Have a Good Funeral, My Friend... Sartana Will Pay

Gianni Garko is back as Sartana, and this time he's sporting a thick blonde Swedish- style moustache! I'm also beginning to think he's some sort of jinx, as yet again he witnesses the massacre of a bunch of miners by some bad guys and gets mixed up in some sort of land grab treachery involving crooked bank managers we've all seen a million times by now.

But who cares? It's Sartana, and it seems the longer the series goes on, the more ridiculous (and therefore enjoyable) the films get! He's still dressing in goth fashion and he still has his four chambered Derringer, but this time round he's also got a pack of cards with sharpened edges! You tell me if a film is meant to be taken seriously when Sartana flicks a card across a room into a bible, at the exact page he wants the bad guy to read!

The crooked bank manager (and his many crooked employees) is pretty good too, sending wave after wave of hired killers after Sartana, only for Sartana to waste them, then pay for their funeral, only for the bad guys to use that funeral to try and kill Sartana. Sartana also acts like some sort of ghost in this one, seemingly teleporting anywhere he wants to, which just adds to the strangeness. Plus he can light fireworks by firing a gun at them, at night.

No Mexicans in the one strangely, but we do have George Wang as some mystic casino owner who spends the entire film in a chair only to reveal he's not crippled, he's 'just very lazy'.

I might have to track down Sartana The Gravedigger, Light the Fuse...Sartana is Coming and any other I've missed.

This entertaining installment in the 'Sartana' series suffers from some bad pacing and not nearly enough action to sustain my ADD-addled brain. However, the action it does have is wonderfully realized...including an expertly handled horse chase where the bad guys all find their way to their graves (you'll see what I mean). The plot has to do with a land dispute between Sartana, some lady and a Chinese saloon owner...but who gives a sh!t? Unfortunately, the director thinks we do because he spends an unholy amount of time on plot when we just want to see Sartana shoot people. The Chinese dude's constant quoting of Confucius gets old fast (and is it me or do most Chinese people in Spaghettis quote Confucius?). Slightly recommended.

(1970) Have a Good Funeral. My Friend/ Buon funerale amigos!... paga Sartana DUBBED SPAGHETTI WESTERN

According to Wikipedia "Have A Good Funeral, My Friend" is the 4th of 5 original Sartana movies. It stars Gianni Garko playing the iconic role as he at the time of his arrival to an old friend who happens to own a mine after the gist was discovered to be shot and murdered. And comes across two rivals, a greedy banker and a Chinese casino owner who intend to own the mine after the niece. As the niece automatically becomes the heir since it was her uncle who owned the mine but that he was murdered in cold blood.

One of the better Spaghetti Westerns as it consists of nifty sequences such as a playing card used as a book mark.

Here, I would like to refer to some artistic categories that are paid less attention to. First of all, I would like to praise the artistic contribution of the decorator, especially the clothing designer (Daphne Ciarrocchi, Luciano Sagoni) for the protagonists in the film, the set designer on the interior look (Giacomo Calo, Carducci), the director of photography (Stelvio Massi).

The music is at the level of Bruno Nicolai.

Director Giuliano Carnimeo, screenwriter and coauthor of the story Giovanni Simonelli with Robert Gianviti did a good job of introducing the character of Li Tse Tung / Peng. An unusual character. Otherwise the owner of the casino, of Chinese origin. The role of Li Tse Tung / Peng was convincingly played by George Wang.

On the whole, with the character of the murderous Sartana (Gianni Garko) and his deadly handling of cards, it seemed a very impressive innovation. From an aesthetic point of view, it is a successful, acceptably stylized spaghetti western, which makes it above-averagely watchable.

Garko and Carnimeo cooperated in some good Italo-Westerns in the late 60s/early 70s, most remarkable is the "Sartana"-Series. This is definitely one of the best Sartana-Movies; tough, cynical and with a lot of humor, seasoned with all herbs of an excellent italo-western. The plot has some twists, good shoot-outs and a decent body count. The soundtrack's fine, good work done by Bruno Nicolai. The cast is standard with lot's of Italian b-movie heroes (ruffini, dell' acqua...) I had a lot of fun with this movie and it's worth watching it more than one time. Check out "Gli fumavano le Colt... lo chiamavano Camposanto",another good movie with Garko.