The Stranger’s Gundown(Django Il Bastardo)1969

Tags

Anthony Steffen, spaghetti western

THE STRANGERS GUNDOWN(the U.S. DVD title) had an odd feel to it. Extremely violent like most spaghetti westerns, it could classified almost as horror as well. Almost a weird western. More on that later.

Django is a man on a revenge bender. We don’t learn the exact reason until two thirds of the way through the film. All we get from a brief early flashback is that it goes back to the Civil War. He shows up in a small town called Desert City looking for three men. He announces his intentions each time with a cross planted in the street with the name of a victim and the day’s date on it.

The fyrst two are disposed of quickly, which sets the stage for the protracted tormenting of the final target: Rod Murdok(Paolo Gazlino), the richest man in town. Murdok has a kid brother, Luc(Luciano Rossi, billed as Lu Kamante), a pasty faced kid that’s more than a little crazy. Given to maniacal rages, big brother paid for Althea(Rada Rassimov) to marry him and look after the boy, no easy task.

Rod Murdok has surrounded himself with a host of gunmen to protect the family and him. Little good it does.

All through the film, one is never sure if Django is alive. A ghost maybe. He seems to always be at the right place. One second he’s shown hiding in town, the next miles away to take down three of Murdok’s gunmen. At times, he’ll be right in with them, part of the gang hunting him. One instant, the ramrod yells spread out and find him, only to see him standing there when they scatter. He’ll suddenly be upstairs when the floor below is full of gunmen. Always in the right spot, almost invisible.

Murdok had all the decent folks run out of town for a few days, clearing the way for them to kill him as soon as they found him.

One of the best spaghetti westerns I’ve seen in a while.

The clip below is the kill count Django racks up during the film. It uses one of the U.S. titles, DJANGO THE BASTARD. Another U.S. title was DJANGO THE AVENGER.