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Welcome back to the Sunday Morning Movie! Today we are presenting a Western, a spaghetti Western to be precise, Death Rides a Horse.
Review:
Opinions diverge on this movie. Here’s a snippet of one reviewer’s take:
“But that’s the thing – if you like that style of storytelling and cinematography, Death Rides a Horse is a top-notch Spaghetti Western. It’s light on plot and huge on action, which is sometimes exactly what you want on a winter weeknight.”
Death Rides a Horse
while Roger Ebert had a harsher view of it:
“It’s hard to explain the fun to be found in seeing the right kind of bad movie. Pauline Kael had a go at it a few months ago in Harper’s in an article titled “Trash, Art and the Movies,” but I think she set her sights too high. The bad movies she enjoyed (“The Scalphunters,” “Wild in the Streets“) weren’t within a hundred miles of the badness of “Death Rides a Horse,” which is a bad movie indeed.”
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/death-rides-a-horse-1969
I’m decidedly on the “good” side of this debate. I think Death Rides a Horse is qualitatively approaching that holy trinity of Spaghetti Westerns known collectively as The Man With No Name trilogy. You know them, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and it’s predecessors. All directed by Sergio Leone. The movies that got the genre going. I think Ebert was judging this movie by the standards of the much larger body of cinematic work he critiqued and I think that that is a mistake. It’s a simple yarn, as all good Spaghettis are, a tale of revenge. It has some standard Spaghetti Western attributes: a gritty environment, a youthful hero being counter-balanced by a grizzled gunslinger, sweaty faces, and lots of close-up explosive violence. (If these themes seem to describe all Westerns, it’s mostly because of the influence of the Spaghettis on the larger genre.)
There a only a handful of Spaghetti Westerns which can be considered decent movies. The VAST majority are badly acted, badly directed, and oftentimes just silly. I know because I’ve spent a bit of time looking for decent ones. I reckon there are under ten that are worth watching in full (but there are probably a few out there I’ve missed, to be honest.) I think Death Rides a Horse is in that select group. What do you think?
Written by Luciano Vicenzioni, who worked with Sergio Leone on The Man With No Name trilogy
Directed by Giulio Petroni
Notable Actors include John Phillip Law, Lee Van Cleef, and Mario Brega. Brega was a regular in a number of Spaghetti Westerns, including the Man With No Name trilogy.
Spoiler Warning!
Synopsis:
A young boy Bill (John Phillip Law) witnesses the murder of his family but escapes the raiders. Jumping ahead several years, the boy is now a man and a gunslinger looking for revenge. He has the spur of one of the raiders and clues to the identities of the others. Meanwhile a name Ryan (Lee Van Cleef) is released from prison. He was sent there after being sold out by his gang, ,the same raiders who killed Bill’s family. After encountering Ryan, and being tricked by him, the younger Bill proposes that they seek the raiders together. Ryan says no. After series of adventures one of the raiders is located by Ryan, who demands a large sum of money in payment for the betrayal. Bill finds the man as well and shoots him down. When Bill is about to be killed due to running out of bullets, Ryan appears and saves him. He leaves Bill horseless in order to avoid the other raiders from being killed before they can pay him.
Another raider and his cronies are located. Their leader, Wolcott, is a man of wealth and influence in town. Ryan confronts him but is captured and framed for a robbery. Bill rescues Ryan from jail and leaves him horseless in order to pursue the remaining raiders. He chases them to a small Mexican town where he is captured and buried up to his neck in the sand. He sends the raiders on a wild goose chase to find Ryan, who arrives at the town and saves Bill yet again. Then they and the men of the town prepare for the raiders return.
A huge gunfight ensues. Bill recognizes Ryan as one of the raiders and Ryan informs him that he arrived to late to save his family and that he had got the young Bill to safety. He tells Bill he will give him the justice he seeks when the fight is over. The raiders are all killed along with the towns menfolk. Ryan saves Bill yet again by killing Wolcott. After demanding Ryan fight him in a duel, Bill instead saves Ryan’s life and the two part friends, riding off in different directions.