DEATH RIDES A HORSE (1967)

DEATH RIDES A HORSE
DIRECTED BY GIULIO PETRONI 1967

This western released in 1967 is just one of the many unofficial remakes of Leone's seminal For A Few Dollars MOre - this films was even scripted by Luciano Vincenzoni who also wrote the Leone classic.

The cadaverous Lee Van Cleef plays a middle aged gunslinger teamed up with a younger man (the Eastwood type role) played by John Phillip Law. The latter is best remembered as the intergalactic angel in Barbarella. British actor Anthony Dawson, best know for his role as the killer in Dial M for Murder and for a couple of small roles in the early Bond films (he played the voice of Blofeld in From Russia with Love and was memorably shot by Connery after using his six bullets in Dr No) plays the main villains in this all action western.

Whilst the film looks exactly like a Leone western it is great fun and is far more violent than any of the Dollars films - the opening sequence is an exercise in operatic sadism but it's all carried out in a comic book stylised OTT style of the sub-genre. Van Cleef is excellent and even if Law is no Eastwood this is one of the better spaghetti westerns and still makes excellent viewing.

AVAILABILITY ON DVD - The film can be found as a standalone DVD but it is also part of THE GUNSLINGERS BOX SET ALONGSIDE Boot Hill, God's Gun and Beyond the Law. The box set is available from Brentwood Home Video and is well worth the meagre asking price for the four movies - three of which are great.