GUNSLINGER (1956)

  This is a pretty standard 50s western but there are a couple of reasons I watched it. Firstly it was directed by Roger Corman who would go on to be the most influential person in exploitation and also arguably mainstream cinema for many many years. Secondly it was on MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000, so I got a couple of chuckles to alleviate whatever boredom crept in while viewing. The plot deals with the wife(Beverly Garland) of a murdered sheriff who takes on her dead hubby's job. This story element does seem fairly progressive for the 50s but they do make sure and throw in a love interest(John Ireland) so things don't get too feministy for audiences. Allison Hayes(best known as that giant gal in ATTACK OF THE  50 FOOT WOMAN) plays Garland's arch-nemesis and this gives us a classic catfight between the 2 beauties. Not the best Corman-directed flick for me since I'm more of a fan of his stupid monster movies.

 

                                    Known in Italy as THE MERCENARY OF DEATH:

THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN (1956)

 So this one is just a straight-up western, complete with a good-guy and bad-guy competing for a gal, up until around the last half hour when a neat stop-motion dinosaur shows up to munch on a couple of folks. I read one review where they called this a cheap movie. That seems pretty absurd since it's in color, Cinemascope and I doubt that special FX work of this sort was quick or easy to do back in the 50s. This is obviously a big inspiration for THE VALLEY OF GWANGI so compared to that it might look cheap but that film had the big advantage of Ray Harryhausen FX work and it was made 13 years later. I have to give this one props for the effort even if it is quite inferior.  

There was a Spanish-language version of this shot at the same time.

Played at this California theater with some noir/drama about stolen cars from the same year:

Spanish poster:

French poster(THE MYSTERIOUS MOUNTAIN):

Mexican poster:

THE SCREAM OF DEATH (1959)

  Retitled THE LIVING COFFIN in English, this is one of those Mexican horror flicks that plays out more like a western mixed with a mystery. It takes the Mexican tale of "The Crying Woman"(the more definitive THE CURSE OF THE CRYING WOMAN was still a few years away from being made at this point) and strips away any of the supernatural elements and instead gives us a comedy-relief sidekick, shootouts quicksand and a barroom brawl. So, yeah, pretty much a western with just a sprinkling of spooky SCOOBY-DOO-ish elements included. There are quite a few Mexican horrors I would recommend before this including THE BRAINIAC and just about anything with luchadores and monsters. 

THE GIRLS OF THE GOLDEN SALOON (1975)

  So it's the old-west and there's a whorehouse above a saloon and women are kidnapped and forced to work there. I thought this movie was gonna follow the women-in-prison template but things never really get all that serious. In fact pretty much all the raping and imprisoning of women is just done for laughs which makes for a pretty inconsequential viewing experience. It is weird to see a Eurocine production that's also a period piece that requires western sets. I would not have thought that they ever had the budget for such things but apparently this film was a re-edited version of 1963's  THE SIGN OF THE COYOTE, which would explain where the more extravagant settings came from and also the hodge-podge nature of everything that happens, with new sex scenes inserted. Also this is allegedly a sequel to 1972's RED HOT ZORRO but having never seen that I can't say how much of an actual follow-up it is. Very skippable unless you really wanna see a sexy western, a Zorro homage, a naked fat lady or lots of Euro-bush and floppy dicks. 

 Shown in France on this sexy double-bill with HOUSE OF CRUEL DOLLS(another Eurocine production, this one co-written by Jess Franco!):

JOSHUA (1976)

  Fred "The Hammer" Williamson is always cool no matter what he's in but this might be the most basic example of a revenge flick I've ever seen. Returning from the Civil War, Fred has to avenge his momma in the old west. Pretty downbeat throughout which I guess is an intentional commentary about war or returning  veterans or something. Very sparse dialogue plus a very repetitive score make for quite the endurance test of a viewing. There is some raping going on but it's all off-screen. It's a good thing The Hammer is such a cool dude.

 While blaxploitation flicks are some of my favorite things in the world giving them a western setting generally robs them of some of the best elements. The urban setting being pretty vital. I do recall those NIGGER CHARLEY movies, also featuring Williamson and one of which also directed by Larry G. Spangler who also helmed this film, being pretty neat though. AKA JOSHUA THE BLACK RIDER

GHOSTRIDERS (1987)

  I wasn't sure what to expect from this one. I thought, judging from the poster, perhaps it was horror in the old west or maybe some zombie cowboys. You don't really get either one of those though. It's actually a tale of some western outlaws that are hanged and then come back 100 years later as spirits to stalk and kill the ancestors of the folks who had them snuffed. I guess you could sorta cram this into the slasher genre as people are offed one by one but there's a very small cast of potential victims and there's very little blood(everyone pretty much just gets shot and falls down) and no boobs at all so as a slasher it's pretty low-tier junk. The poster and VHS box is cool though with the skeleton cowboy gang. Nothing close to that exciting happens in the film though. 

THE CURSE OF DEMON MOUNTAIN (1977)

 I picked this movie up on a 25 cent DVD recently so I wasn't really expecting much. I was happily surprised though that this is an interesting mix of a western and a supernatural ghost(or haint as they call them here) story. The film itself moves a bit slow and I figured out the little twisty ending before it is revealed but I have to give them props for trying something a bit outside the usual. Slim Pickens shows up briefly to set the search for diamonds into motion which sets off the story of 2 Confederate army soldiers(Joe Don Baker & Joy Houck Jr.) who run into some spooky goings on at a mountain. Sondra Locke does a really good job as the only female character that they run into and it all ends on a pretty downbeat note to remind you it's still the 1970s.
 This one has a whole slew of a.k.a.'s including THE SHADOW OF CHIKARA, DIAMOND MOUNTAIN, DEMON MOUNTAIN, THE BALLAD OF VIRGIL CANE, THUNDER MOUNTAIN and WISHBONE CUTTER(which sounds like the name of a some 70s prog-rock band)

 

HOT SPUR (1968)

 This has got to be one of the weirder westerns I've seen. It's really a sexploitation/revenge film set in the old west days. Rape abounds and sets things into motion. Our Mexican "hero" is also a rapist who it's pretty hard to feel a whole lot of sympathy for. There's some whipping and bondage-y type stuff and some blood thanks to gun blasts to the face. Pretty basic stuff and it sorta reminded me of that other ethnic revenge flick JOHNNY FIRECLOUD but with a way lower budget and overall quality.
Director Lee Frost would go on to make the first Nazisploitation flick LOVE CAMP 7 and a bunch of amusing trash through the years.


 

RED SUN (1971)

 I'd seen the clip of Charles Bronson fighting(or more accurately getting his ass kicked by) Toshiro Mifune before but now I've finally seen it in context. This euro-western is a pretty star-studded affair with east meeting west (Bronson and Mifune) along with bad guy (Alain Delon) and love interest/prostitute (Ursula Andress) who all end up in a search for some gold(or in Mifune's case a golden samurai sword). It's a pretty epic tale with double-crosses and a rare chance to see some samurai vs. indians action. As usual Bronson doesn't disappoint me.




                                                                     Germany!:

CHATO'S LAND (1972)

 If you ever wanted to see how amazingly fit Charles Bronson was in his prime this would be a good place to discover that. When I say "in his prime" that's not exactly accurate since he was a little over 50 years old at this point but I can't imagine how he coulda been in any better shape at any point. This is the film where Bronson plays a half-breed American Indian, named Chato, who is on the run from a posse, lead by Jack Palance, seeking revenge for the killing of a white-man that Bronson made in self-defense. For a lot of the movie Bronson stays unseen and Palance is really our main focus portraying a Civil War veteran who leads our justice-seeking band of fairly racist pale-skins. Papa Walton(Ralph Waite) is another memorable member and a real jerk here. There's rape(offscreen), a scalping, a cooked dog and some other exceptionally violent bits that I would imagine could never be acceptable in any PG-rated movies for the last 40 years. A great cast and top-notch acting put this one towards the top of the western and Bronson heap for me.
 Director Michael Winner would work a whole bunch more with Bronson after this. Most importantly on the first 3 DEATH WISH films.

   

Weird-ass double-feature paired up with this comedy/drama from a  few years earlier:

BOSS (1975)

 Way better known under it's original title of BOSS NIGGER (the DVD I own of this not only cuts "the n-word" from the title but also from the opening theme song) this is the story of a couple of black bounty hunters(Fred "The Hammer Williamson and that bad D'Urville Martin) in the old west. The story tales a sorta similar journey as Williamson's BUCKTOWN(also from 1975) where our heroes become sheriff of a town and pretty much take over. Unlike that film though it's still the olden days so things don't go very smoothly for our dark-skinned lawmen. They also have to contend with hulking, muscular badass William Smith and his gang of unruly outlaws who are not very progressively-minded to say the least.
 Directd by Jack "CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON" Arnold and written by Williamson himself this is a pretty interesting mash-up of blaxploitation and western that works really better as a novelty than a particularly good film but if you get sick of either of those 2 genres it's worth a watch. Also it makes a great double-feature with THE LEGEND OF NIGGER CHARLEY from '72 which also featured Williamson and Martin in an old west setting.

REVENGE OF THE VIRGINS (1959)

 A band of cowboys, and one blonde lady, travel into Injun land in a greedy search for gold. They get picked-off one-by-one by an all-female group of topless Indian maidens. Amazingly, since this was released in 1959, we get to see long shots of our redskin-ladies, and their pale-face leader chief-lady, dancing around and letting their bosoms bounce about. That is really just about the only interesting thing about this western, well that and the fact that the screenplay was written by Ed Wood. Kinda dull but watch it if you wanna see one of the first topless-features I can think of.

HANG 'EM HIGH (1968)

 After viewing a cheap-ass kung fu flick recently that stole the theme song from this movie and used it repeatedly I had to give this a re-watch. After having done the classic Leone spaghetti-westerns Clint Eastwood returns to the U.S. and stars in this, which in some ways is pretty similar to the Italian flicks with maybe the good and bad guys being more clearly delineated. It's also fairly similar in quality thanks to director Ted Post who did mostly TV work but is also responsible for the great bizzare-o film THE BABY which is one of my personal all-time favorites. What you get here is a man(Eastwood) wrongly hung and on the trail of revenge. It's pretty simple stuff but it features one of the best scenes of a group of men being executed by hanging that has ever been shot. Bruce Dern plays a bad-ass outlaw, Dennis Hopper appropriately portrays an insane religious-nutso and even Skipper from GILLIGAN'S ISLAND(Alan Hale Jr.) is a convincing tough guy. Even though I've seen this one pop up a million times on cable it hasn't ruined it for me and it has an excellent soundtrack!



                                  Italy meets America Double Western Feature!:

Spanish style!(THEY MADE TWO MISTAKES):

Sadly this song is not on the soundtrack:

BONE TOMAHAWK (2015)

 This movie starts out as a western and then turns into a horror flick by the end. It takes two exploitation genres and blends them together really well with the gritty bloody western and, strangely enough, the Italian cannibal film. I don't know if anyone ever attempted this blend before. Even in Italy where downbeat gruesome westerns were churned out by the hundreds throughout the 60s and 70s. This is probably due to the fact that the cannibal film hadn't become popular until the Euro-western had all but died out.
 For a modern film starring big Hollywood actors like Kurt Russell and David Arquette this doesn't  skimp on the blood and guts with a scalping, people ripped apart by hungry savages, arrows piercing skin(including cult fav Sid Haig's looking old and grizzled and mean), necks sliced, titular bone-tomahawks chopping off fingers, toes and hands and enough other gritty realism to fill it's over 2 hour runtime without ever getting boring. It's too bad this barely played in theaters near me or I woulda loved to have seen it with a bigger audience.
 I'm not sure whether this is actually a better movie than THE HATEFUL EIGHT, which I did enjoy quite a bit and also showed Kurt Russell acting his ass off in a similar fashion, but this does feel more epic and there's no annoying Tarantino voice-over to take you right out of the film.

DJANGO UNCHAINED (2012)

 I'd given up on Quentin Tarantino back after he made that stupid DEATH PROOF/GRINDHOUSE thing and then that stupid talky-talk fantasy movie about World War II so I put off seeing this one until now. Surprisingly I thought this was a pretty decent take on and homage to the classic spaghetti-westerns and due to it's subject matter this has the feeling of something like GOODBYE UNCLE TOM sprinkled in there as well. It was also cool that Tarantino included the real Django, Franco Nero, in one scene and I think the main highlight for me was the great soundtrack. Of course most of these tunes are from some amazing classics of the Italian western genre and watching this made me want to go back and watch some of those again. I coulda done without the out-of-place modern rap jams but I knew this couldn't be perfect. Interestingly this is not in any way a remake of Django but is more closely a sort-of re-imagining of THE LEGEND OF NIGGER CHARLIE but I'm sure calling your movie that nowadays would get you lynched by the intolerant "social justice warrior"-filled masses. There is no shortage of the word "nigger" which in itself is a miracle in any modern movie and there's also not much skimping on the blood. In the two main shock scenes we get a bloody slave fight with eyeball violence and another slave ripped apart by dogs.
 Having seen a whole lot of movies that use the name DJANGO in their title I would have to say even though this is a newer big-budgeted Hollywood film, this is one of the better examples of what a western-exploitation film can be. I'm back on team Quentin. I'm sure he'd be so very relieved to hear this.

D'WILD WILD WENG (1982)

 This might be the only western that has a gang of ninjas in it. It might also be the only western where Mexican banditos are played by Filipino gentleman with big Mexican hats and I'm certain it's the only western where the Indians(aka Native Americans for you sensitive types)are played by midgets(aka little people for you PC-robots). The story involves our 3 foot tall hero Weng Weng, his very tall buddy Gordon(who looks like the Philippines version of George Eastman) and their mute pal(who's mute because he had his tongue cut out) Lupo, who take on a vicious gang of girl-snatching bandits and ninjas. I would probably rate this Weng Weng adventure slightly under his two James Bond-rip-offs (FOR Y'UR HEIGHT ONLY and THE IMPOSSIBLE KID) simply because you don't get as many insane stunts from Mr. Weng but he does get into the expected kung-fu and gun-fu and any Weng is still good Weng!

Workout with little Weng!:

PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID (1973)

 This is not one of my favorite Sam Peckinpah movies. It's definitely no WILD BUNCH but explores some of the same themes including the old west dying off and is still an OK watch for an American western. I think one of the main problems I have with this movie is Bob Dylan. Clearly Dylan is not an actor and why he's in this I'm not really sure. Luckily he's not a main character. He also does the music for the film and even that I'm not so sure works all that great and feels out of place at times. Kris Kristofferson is good though as Billy The Kid and there's a great scene where he breaks out of jail and kills a Jesus freak in trademark Peckinpah slow-motion. Worth a look for western fans.
 There's a few different cuts of this. The originally released 106-minute version which cuts down some of the violence and sounds like a terrible choice to watch. A 1988 uncut 115-minute version, which is the one I watched and a 2005 re-edited 122-minute version that changes some of the scenes and adds a bonus scene.

CRY BLOOD, APACHE (1970)

 This gang of evil white men( one of which looks like Joe Walsh and another one, Robert Tessier from HARD TIMES, is Mr. Clean, but with hair) massacre a village of American-Indians in their hunt for some gold. Then they end up on the bad end of an angry Injun looking for revenge. This is a pretty boring film that really drags things out as much as possible. It's an American western, which to me is always worse than the Italian ones made at this time with the exception of Sam Peckinpah's films, and they sorta emulate the Euro-western aesthetic by throwing in some pretty violent scenes including a guy getting paralyzed by an arrow in the back and a snake in a bag over a guy's head. For a better example of a 70's redskin-revenge flick check out the great JOHNNY FIRECLOUD.

JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER (1966)

 This played on a double-bill with the similarly crappy BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA and FRANK'S DAUGHTER is slightly better than that one but that's not really saying much.  You get a hybrid of a western and a horror film as Frankenstein's daughter(actually the daughter of the son of Frankenstein) ends up in the old west and Jesse James comes along with a musclebound friend that she fancies for experimental purposes.  It's not a very good example of either one of those genres though.  Our monster gets the old skullcap with stitches look and a Mexican girl ends up being the hero of the film.  This was directed by the great William "One Shot" Beaudine who made over 350 movies including a bunch of those old Bowery Boys flicks and this might have been a lot better if Sach or Mahoney showed up.
 There's a DVD with Joe Bobs Briggs commentary that make this movie a lot more entertaining and is probably the best way to view it.

 

WHITE COMANCHE (1968)

 Spanish western starring William Shatner as a half-breed Indian and also his identical evil twin(who's evil because he smokes too much of that ole' peyote, and according to this movie peyote makes Indians want to rape and kill whitey).  The jazz score for a lot of this movie seems very out of place and I kept waiting for some old west beatniks to show up.  Also native Americans are not really shown in a very positive light except it's such a goofy movie I can't imagine anyone ever getting offended by it.  Shatner does his usual over-acting, which I can dig, and it works perfectly with the silliness of it all and he gets to fight himself.  Probably only of interest to Star Trek-nerds who want to see what Shat did in between Trek seasons or your typical cult movie obsessive-types.  For a better Indiansploitation flick check out JOHNNY FIRECLOUD.