Savage Guns (1971)

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Savage Guns (video title) is a dirt cheap, bottom of the barrel spaghetti western in which the survivor of a massacre hunts the bandits who killed his brother and left him for dead, catching up with them in a town controlled by their crooked boss.Despite plenty of violence, this manages to be both dull and colorless with bad characterizations and almost no imagination or humor.Lead actor Robert Woods lives up to his name with a wooden and uncharismatic performance that fails to generate any warmth or sympathy whatsoever. In other words, the viewer never really roots for him despite the fact that he's the protagonist.The worst scene (in my opinion) is the annoying dance hall scene where a woman sings in a heavy and terribly unsexy German accent. It was the worst scene in Blazing Saddles and the worst one here!

This is the first film I've watched from the Italian Ed Wood, Demofilo Fidani aka Miles Deem. The above title was superfluously added later on since there exists another similarly titled 1961 movie starring Richard Basehart which was Hammer Films' Michael Carreras' one and only stab at the Western; the genuine Italian title was originally translated as HIS NAME WAS SAM WALBASH, BUT THEY CALLED HIM AMEN…although it was actually WALLACH in the Italian variant which, of course, implies a tribute of sorts to Hollywood actor Eli! While certainly not unwatchably bad, instances of clumsiness and ineptitude abound so that I was often cracking up into howls of laughter: a horrid number by a would-be irresistible French chanteuse; a totally irrelevant bar-room brawl; actors doing somersaults when being shot; an aged villager doing an impromptu dance routine; ineffective use (indeed abuse) of slow-motion; and, easily the most preposterous, seeing Gordon Mitchell and Lincoln Tate play two gunfighters (sporting the actors' own names!) hired by the villain to kill off the title character and then never having them appear in the rest of the film at all!! Lead actor Robert Woods is just that even down to ineffectively whispering the Amens over the bodies of his victims. Supporting actress Simonella Vitelli (actually, the director's own daughter!) as the villain's broad is quite a looker but, unfortunately, she doesn't get to do much in the film – despite having a change of heart towards the end. The main musical theme is actually pretty good but, again, the title song is, in itself, quite lousy.

This is a very quirky film. It is, at times, unintentionally funny, and at other times just plain bizarre, but hey I like that kind of stuff so it's alright with me. I actually find this film to be extremely entertaining. Of the four or five Demofilo Fidani movies I have seen, this one is the best.The music score by Lallo Gori is excellent. It is probably the highest-quality part of the movie. The trumpets, guitar, and organ are used skillfully to create suspense and emotion with a style that is undeniably spaghetti western.Though Fidani's movies are not known for good acting, Robert Woods actually does a pretty good job in this one as Sam Wallach, the slightly whacked protagonist who suffers from dooraphobia (Yes, he breaks out in a cold sweat and gets hysterical at the mere thought of a door opening and closing. I'm not making this up!) Simonetta Vitelli is also good as Fanny the barmaid. I can't think of any other Fidani film that actually has TWO halfway decent acting performances.I noticed that another reviewer has commented that the movie seems out of order and makes no sense. Actually, there is a plot here and it's not all that hard to follow. The order of events seems correct to me. It is a simple revenge tale. It's a rather typical story, but a pretty decent one. It also has more action than the other Fidani westerns I have seen. Perhaps my copy is a more complete version than some of the others out there. I'm not sure. It's 85 min. long. The movie's got some corny dialog, but that just makes for more laughs, which is a good thing. I suspect it's because the English translation is poorly done, but who knows? Some strange highlights of the film include a surreal, slow-motion brawl with echoing sound and laughter, an odd conversation between the main villain and his gang where he orders them to split up to avoid capture but doesn't mind when they refuse to leave, a way over-the-top cheesy slow-motion flashback sequence, Sam's dooraphobia, of course, and a French female barroom singer whose accent seems more German than French. She sounds like she has a microphone, and sings in a style that sounds more like it's from the 1930's than the 1870's.You either love this kind of stuff or you don't. Like I said before, I find it very entertaining. I'd rather watch this one than many of the so-called "great" films. It sure beats the hell out of trying to sit through "Gone With the Wind." Yuck!

This showed up on a DVD a buddy of mine bought for me. They had it listed as "The Savage Guns" which was an entirely different movie. Obviously the folks who packaged the DVD never bothered to look at what they were burning on the disk.Anyway, this movie is about as bad as they come. The sound track is a combination TV Batman/Early James Bond/Spaghetti western. Lots of galloping around to this music. It appears that the guy has to gallop between scenes to burn up some time and give the sound track folks something to do.English is dubbed over the Italian and it really shows. I wish it had been just a little bit worse and then it would have had some of the campy feel of the Ed Wood films. AS it is, it is just plain awful.