The film starts with a wagon being chased by a contingent of the US Cavalry, onboard the wagon are two men who’ve just pulled off a robbery. Realising they haven’t a hope of both getting away they draw lots to see who will stay in the wagon and draw off the pursuers, and who’ll jump off and escape with the money. Jerry Brewster (Thomas Hunter) stays with the wagon and after being caught does five years in prison during which time he’s tortured but never gives out the name of his partner.
When he’s released his first port of call is the family farm where he expects to find his wife and son. Instead he finds the home abandoned and that his wife has died in poverty with his ex-partner having kept all the money for himself. Adding insult to injury, he’s also taken Brewster’s son. Partnered with a mysterious stranger, played by Dan Duryea, he sets out to find his son and get some payback from “Seagull” the name his one time friend is now living under.
Hunter is a dull lead, he’s fine in the action scenes but distinctly lacking when it comes to showing emotion, often resorting to shouting to show how angry or upset he is. The reliable Duryea, usually cast as villains most memorably in Winchester ’73, gets the chance to play a good guy but the part is too underwritten for him to do anything with and he gets to little screen time to make much of an impact. The only actor who really stands out is Henry Silva as Mendez the leader of Seagull’s hired guns. Mendez is a man who enjoys inflicting violence, he’s also got lecherous designs on his boss’s sister and Silva exudes a sleazy menace as the hired gun giving the viewer someone to hate, with Seagull far to boring to feel like a real threat.
This is a by the numbers revenge western with only the exuberant amount of gunfire, excessive violence and Ennio Morricone’s score marking it as a spaghetti, plus the bad dubbing of course. As is so often the case with Italian westerns the music is the best thing about the film, it’s a bad sign when you wish the actors would shut up so you can hear the music better.
Horror and Western film buff, Marvel comic geek, music lover and occasional gamer. 