Poseidon-3 Review of Any Gun Can Play

Any Gun Can Play (1967)

Lesser, but entertaining, spaghetti western with a light touch.

[3 July 2007]

The sensational success of Sergio Leone's spaghetti western trilogy (the "Man with No Name" films) created a tidal wave of imitators and spoofs that washed over the cinematic landscape. This one, a serious yet whimsical take on the genre, is one of the more enjoyable ones. Hilton plays a bounty hunter who heads out after Roland, a noted criminal who has just robbed a train of $300,000 in gold. Byrnes is a bank officer who was escorting the gold and who now wants to recover it. These three men compete with each other and sometimes align with each other in order to reach the treasure which has been buried somewhere and can only be found by using a medallion carrying a family crest on it. The medallion has been cut in two, meaning that the pieces must be reunited in order for the gold to be located. Lots of fighting and back-stabbing takes place on the road to the finale. Byrnes, though top-billed, is actually playing a more supportive role here. His famous hair looks quite ridiculous in the old west setting and he's no great actor, but he manages to drum up a few effective moments, notably when he decides to take on Hilton in a fistfight. Hilton is incredibly handsome and sexy. Again, he's not an actor that's going to raise the roof, but he does very well in his cocky and mysterious role. Roland adds presence and weight to the film and is effectively sly and dangerous. The film deliberately pays homage to other, greater spaghetti westerns in a tongue-in-cheek way. There are plenty of creative camera angles, intense stare-downs and elaborate fight sequences that go on too long on purpose. The facial blows are given a cracking whip sort of sound effect, enhancing the camp factor. The music for the film is enjoyable, too, and there's a hilarious Frankie Laine-esquire song over the credits referring to "The Stranger" (Hilton's character.) Careddu, sporting impossibly red hair, appears as Roland's cohort and lover. It's not a film to be taken seriously, but rather a gentle parody of the type of western that was being churned out at the time in droves. On that level, it succeeds rather nicely!