unless you're a big Telly fanatic.

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