A western made during the boom of such movies in Italy, but quite an unusual one. It's not about revenge or a bag of gold, it's about a kind of economic struggle. The villain Brady (Paul Muller) asks his men to always obey the law, because guns are not as effective. He tries to control a town by building a monopoly, thus controlling the prices on all kinds of goods. This becomes difficult when Ray (George Martin) comes to town. He is unarmed, but invents the first machine gun, which gave the movie its title. Sheila (Gia Sandri) expects Ray to help her build up her own shop with lower prices. In opposite to most genre heroes, Ray is not keen on using a gun at all. But when Brady is increasingly afraid of losing his profits, the going gets tough, naturally. Great roles for José Bódalo as the drunken judge who loves to quote Shakespeare, Gordon Mitchell as a gunman with crippled hands and Pedro Sanchez as one of the bad guys.
Review of Thompson 1880
