ironhorse_iv
'His Name was Sam Walbash, but They Call Him Amen' is one of the most ridiculous titles, I ever heard of. First off, it's really long and second off, nobody call him Amen, in the film. Unless, they meant 'a man', because it kinda makes more sense. They do call him, 'a man', a few times, in the film. I'm kinda thinking it was mistranslating or something. Still, it's a horrible title for a film. I would rather have the 'Savage Guns' title, they used in some US release than that title. 'The Savage Guns', title, even has some problems with it; as you see, there is already a Spaghetti Western movie titled 'Savage Guns' made in 1962. That movie is the first credited as the first traditional Spaghetti Western film. This 1971 movie should be mark as the one that nearly kill the Spaghetti western film genre. Whatever, this movie wants to be call; it's so bad, the owners didn't even bother, renewing their copyright, and since then, the movie has fallen in public domain. So it's pretty easy to find, really bad transfer DVD copies of this film. It add to the crappiest of this already grainy film. It was filmed in widescreen mode, but the DVD copies out there, doesn't know that, so you're losing some resolution, you might have zooms to fill an HDTV screen. Directed by Miles Deem AKA Demofilo Fidani, the movie tells the story of Sam Walbash/Wallace (Robert Woods), whom was wounded by Mash Flannigan's (Dean Stratford AKA Dino Strano) gang who enters a saloon and kills everybody in sight including his brother. Walbash chases Flannigan to Golden City for revenge, leading to a deadly showdown. While, this sub-up seems simple enough, the movie makes the plot a lot more complex and confusing than it should be, by adding a lot of barely explain exposition scenes that doesn't link, one bit to the main plot. First off, there is the main character's phobia of swinging doors. You would think this would had, something to do with his brother's death, but no, it's from a memory of him as a child, in which his father and mother were gunned down in their home—for no apparent reason—by a gang that must have fired 100 bullets to kill two people. Wow-overkill! It's not even clear why the movie gives this up ¾ in the film, because it doesn't looks like Flannigan did it. He had nothing to do with that attack. It would be nice to establish that he got the post-traumatic stress from that event in the beginning of the film. Sadly, it doesn't add anything to the film. It felt like a distracted more than a key part of the story. Honestly, the movie could had been better if they used this post-trauma stress in the climax of the film, with his fight with Flannigan, but no. Another miss opportunity is Mash Flannigan hiring gunfighters. They spent minutes, explaining each character's history, but the three bounty hunters; Gordon Mitchell, Lincoln Tate and Peter Martell are barely in the film. They could have add so much to the climax, but they MIA, during those scenes. The over the top action is mostly a miss than hit for me. I hate the over kill bullet spraying. I doubt a six bullet revolver shoots more than six bullets are a time. I dislike the one shot death scenes with over acting from the actors playing the victims. It's really unrealistic. People in this film seem to have not only unlimited funds for unlimited guns and ammos, but the wherewithal to, overnight, acquire a dummy U.S. Army pay wagon with a hand-cranked fake looking Gatling gun and two wax dummies dressed in Army uniforms. Even the hand to hand combat is weak. There is a barroom brawl that uses way too much slow motion to truly be effective. I like the boxing match, even if it felt like filler. I like a sub-plot of a boxer not fixing his fight, and getting shot over it. It was a lot more interesting than the main plot. Then, there was the really hard to get through 'musical' type number by one excruciating French singer. It was horrible to listen to. My ears kept on bleeding, because of it. The other music in the film wasn't that bad. The Music score by Lallo Gori sounds so genetic. I guess, they were trying to past off as somebody with talent like Ennio Morricone. It wasn't anything special. The acting is just horrible. There are plenty of bad English dubbing. Robert Woods actually is forgettable. He didn't really stand out for most of the film. I can only tell him apart when the dooraphobia kicks in. Simonetta Vitelli is beautiful as Fanny the barmaid. I can't recalled anything else, besides good about that. She's spent most of the movie, getting beat up and hardly doing anything about it. The movie was shot, bad. Lots of badly done, day for night, camera shots and slow motion galloping. Lots of galloping to burn up some time for all the credits. Too bad, the movie Title was in a white font. It made it really hard to see in the slow-motions opening scenes because of the bright sun. The only good shots from this film are when Robert Woods is reacting to the swinging door phobia. Overall: After watching this movie, it was perfectly clear to me why Demofilo Fidani is called the Ed Wood of the spaghetti western. This movie is amateurish, ultra-cheap production that lacks all possible coherence, visually as well as story-wise. I'm not sure, why they needed to add so much things. It's 85 min. long. According to critics, this movie was to pay tribute to Eli Wallach. I think, he would disowned this movie, if he saw it. It was just too awful.
classicsoncall
At it's core, this is a fairly typical revenge Western, heavy on the spaghetti, and if you follow it as such, the protagonist comes through successfully defeating the main villain. However there's so much going on that has no bearing on the story that you have to wonder what the film makers were thinking about. I'm referring to stuff like the way Miss Rosie's singing number just pops up out of nowhere and the boxing match in the middle of town. OK, they have a loose connection to the influence villain Mash Flanagan has, but why all of a sudden does he turn up with an alias - Mr. Donovan.On the flip side, I thought it was pretty innovative how the camera shot showing the wounded Wallach's view of the trail might have been filmed by someone with an actual bullet in his shoulder. And wasn't it great the way Donovan's girl uses the old headache routine when he gets a little frisky? Don't let me forget either the great stunt work by the gravel pit bad guys as Wallach guns them down as part of the finale.Still, there was one thing unaccounted for, and I kept waiting the entire movie for it. Whatever happened to that trio of hoods that Flanagan/Donovan hires near the start of the picture? You know, the guy Martel that a funeral parlor wanted to hire for his gun prowess, the devil's henchman Mitchell with the rifle, and the knife thrower Lincoln Tate. Each had a five thousand dollar bounty on his head, and they were supposed to protect Donovan from the guy who survived the massacre of the opening scene. They were never heard from again! I like to think that maybe Donovan just had them killed and kept the 15K all for himself.
bobsluckycat
This is one of the films that killed the "spaghetti" western. It not only loses something in the translation, it is a total chaotic mess of editing as well. Either chunks of it have been edited out and or re-edited for an English language version. In any case, it makes little or no sense, period. It makes the "Trinity" and the Eastwood "Man With No Name" films look like John Ford/John Wayne by comparison. Nothing in this film is original. Somewhere in there is a beginning, a middle, and (finally)an end. Except for the end, not everything is exactly in that order. Robert Wood seems personable enough. The rest of the cast, especially the women, should have made better career choices.
