Also known as In the Wild West, Freddy und das Lied der Prärie, The Wild Wild West, 6 pallottole per Ringo Kid, this stars German singing sensation Freddy Quinn as Black Bill (aka Freddy / John Burns), a gunslinger returning to his hometown of Moon Valley. He’s looking forward to reuniting with the Daniels family, who raised him, and his childhood friend, Anita Daniels (Beba Lončar, Interrobang, Don’t Look In the Attic), whom he views as a sister.

Upon arrival, Black Bill finds the town in chaos. While the local ranchers have struck gold, a ruthless bandit group is burning them out of their homes and killing them to steal their fortunes. The bandits, led by a shifty saloon owner named Steve Perkins (Rik Battaglia, Nightmare Castle), have just raided the Daniels’ ranch and kidnapped the family patriarch, Ted Daniels (Josef Albrecht).

Anita manages to escape the raid. Instead of playing the helpless damsel, she pins on a deputy sheriff’s badge, determined to rescue her father and bring the bandits to justice. Meanwhile, Black Bill goes undercover on the exact same mission. Neither realization hits immediately: Anita doesn’t recognize her old friend in the stranger in town and Bill keeps his true identity clandestine.

While trying to save the town, Black Bill finds himself targeted by both Anita and Olivia (Mamie Van Doren, why do you think I watched this movie?), a sultry saloon singer controlled by the villainous Perkins. Olivia takes a liking to Bill, prompting Bill to warily warn her that a woman’s love “can pain you for a lifetime.” True to his no-nonsense cowboy nature, Bill refuses to let these romantic distractions derail his mission to stop Perkins. Assisted by three comedic sidekicks and a frequently drunk local sheriff (played by director Carlo Croccolo, who also made Black Killer and Gunman of One Hundred Crosses as Lucky Moore, but was mainly an actor. IMDb claims that Sobey Martin made this; he was a German mainly known for directing TV shows like Gunsmoke, Lost In Space, Rawhide and The Cisco Kid. Bill sets out to clean up Moon Valley.

Quinn was an absolute powerhouse heartthrob in Germany, scoring 10 number-one hits between 1956 and 1966. His German cover of Dean Martin’s “Memories are Made of This” (“Heimweh”) sold a massive 8 million copies. The film capitalizes on this by having him break into song frequently.

Imagine: A German Elvis, ten minutes of Mamie Van Doren and a dubbed Western that feels like a slow-moving drug high. Of course I loved it.

You can watch this on Cultpix.