Una pistola per cento bare (1968)

User Rating:

5.4/10   

Director:

Umberto Lenzi

Writers:

Marco Leto (writer)
Eduardo Manzanos Brochero (story)

Release Date:

24 August 1968 (Italy)

Genre:

Western

Plot:

Returning from the civil war Jim Slade discovers his parents dead at their farm. It is said that the...

Plot Keywords:

Spaghetti Western | Violence

Cast

Peter Lee Lawrence	...	Jim Slade
John Ireland	...	Douglas
Gloria Osuna	...	Marjorie (as Gloria Osuña)
Eduardo Fajardo	...	Chavel, Madman
Julio Peña	...	Mayor
Raf Baldassarre	...	Verdugo
Piero Lulli	...	J. Texas Corbett
Franco Pesce	...	Old Ben
Andrea Scotti	...	Blacksmith
Calisto Calisti	...	Cassidy
Francesco Narducci	...	Bartender
Giovanni Ivan Scratuglia		(as Ivan Scratuglia)
Paola Natale	...	Elizabeth
Giovanni Betti
Frank Braña	...	Joe, Stagecoach Driver (as Francisco Braña)

Also Known As:

A Gun for One Hundred Graves
El sabor del odio (Spain)
Pistol for a Hundred Coffins (USA)

Runtime:

83 min

Country:

Italy | Spain

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Company:

Copercines, Cooperativa Cinematográfica

Movie Connections:

Edited into Spaghetti Western Trailer Show (2007) (V)

Hero without regrets

Jim Slade is sentenced to forced labor, since he refused to kill somebody in war (due to his religious conscience). After the war, he returns home and finds his parents murdered. He chases the murderers and kills most of them - and everything I told you now just happens in the first 15 minutes of the film! After this rushed beginning, the real story unfolds. Bandits are trying to rob a bank - but there is no money in that bank because a transport with 200,000 dollars did not arrive yet. So the bandits threaten to return soon... and the citizens are eager to find a new sheriff and prepare for the attack.

John Ireland plays a priest who is suspiciously fast on the draw. Eduardo Fajardo has only a small appearance as one among a bunch of madmen breaking from their cage. Piero Lulli, though, is at his best in the role of the leader of the bandits. Peter Lee Lawrence plays Slade as good as possible under the circumstances - it is a hero poorly developed by the screenplay who makes him a pacifist in the beginning and a gunman later on, but for a man who's never touched a gun before, he seems to learn effortlessly how to become the most dangerous man in town within a day or two. Also he first was ready to go to prison for his religious belief - and then he kicks that over board without a single regret later on. It would have been possible to make Slade a character torn between duty and desire, but instead the makers of the movie simply settle for a fast gun. Thus, "Una pistola per cento bare" became just one average movie among many.