Imagine Die Hard if John McClane was a hired prisoner to kill some bandits holding people hostage. This is that movie. Giuliano Gemma as Ringo is as charismatic as any western star. He has funny moments, witty lines like "God created man equal, but the Colt made them different." He has the charm that would make any woman want to be with him and the type of cool factor where any guy would want to be him. A better spaghetti western than most because of the character dynamics. Fernando Sancho plays a charismatic and not overly cruel villain, though he actually kills two hostages a day like he says he's going too. It puts stakes in the movie. There are other characters I enjoyed as well such as the patriarch of the family being taken hostage trying to woo the much younger Dolores played by an alluring Nieves Navarro. This also has the type of random mean-spiritedness I enjoy in some spaghetti westerns. That manifests itself in scenes where hostages are shot trying to run away or the bandits basically playing Russian roulette with all the hostages near a table. Even though this movie is lighthearted there are some surprisingly dark moments that go well with all the fun of watching Ringo play a long con for money.
Synopsis: An 'angel-faced' gunfighter is tasked with infiltrating a ranch overrun by Mexican bandits and saving their hostages, including the fiancée of the local sheriff.
Everything with the characters is set up early on. Ringo shoots four men before they can even draw on him. Before he does that though he is playing hopscotch with kids. That shows that he is much friendlier than other western heroes. Throughout this movie you never think Ringo is going to side with the bad guys just for money and this introduction is part of what makes me feel that way. When the criminals go to rob the bank, Dolores (Nieves Navarro) creates a distraction at the police station and catches them off guard and points a gun at all of them when the shooting starts. Sancho (Fernando Sancho) is shown pointing a gun at the back of the manager before anything even starts but he demonstrates he should be taken seriously because he kills the guards at the border to get across it in the first place. Once the shooting starts, Sheriff Ben (George Martin) shows how good of a shot and competent Sheriff he is by taking out many of Sancho's men while they ride away. He also hits Sancho in the shoulder, something that comes back later. Sheriff Ben's relationship with Ruby is also established and they have some fun banter like her saying that they always start eating at 10:00 in Boston.
Nieves Navarro (AKA Susan Scott) as Dolores
So the characters are all ready established early on. Sancho goes to the Land Baron, Major Clyde's (Antonio Casas) house and takes him, his daughter Ruby, and all the laborers hostage. The Sheriff and his men surround the area. Sancho threatens to kill a hostage every night and every day until he lets them go across the border. Since they took the money, Sheriff Ben and his deputy, Timoteo, offer Ringo 30% of the money if he can go and free the hostages. This also makes him free on the charges of killing those four men in self-defense.
Ringo goes to the house and Dolores recognizes him because he was in the jail at the police station. He immediately gets on their good side by fixing Sancho's wound. He said he worked for a barber that was also a surgeon. This starts the hero qualifiers in this movie that also seems like something from 80s and 90s action movies. Ringo later says he fought for the North in the Civil War and was part of a bomb disposal team. While you might expect more action, the movie's middle is largely about the relationships between people. Major Clyde starts showing an interest in Dolores. He starts giving her his best whiskey. Right when Sancho and his men go to the house, Major Clyde invites her in on the offer of the best whiskey and takes her by the arm. I want to be this dude when I get older just being rich and offering women 25 years younger than me some whiskey. Later he says to Dolores, "You are a beautiful woman and beautiful women should be admired." Since Dolores is like a femme fatale you get the feeling that she might be playing the baron, but at the same time why wouldn't she want to get away from Sancho? The baron has the financial resources that she would want.
Giuliano Gemma as Ringo
Fernando Sancho, the quintessential fat Mexican in spaghetti westerns, oddly enough playing a character named: Sancho
Ruby and Ringo also start talking. During a scene where everyone dances, Ringo cock blocks one of Sancho's men, Pedro (Jose Manuel Martin). Pedro asks Ruby to dance and Ringo steps in front of him and says no she all ready said she would dance with me and Pedro proceeds to throw a knife at him which he throws back in his direction. This starts a rivalry that culminates in Ringo saving Ruby from being raped by Pedro later. That leads to an awesome fight that goes into a barn between Ringo and Pedro where Ringo eventually tricks him into picking up an axe so he can kill him under the guise of self-defense by throwing a knife at him. In this fight you see Giuliano Gemma's acrobat background be put to work and it is one of the most exciting moments of the movie.
This movie wouldn't work if Ringo weren't an awesome character. Throughout the whole movie he is one step ahead of the villains at every turn. He eventually gets the villains to agree to give him 40 percent of the money if he gets them to the border. He talks about knowing the area, and knowing where the Sheriff's men are on the perimeter. There is one great scene where he starts drawing out the area on a tablecloth. After the villains agree to that deal Ringo leaves the room and Sancho immediately talks about killing him and Ringo opens the door and says if you're thinking about killing me you're wrong. Later after he goes to the mill and kills four of Sancho's men, he goes back to the house. He gets captured after the Sheriff's posse gives the wrong signal through the binoculars. While he is strung up and beat up he convinces Sancho that he was going to double cross the Sheriff and his men. So, Ringo is always able to get out of those situations. Instead of trapping the Sheriff's men in the canyon, he ends up trapping Sancho behind it so the hostages can get away later. Ringo never feels like the more self-motivated character Clint Eastwood plays in the Dollars Trilogy. In A Fistful of Dollars, the Man with No Name basically gets an entire family killed by playing them off against each other. Ringo doesn't seem like the type to want to have that on his conscience. Eastwood's character does get a heroic moment in that movie, but Ringo really seems like a hero through this whole movie. When he kills Sancho's men at the mill he could just leave but decides to go back to the house. You could say he just did that for the money. I believe he wants to save Ruby and the others.
Spoilers Ahead!
Something I enjoy about spaghetti westerns is they always have some mean spirited moments and some kind of action sequence that I don't see very often. During the bank robbery scene one of the guards is shot off the roof of the bank and I enjoy hearing that person scream. That usually gets me to laugh. There are moments when the bandits shoot laborers trying to run away and they even kill a married couple. That does seem real though with the times. Wild west villains and villains during war were more like this and these type of scenarios were probably things Italians lived in WW2. These weren't the type of things that happened in the Old west as much, though I'm sure some bandits were like Sancho and his men. Dolores getting killed was something I didn't see coming. It did confirm that she was genuinely in love with Major Clyde. I love in the ending shootout that Ringo uses the reflection on the bell to see where Sancho is and ricochets the bullet of the bell to kill him. It does end with Ringo taking the money, so he's not completely selfless. While a romance between him and Ruby is hinted at, it isn't explicitly stated. Ending with Ringo giving the watch to Ruby and her giving the watch to the Sheriff and Ringo riding off is a nice ending to me. While this movie doesn't scream Christmas to me, it has enough ambience to feel like it. The emotional things the family goes through, the singing of Christmas songs, the tree, it all feels like Christmas. So this is a Christmas movie to me, albeit with a lot of Ennio Morricone acoustics and human voice.
Rating: 9/10
Watch movie here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoCPQFNJgVM
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