I think the thing that impressed me the most about Mario Bava's first spaghetti western outing here is how utterly pedestrian most of the proceedings were. Another distinguished commentator here has it right: This is the Italo western boys before the spaghetti idiom was truly established dressing up in their snappy cavalry duds & playing cowboys and Indians just like we used to do out at the sandlot near my cousin's summer house, only we didn't have such nice costumes.
Ken Clark is a decent enough he-man leading heroic noble Shatterhand type, apparently roaming the west looking for trouble to straighten out. He finds it when a young novice finds himself taken by a card shark (the priceless Gerard Herter, Max from CALTIKI) and the two have to fight their way out of town & take up with a band of rogues who are targeting a bank to knock over. For reasons that escape me they find themselves mistaken for cavalry officers and join up with a U.S. Army element sent to the region to pacify the local Indian tribes so that the nice Caucasian people can build towns, railroads, brothels, and prosper without having to take the local Natives into consideration.
It's pretty much the usual stuff for a low budget early 1960s western and indeed the story is decidedly lacking on the traditional spaghetti western histrionics, which many fans may be disappointed by. I however got a kick out of seeing Mario Bava constrained to a pretty straight forward story, complete with a heroic ride to the rescue at the end with the bugles & everything. If it sounds like a let down, students of Bava's unique visual style will actually be pleased with a series of nighttime scenes obviously filmed on a sound stage with that traditional Bava artsy minimalism emphasizing color and texture over rugged authenticity. This was made in the period before Sergios Leone and Corbucci more or less invented the spaghetti aesthetic, qualifying it more as a Euro western than a proper spaghetti outing. The film is also somewhat unique in that like Joe Lacey's FURY OF THE APACHES it actually involves the Native American peoples -- albeit somewhat clumsily and in a stereotypical fashion -- rather than swarthy Pistoleros shooting at Clint Eastwood's mule.
I found it to be a fascinating movie perfect for a snowed in Saturday afternoon, though some may question how convinced Bava was of his own artistic vision for the movie. It's more sort of a compromise between his KILL BABY KILL cinematics and traditionalist Oater mentalities, with some truly stunning shots framed when seen in the proper widescreen ratio. The one thing I kept thinking is that here is a surprisingly ordinary low budget western that's been photographed like a Gothic study in spots, and the rather bloodless nature of the goings on mean that it's a rare example of an Italo western that was meant for all ages rather than a grim cartoon for adults. I kind of like it, and found it a much more rewarding viewing experience than Bava's 1970 final spaghetti ROY COLT & WINCHESTER JACK, though fans of the genre will probably prefer his NEBRASKA JIM.
6/10