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A gorgeous woman named Maria Caine (Michèle Mercier of Margheriti’s
Web Of The Spider and Bava’s Black
Sabbath) sees her husband, Ben (Benito Stefanelli of numerous Spaghetti Westerns including
My Name Is Nobody and A Fistful Of
Dynamite), chased down and hanged by the members of the Rogers family. Obviously and understandably upset about this turn of events, she wants vengeance. After attempting to enlist the aid of her two former brothers-in-law to no avail – they can’t even be bothered to help her dig a proper grave. She approaches Manuel (noted French writer-director-actor Robert Hossein) , who was one of her late husband’s closest friends and who, years prior, had a romantic relationship with her.
Manuel agrees to help Maria, though before he agrees he tells her that vengeance will not satisfy her, and decides to go
to the Rogers family and join their gang, in turn, gaining their trust. This works well and soon he’s kidnapped their young daughter who he turns over to Maria who in turn holds the poor girl hostage to use as leverage against the Rogers
family. Of course, the plan doesn’t go exactly the way Maria had hoped it would and Manuel is left to fend off the Rogerses and settle the matter.
Shot with plenty of style by cinematographer Henri Persin (who was the second unit director on Woody Allen’s
What’s New Pussycat!), the film looks great from its black and white opening sequence through to its incredibly grim finale. Lots of Leone-esque close ups and framing show an obvious nod to the most influential director in the genre (he’s thanked in the end credits!) and the film just looks superb. The score from Robert Hossein’s father, Andre Hossein, has obviously been influenced by the scores, which Ennio Morricone was churning out around the same time but it’s not a direct rip off even if it owes a bit (the cues with the trumpets really sound like Morricone!) to the man.
With Hossein starring, directing and co-writing the film it would stand to reason that this would have been a fairly personal project for him. As such, there’s considerably more depth to the movie than there is to the average Spaghetti Western, even if you have to look under the surface of the picture to find it. While the first chunk of the film plays out without any dialogue and spoken bits remain sparse in the film even after that scene has passed, the movie still manages to make a statement about the futility of violence and mankind’s natural inclination to want revenge. The script is very cynical and quite critical of
its characters, none of which are innocent despite playing fairly traditional ‘good’ or ‘bad’
roles.
Manuel is an interesting character, he’s obviously still in love with Maria who is the whole reason he comes on board in the first place but as the movie plays out you can tell that he’s tired of the gunslinger’s life. Hossein plays the part well with a fair amount of morose and subdued moments that make Manuel more than just another grizzled looking cowboy with a gun on his hip and a chip on his shoulder. His actions towards the end of the film and some of his dialogue with Maria completely solidify the fact that he really has no interest in killing anymore and that he’s doing this not because he personally feels the need to avenge his friend’s death but because he still carries a torch for the man’s widow.
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