Lee Van Cleef became a bigger star in Europe than he ever was in the States by appearing in a long series of spaghetti westerns. Here he [lays the gunman dressed in black with a plethora of odd weapons. A film that strikes a cord with most folks watching it even though the elements are all standard fare of the time. It is different, just a bit, with familiar actors in Van Cleef and Berger eschewing the roles of the good guy and the not-so-god guy.
One almost gets a feeling of Bond with all those gadgets Sabata uses in the course of the picture
The basic plot is that some of the community’s leading lights have stolen a hundred grand and plan to use it to buy up land to sell to the railroad when they come through.
Sabata is out to stop them for his own reasons.
SABATA was the first of three films featuring the character, but the middle film had Yul Brynner in the role. In an odd bit of coincidence, Van Cleef was playing a role that Brynner made famous in a sequel at the time which was why Brynner got he part: the sequel to the Magnificent Seven.
Not The Baseball Pitcher 