Deadly Trackers (1972)

Memorable, crazy movie

good back-story, and good acting

A different way of telling a story

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

DJANGO'S SPUR is an unmemorable spaghetti western that suffers from a low budget and cliched storyline. The hero is a man who returns home from the war to discover that his sister has been raped and murdered by an outlaw gang, so of course he goes on an odyssey of revenge in order to make things right. The film wastes a perfectly serviceable performance from former strongman Richard Harrison, whose heroic character is as bland as they come. There's some driven action in the first half of the production, but then the scene shifts to the saloon and it all gets very slow and long-winded. Anita Ekberg appears and is almost unrecognisable given her star wattage a decade previously. Some of the action footage was later borrowed for another cheapie, SEVEN DEVILS ON HORSEBACK.

"The long cavalcade of vengeance" begins in New Mexico right after the Civil War when Reb vet Jeff Carter (former "Son Of Hercules" Richard Harrison) comes home to find a band of outlaws had robbed, raped, and murdered his sister. It isn't hard for him to figure out whodunit since the girl's body was covered with a distinctive poncho, one Jeff recognizes as belonging to a former ranch employee. Jeff isn't very good at pursuit, however, and he drinks a lot, so he's quickly captured by the gang's leader (peplum alumni Rik Battaglia) who ties him to a hill of ants. The ex-soldier (you can tell by the gold stripe down his gray pants) escapes and learns a thing or two along the way as he tracks the men down one by one, leaving a strip of torn poncho beside their corpses. And he'll stop at nothing to get his man, even if it means becoming sheriff of the terrified town the villains have taken over...The most that can be said about DEADLY TRACKERS is that it's just another second string spaghetti western by a former "sword & sandal" director and would've been unexceptional in every way if it hadn't been for the unintentional humor and past-their-prime stars. And where is billed-above-the-title Anita Ekberg, anyway? The movie begins at the end just to prove the somnambulistic sex siren (who'd gained a few pounds since her salad days) is in the damn thing before the story unfolds in flashback. The Ek comes in about three-quarters of the way through as a saloon gal whose unattractive co-workers perform a listless can-can as she sashays down the stairs. If this were a Republic western, Vera Ralston would have led the dance and had a song, to boot, but poor Anita wasn't even talented enough to have a ditty dubbed. There would have been more than enough time if they hadn't wasted so much on a horse race alongside a stage coach across a landscape that looked nothing like the American Southwest despite the proliferation of fake cacti. The sexual "good guy/bad girl" (non)chemistry between the hefty Ekberg and a balding blond Harrison (who showed a lot more cleavage than his co-star) adds a bit of Destry to the mix and the camp factor's ramped when a prancing bandito with an exaggerated Southern accent says things like "you're kinda pretty for a girl". Oh, boy.