Look, I know this is directed by the British Terence Young and has a cast that is multinational, but this movie is so great I’m inclined to overlook such things.

It stars one of the Magnificent Seven, Charles Bronson, and one of the Seven Samurai, Toshiro Mifune. At the time, Bronson was a huge deal everywhere but the U.S. In fact, in Japan, he was known as the face of the Mandom cologne (and still is, I have friends who only know him as that) in commercials directed by the man who made Hausu, Nobuhiko Obayashi.

Link Stuart (Bronson) and Gauche (Alain Delon, can this movie have any more suave dudes in it?) have robbed a train of about $400,000. That should be enough to set them up for life, but then they discover that a Japanese ambassador is on his way to Washington to give the President a gold sword. Gauche kills one of the bodyguards and blows up the train car, injuring Link. He’s left for dead but nursed back to help by the Japanese. The surviving bodyguard, Kuroda Jubei (Mifune), takes a blood oath to get the sword back and kill Gauche. Otherwise, both Japanese will have to commit ritual seppuku and kill themselves for their loss of honor. Link is asked to lead Kuroda to Gauche but keeps trying to lose him.

Gauche has killed all of the men and buried the money. So if he dies, Link won’t learn where his rightful stolen money is. Over time, he comes to respect the honor that Kuroda has, a man who feels that he is the last of his time as such things as duty and having a moral code are dying. The plan to get the sword and the money isn’t honorable at all. They kidnap Gauche’s lover Cristina (Ursula Andress) and offer to switch her for what they want. An attack by Commanches delays things, but Cristian soon learns that Gauche isn’t the honorable criminal she thought he was.

By the end, only Gauche, Link, Kuroda and Cristina are left alive. Kuroda realizes that he needs to kill Gauche to get his honor, but Link also needs what is his. That hesitation costs him his life, a fact that places his friend’s need above money, as Link blasts Gauche and promises — and fulfills that promise, even if being caught will see him lynched — to return the sword.

I love this IMDB fact: Mifune entertained the cast and crew throughout the entire production with his refined culinary skills, bringing over a supply of Japanese meats, watercress, seaweed and other ingredients. He would also exchange recipes for French and Italian dishes, including spaghetti.

How amazing is it that this is written by Laird Koenig, the same person who wrote The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane?

This movie is pretty much everything I love. The swagger of Bronson, the detached cool of Mifune, the cockiness of Delon and Andress looking incredible even when fighting inside a burning field. Even Cappucine is in it!

You can watch this on Tubi.

Those Dirty Dogs is also known as Campa carogna… la taglia cresce, Los cuatro de Fort Apache and Charge! It’s late in the Italian Western genre, so it has the slapstick ingredients of other latter cowboy films. It also has a song, “The Wind in My Face,” that was written by star Stephen Boyd and composer Nico Fidenco. Boyd even sings it.

Captain Chadwell Williams (Boyd), Lieutenant Junger Kohl (Howard Ross) and Sergeant Washington Smith (Harry Baird) have been assigned to get back the hundreds of rifles that Angel Sanchez (Simón Andreu) has stolen. They’re joined by Korano (Gianni Garko), a bounty hunter who carries a pink umbrella and the Koran.

It’s a weird cocktail here because fight scenes have sound effects and slaps, while the film starts off with a brutal massacre by Angel and his gang. And Sanchez isn’t even the main villain. That’s the general, played by Alfredo Mayo. He’s not frightening at all, so we start to realize that this is a post-Trinity Italian Western. At least Garko is still kind of Sartana here, having a machine gun hidden inside his umbrella.

But hey — I’ll watch anything Helga Liné is in. And this also has Teresa Gimpera (The People Who Own the Dark) and Gabriella Giorgelli (the mother of Lou Ferrigno’s Hercules) are in the cast.

It has a pretty great tagline on the poster: “The preacher of death who calls himself a follower of Mohammed; The virile Mexican revolutionary to whom every married woman is his to take; The insane General who believes he is Napoleon, destined to conquer America … and Chadwell – the dirtiest of them all!” And you know, at least a hundred people get killed, so if you’re into the more violent side of the Italian West — along with some hijinks — you’ll find something to enjoy.

Known in the UK as High Plains Killer and in Germany as Hallelujah, The Devil Sends His Regards, Face to Face is the second of three Italian Westerns by Sergio Sollima. He also made Violent City and Devil in the Brain. It was written by two Sergios, Sollima and Donati, who also scripted Orca, Almost Blue and Holocaust 2000.

In the time after the Civil War, Civil War, Brad Fletcher (Gian Maria Volonté, who was in A Bullet for the General, A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More) quits his job teaching history at Boston University. His tuberculosis would do better in Texas, he thinks, and he makes his way out West. As the movie begins, he’s a liberal — Volonté was an extreme left wing activist — who thinks violence has no meaning. Then he meets the criminal Solomon “Beauregard” Bennet (Tomas Milian). When he tries to give the man a drink, he’s captured and taken into a hideout in the middle of nowhere.

There, he learns how to shoot a gun as Bennett recovers from his injuries. Instead of finally going back to Boston, he soon is part of the gang, along with Charley Siringo (William Berger), Aaron Chase (José Torres), Jason (Frank Baña) and Vance (Nello Pazzafini). He even kills a man to save Bennet.

They’re joined by Maximillian de Winton (Ángel del Pozo) and stay in Puerto de Fuego, a world of no laws, criminals and outsiders. As the gang leaves for a train robbery, Fletcher stays behind and has an affair with Vance’s woman Maria (Jolanda Modio). When the gang comes back, Fletcher kills Vance in self-defense.

Fletcher also starts to take over the gang, setting up a robbery dressed as everyday folks that gets spoiled when a kid recognizes Bennett. At that point, Charley reveals that he’s a lawman and kills Jason, Maximillian and Aaron. He also captures Bennett and only Fletcher and Maria escape. She dies and he goes mad due to all the death — Maria and the kid who fingered Bennett — and betrayal. He transforms the somewhat oasis of Puerto del Fuego into a wretched hive of scum and villainy that has a posse led by Zachary Shawn (Aldo Sanbrell) coming to town to kill everyone. Bennett gets there too late to stop them.

By the final scene, the good man has become a criminal and the gunfighter has started to atone for his past. That said, they have to get through an entire posse if either of them is going to survive, as well as deal with Charley. I love that Bennett is around violence all the time and it’s become a habit while Fletcher comes to learn that his brains, when combined with a willingness to do horrible things, can make him stronger and wealthier than he was back East. The West changes them both.

That’s beyond obvious when Fletcher kills another turncoat, tying him to a cross and putting a gun to his head, blasting his brains out without a thought. Obviously, his illness is no longer bothering him.

Sollima used his experiences in fighting with the anti-fascist resistance in World War II to make this movie, remembering how he saw children be brave and adult men be cowards. He also pushed his actors by using their real-life differences. Volontè was a Communist and Milian left Cuba when Castro took control. He also made them box one another before shooting.

Salt Flats, Utah. 1873. Professional gambler Stubby Preston (Fabio Testi, Contraband) is arrested the moment he steps off the stagecoach, thwarting his plans to win money from the town’s casino. It turns out that he’s actually lucky, because the town has become a vigilante mob that burns that den of iniquity to the ground, leaving only Stubby and three other criminals alive: Bunny (Lynne Frederick, Phase IV), a pregnant prostitute, a black man named Bud and the alcoholic Clem (Michael J. Pollard, Bonnie and Clyde).

The four are given safe passage out of town by the sheriff, who gives them a wagon and horses for all of their remaining money and possessions. Soon, they are traveling with a Mexican gunman named Chaco (Tomas Milian, Don’t Torture a Duckling) who saves the group from lawmen, only to torture one of the remaining lawmen in front of the group.

Nevertheless, everyone agrees to take peyote together. The four wake up tied up as Chaco (Milian claims he based his performance on Manson) taunts and beats them, shooting Clem and raping Bunny in front of the entire group.

There have been rumors for decades that Frederick and Testi were having an affair during this film. Testi was dating Ursula Andress at the time, who was incredibly jealous. Some evidence is that even when Frederick’s scenes were all wrapped, the two actors improvised scenes that would include the two of them, including a love scene that has been lost. During the aforementioned rape scene, Milian was so into character and so rough that Testi’s reaction in that scene is real.

The four manage to get the gravely injured Clem onto a makeshift stretcher and follow Chaco and his gang as they kill everything in their path. Finally, they find a ghost town where Clem dies, Bud loses his mind and Stubby and Bunny admit that they love one another — just in time for her to die in childbirth and Stubby to leave her son to a town made up of only men.

Stubby hunts down Chaco, learning that the sheriff set up the events of the entire movie. Enraged, he murders every single person there, leaving Cacho alive so that he can torture him. When Chaco reminds him that he raped Bunny, Stubby shoots him without a word, as he walks into the sunset with only a stray dog as a companion.

Four of the Apocalypse… is influenced by Easy Rider and attempts to offer up a journey of redemption, but you have to understand that Fulci is at the helm. That means that as soon as you have a tender, feel-good moment, you’re going to be given moments of pure gore, like people skinned alive or used for food. Yet there’s also art to be found, thanks to Fulci’s first of ten collaborations with cinematographer Sergio Salvati. It’s also the first time Fulci would work with Fabio Frizzi on the soundtrack. The result is unlike anything you’ve heard in a spaghetti western.

Arrow Video’s Savage Guns box set has high definition 2K restorations of all four films from the original 35mm camera negatives, with El Puro newly restored by Arrow Films. Plus, you get brand new introductions to each film by journalist and critic Fabio Melelli, an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the films by author and critic Howard Hughes, a fold-out double-sided poster featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx and limited edition packaging with reversible sleeves featuring original artwork and a slipcover featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx.

Four of the Apocalypse has new audio commentary by author and producer Kat Ellinger, an appreciation of the movie by Stephen Thrower, a deep dive into the soundtrack with Lovely Jon Newly, a trailer and an image gallery.

You can get this set from MVD.

El Puro (Robert Woods, Massacre Mania, Lucifera Demon Lover) was once a dangerous and much feared gunfighter. But today, well, he’s a drunk lying low in a nothing town, concerned that a killer trying to make his name by shooting him is behind every corner. He’s treated as a whipping boy by every man in the bar and only Rosie (Rosalba Neri!) — who knew his legend — treats him kindly. She’s been saving money so they can get away from all this.

Or they would, if it wasn’t for Gipsy (Marc Fiorini) and his gang, who are riding into town to collect the ten grand on El Puro’s bounty while also killing grandfathers and assaulting young women. Just as certain that El Puro will find redemption is the fact that Rosie won’t survive. That said, her death is beyond upsetting and sure, one hates when its only the death of a woman that galvanizes a man to action, but trust me, you’ll want him to get revenge.

Also known as The Reward’s Yours… The Man’s Mine; 10,000 Dollars for a Gunslinger and El Puro Sits, Waits and Shoots, this movie was directed by Edoardo Mulargia, who made the giallo Tropic of Cancer and Don’t Wait, Django…Shoot! He also directed two of the movies — Hotel Paradise and Escape from Hell — that were remixed for the Linda Blair movie Savage Island. He wrote the script for this movie along with Ignacio F. Iquino, Fabrizio Gianni (second unit director on The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) and Fabio Piccioni (the writer of Murder Syndrome and the director of The Erotic Adventures of Robinson Crusoe).  

Arrow Video’s Savage Guns box set has high definition 2K restorations of all four films from the original 35mm camera negatives, with El Puro newly restored by Arrow Films. Plus, you get brand new introductions to each film by journalist and critic Fabio Melelli, an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the films by author and critic Howard Hughes, a fold-out double-sided poster featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx and limited edition packaging with reversible sleeves featuring original artwork and a slipcover featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx.

El Puro has two versions of the film: the 98-minute cut, presented in Italian and English, and the longer, 108-minute version, presented in both Italian and a newly created hybrid English/Italian mix. There’s also new commentary by Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson, an interview with Robert Woods and a new appreciation of the soundtrack and its composer Alessandro Alessandroni by musician and disc collector Lovely Jon.

You can get this set from MVD.

The plan? Wealthy landowner Don Antonio (Fernando Rey) wanted Marcos (Terence Hill) and Jacobo (Mario Pardo) to put a stop to the revolutionaries that threaten his profits. Marcos will kill anyone for money and easily does his job before he figures out that he did wrong. What helps is that he gets interested in a gorgeous woman connected to them named Soledad (Miss Italy 1959 Maria Grazia Buccella) and then decides to work on the side of the common man.

Directed by Mario Camus, who wrote this with Manuel Marinero and Mario Cecchi Gori, who would go on to script Il Postino, this may be a movie more interesting for the titles it went under than what it actually is. Also known as The Wind’s Anger, The Wind’s Fierce and — sold as a comedy and it isn’t — Trinity Sees Red,* this is the last non-comedy that Terence Hill would make for a bit. Hence this being sold as a Trinity movie.

Arrow Video’s Savage Guns box set has high definition 2K restorations of all four films from the original 35mm camera negatives, with El Puro newly restored by Arrow Films. Plus, you get brand new introductions to each film by journalist and critic Fabio Melelli, an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the films by author and critic Howard Hughes, a fold-out double-sided poster featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx and limited edition packaging with reversible sleeves featuring original artwork and a slipcover featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx.

Wrath of the Wind has an alternate 106-minute Spanish-language version of the film, featuring additional and extended scenes not found in the Italian or English versions. There’s also new audio commentary by author and critic Howard Hughes, a short film by filmmaker Francisco Lacerda and the alternate Revenge of Trinity opening.

You can get this set from MVD.

Clayton (Craig Hill) has been working for three years to earn money only to learn that money from the Confederacy is no longer worth anything. He comes back home and soon his sister Mercedes (Christina Businari) is assaulted and killed by two of Mallek’s (Andrea Bosic) thugs. Clayton can’t even go to the sheriff for help, because he killed that man’s brother in self-defense. Mallek also wants the Civil War to keep on warring, so he has a plan to kill off the generals who are in the middle of peace talks.

I haven’t seen many of Paolo Bianchini’s films before. He also made The Devil’s Man, Superargo and the Faceless Giants, God Made Them… I Kill Them, Gattling Gun and Hey Amigo! A Toast to Your Death. He’s still making movies. Il profumo delle Zagare was released in 2022.

The writer was Carlos Sarabia, who only wrote this movie, and everything looks great thanks to cinematographer Ricardo Andreu, who also filmed Beyond Terror, Assignment Terror, The Price of Power and Labios rojos.

I love that there’s someone on IMDB that points out that everyone uses Colt Single Action Army revolvers that didn’t come out until 13 years after this movie was set. There’s that and the fact that it’s set in a desert while the actual peace talks between Grant and Lee took place in Virginia.

But come on! We’re here for revenge, not a history class.

Arrow Video’s Savage Guns box set has high definition 2K restorations of all four films from the original 35mm camera negatives, with El Puro newly restored by Arrow Films. Plus, you get brand new introductions to each film by journalist and critic Fabio Melelli, an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the films by author and critic Howard Hughes, a fold-out double-sided poster featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx and limited edition packaging with reversible sleeves featuring original artwork and a slipcover featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx.

I Want Him Dead has new commentary by critics Adrian J. Smith and David Flint, new interviews with director Paolo Bianchini and editor Eugenio Alabiso, a trailer and an image gallery.

You can get this set from MVD.