Gunfight In the Red Sands was directed by Spanish director Ricardo Blasco, who wrote the script with James Donald Prindle and Albert Band, the father of Charles. It’s also the first western to feature a score by Ennio Morricone — under the name Dan Savio — and the second to star Richard Harrison.

The family of Ricardo “Gringo” Martinez (Harrison) has discovered gold on their land. This would be good news if the youngest son, Manuel, didn’t shout about it while drunk at a saloon in Carterville. Soon enough, three masked men soon show up at the Martinez home, kill the father, wound Manuel and steal the gold — riding past the unaware Gringo who is just returning home after years of fighting with guerillas against the Mexican government.

Gringo — so called because he was a white child adopted by the Martinez family — seeks the help of Sheriff Lance Corbett to find the killers, but can only identify by their horses. That’s not going to help when the entire town of Carterville wants the gold.

As this was made back in 1963, it’s much closer to an American western than the rough and brutal movies that Italy would soon be making. Cinematographer Massimo Dallamano would go on to work with Sergio Leone and make his own movies, including What Have You Done to Solange? and What Have They Done to Your Daughters?

You can watch this on Tubi.

The Italian title of this movie may mean As Man to Man, but in the U.S. it got the great title of Death Rides a Horse. The original title of the film was Duel in the Wind, but star Lee Van Cleef came up with the Italian title while he was discussing the movie with John Phillip Law, as he saw the movie as having a “man to man” story. Van Cleef remarked, “Why don’t they call it From Man to Man?” The Italian producers liked how it sounded in Italian and used it.

Directed by Giulio Petroni, who made Tepepa, an Italian western with Orson Welles and written by Luciano Vincenzoni (For a Few Dollars More, Orca, Raw Deal), it’s the story of Bill (John Phillip Law), a man who once watched his entire family defiled and murdered before his eyes and their home set on fire.

Now, 15 years later, he’s finally gunning for vengeance. He remembers one thing about each of the five men: a tattoo of four aces, a scar, an earring, a skull necklace and only one face. As he tracks them down, he runs into Ryan (Van Cleef), a man out of jail and hunting the same men after they framed him for armed robbery. While Bill manages to kill the first, played by Anthony Dawson, Ryan wants the rest all to himself.

Bill tries, but it doesn’t go well. He’s captured by the outlaws and buried alive with just his head emerging into the hot sun. He’s rescued by Ryan, who ends up being the man with the skull necklace. While he was present during the murders, but he claims that he arrived late and did not participate. He’s also the one who rescued Bill from the fire.

Ryan gives a pledge to the younger man. Once the gang has been dealt with, he will face whatever justice Bill wants to dish out.

An excellent film with a great Morricone soundtrack, this film saw writer Vincenzoni break away from Sergio Leone just as the director was starting The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Roy Colt & Winchester Jack was producer Mario Bregni’s reward for Mario Bava after the director rescued Five Dolls for an August Moon. But by 1970, the Italian western genre had done just about everything that it could after nearly hundreds of movies had been released in the wake of Django and Sergio Leone’s films. That’s why Bava approached the only western he was officially credited with directing, although he helped with Two Guns and a Coward, Savage Gringo, Minnesota Clay and The Road to Fort Alamo.

After working with Brett Halsey, who plays Roy Colt, on Four Times That Night, Bava felt comfortable including him in the idea that while the script by Mario di Nardo (Ricco, Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century) wasn’t great, they could totally have fun with it.

Colt and Winchester Jack (Charles Southwood) aren’t great at being criminals, so Colt moves to Carson City and becomes the sheriff. The townspeople like him so much that they give him a treasure map that leads to a fortune in gold. That same map finds its way to Jack, who leads a gang to get it first.

Both men are in love with Manila (Marilù Tolo), a Native American prostitute, and who can blame them? Tolo doesn’t get mentioned in the same breath as Edwige Fenech or Barbara Bouchet, but if she’d appeared in more giallo and horror, other than The Double, My Dear Killer and Shadows Unseen. She was also the only woman that fashion designer Valentino claims that he ever loved.

You might forget that this is a Bava film as it has little of his trademark visuals, other than some matte paintings of rock formations. And then there’s a scene where you see the sun rising through the eyes of a skull and you say, “Oh yeah, this was directed by Bava.”

Boot Hill (the Italian title means The Hill Made of Boots) is the last movie in a trilogy that began with God Forgives…I Don’t and was followed by Ace High. Taking advantage of star Terence Hill’s fame, it was re-released as Trinity Rides Again.

It was directed and written by Giuseppe Colizzi, who also made the other films in this trilogy, as well as All the Way Boys with Hill and Bud Spencer; Run, Joe, Run and Switch.

Hill plays Cat Stevens and Spencer is Hutch Bessy, who along with George Eastman as the mute Baby Doll are all somewhat friends and partners by the end. But to get there, Cat is shot and left for dead by a gang and nursed back to health by the circus of Thomas (Woody Strode), which includes can can dancers, dwarves and Mami (Lionel Stander), the dress-wearing manager of all of them, which ain’t easy, because when they met, it was murder.

Beyond the bad guy having the name Honey Fisher, he’s played by Victor Buono, which is quite a treat. There’s a strange dual look to this film, with the circus sections filled with color and near surrealism — they were shot by the movie’s original director Romolo Guerrieri (Johnny Yuma, The Sweet Body of Deborah, L’ Ultimo Guerriero) while most of the film’s look is quite dark and moody.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Franco Nero may play Texas sheriff Burt Sullivan in this movie, but that didn’t stop it from being called Django 2 in some countries. Then again, there are so many Django movies that don’t have Nero in them and have absolutely nothing to do with that movie.

Shot in the Spanish province of Almería at exactly the same time Sergio Leone was making The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Texas Adios finds Nero’s sheriff heading across the border with his younger brother Jim (Alberto Dell’Acqua) to get revenge against the man who killed their father, Cisco (José Suárez). The twist is that Cisco ends up being Jim’s real father.

Directed by Ferdinando Baldi, who would go on to make much better movies like Comin’ at Ya!, Treasure of the Four Crowns, Get Mean and two Mark Gregory movies, Just a Damn Solder and Tan Zan Ultimate Mission. In fact, he also made a Django movie, Django, Prepare a Coffin, which originally was going to star Nero and ended up having Terence Hill play the lead.

Baldi wrote the story for this with the script written by Django writer Franco Rossetti.

It’s not the best western. It’s not even the best Franco Nero western. But at least there’s a great bar room brawl.

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Known as This Man Can’t Die and Long Day of Hate, this Italian Western stars Guy Madison, who had been the title character in the TV series The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickock, as Martin Benson, a Civil War veteran and former outlaw who is trying to clean up his act by working as an undercover agent for the U.S. Army.

He’s already helped capture and execute three members of the gang he’s snuck into — he sends the reward and guns home to his father, a man who still looks at him as a criminal — but he’s tired of this life. Yet his hard work will get his captain promoted and he’s forced to stay working.

The gang learns that Benson was the man who has done them wrong, so they find out where his family lives and murder his parents and assault his sister, leaving her mute. When his brother Daniel finds one of the gang members near death, he decides to nurse him back to health so he and his brother can get revenge.

Maybe Benson’s life isn’t going so well. That said, Rosalba Neri is his girlfriend. There are worse things, right?

Director Gianfranco Baldanello — who often worked as Frank G. Carroll — also directed Colt In the Hand of the Devil, Danger!! Death Ray, Man with the Golden Winchester and Very Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind. He also wrote the giallo The Girl In Room 2A but mostly worked as an assistant director. He also co-directed The Uranium Conspiracy with future Cannon Pictures boss Menahem Golan.

This movie has more nudity than several Italian westerns put together. That’s really all it has to make it stand out, other than the two great titles.

Billy Joe Cudlip (Lee Van Cleef) is not a good man. But he’s conflicted. Sure, he’s just robbed a stagecoach of $12,000, but he feels like he owes something to the man his crimes have hurt the most, a Czech immigrant named Ben Novack (Antonio Sabàto) who was supposed to deliver that money to hard working miners.

When another gang attacks the next shipment of money — led by Gordon Mitchell — and the sherrif is killed, things change for Cudlip. He’s offered the job of lawman, which his partners Preacher (an astounding Lionel Stander, trapped in Europe thanks to the blacklist) and freed slave Al (Al Hoosman, an amateur heavyweight boxer who fought in World War II and then settled in Germany, where he became an actor in thirty films) think will be quite helpful when it comes to taking all the town’s silver.

Except that the gangs that come to town are way worse people than Cudlip. He now feels compelled to protect the men, women and children of Silvertown, which goes against everything he believes in. Sooner or later, he’s going to have to choose between Ben and the town or Preacher and Al.

In a genre made up of loners who disappear after they get their bloody revenge or save a town, this is a rare Italian western with a hero who finds that he belongs. As the film closes, with his star cast aside, Ben stops him and says, You are not alone, Cud. You have us — you always did. You are our friend. And our sheriff.”

Director Giorgio Stegani only made nine movies, but he wrote one that made a major impact: Cannibal Holocaust.

This is also worth watching just to see Bud Spencer without his beard.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Cassie Childs (Holland Roden, MTVs Teen Wolf) has lost her boyfriend Austin (Colton Royce) to fitness guru Summer Ray (Kathryn Kohut, Spare Parts) and instead of just getting over it, she starts stalking her and trying to get involved in her online spin classes at Levitate.

Despite every single person in her life warning her that Cassie is insane, Summer lets her more and more into her life. If things turn out to be Single White Female riding a Peloton, but let’s forgive it, because this movie — like so many Tubi exclusives — goes for it. Like, if Austin has known all along that Cassie is so mentally unbalanced, why would he let her get so close to his girlfriend and even have a threeway with them and oh yeah, I just answered my own question.

Director Stefan Brogen has also directed the new Holly Hobbie show that’s streaming, as well as several Degrassi series, which makes sense because he played Archie “Snake” Simpson on that show. It was written by Jessica Landry and Rowan Wheeler.

Who knew that getting ahead in fitness meant poisoning so many smoothies and killing so many people? I was also going to ask why so many of Tubi’s Lifetime movies had scenes where the heroine and eventually villain have threeways together, but I think that it’s 2022, people miss Cinemax After Dark and yes, I just answered my own question again.

You can watch this on Tubi.