User Reviews

Nice Spaghetti Western. The story concerns four rival groups out to get a chest full of gold. While the plot is actually almost incomprehensible, it's fun to watch Sartana and others switch allegiances about every five minutes. But the story here is secondary to the action. The body count is very high with entire gangs being wiped out by the burst of a Gatling gun. Gianni Garko as Sartana and William Berger as Lasky are just fun to watch. It's not the best Spaghetti Western I've seen, but I'm glad to finally have a copy.

While the movie prominently lists Klaus Kinski in the credits, his screen time totals about 10 minutes.

For the first film in what would come to be the Sartana series, star Gianni Garko wanted a character whose motivation was more than just vengeance. After turning down script after script, Renato Izzi's take on the character - a man free from sentiment who pits rivals against one another - Sartana was born.

What breaks the character away from the mold is both his air of mystery and his love of gadgets, which many attribute to director Gianfranco Parolini (God's Gun) love of James Bond films. His first line of dialogue says all you need to know about him. When faced with an entire gang of killers, led by Morgan (Klaus Kinski, Death Smiles at a Murderer), one of them says, "You look just like a scarecrow." Sartana coldly replies, "I am your pallbearer," before ruthlessly killing everyone but the gang's leader.

The first few scenes of this movie set up that everyone is looking for coffins filled with gold, from Morgan's gang to a Mexican army led by General Jose Manuel Mendoza (Fernando Sancho, Return of the Blind Dead), who says, "How many times I tell you... that my name is Don José Manuel Francisco Mendoza Montezuma de la Plata Perez Rodriguez... but you can call me General Tampico!" Then there's another group led by Lasky (William Berger, a frequent actor in Jesus Franco films), who uses a gatling gun to wipe out his rivals. He's working with/blackmailing Stewal (Sydney Chaplin, son of Charlie who appeared in Satan's Cheerleaders) and Alman, a politician and banker.

Sartana remains the fly in Lasky's ointment, taking his money in a card game and defeating Morgan, who is sent to kill him. He even wipes out Lasky's entire gang. But then Stewal and Alman turn him in to Mendoza, who goes after both Lasky and Sartana.

What follows is an elaborate series of double-crosses, with Stewal trying to escape with the gold but being killed by Mendoza to Lasky killing Mendoza and his men and Alman's wife killing him and taking Lasky to the gold before he kills her. Finally, Lasky and Sartana have a duel, which ends with our hero riding out of town with the coffin filled with gold.

This film sets up the character of Sartana quite well - no one is sure why he does what he does, appearing with the sound of a dead man's watch, being able to seemingly disappear at will. He's always a few steps ahead of his enemies and always appears unflappable in the face of sure death.

A so-so spaghetti western marred by some fairly inert direction by Gianfranco Parolini. Gianni Garko is Sartana as he runs head on into a town populated with double & triple crossing lowlifes. When a treasure chest of gold goes missing, all hell breaks loose. Parolini, who would go on to direct the classic SABATA a few years later, shows very little imagination here, save for a few gunfights and clever death trap set by Garko. Still, there's much to recommend...Garko is excellent and the supporting cast is very colorful: Sidney Chaplin; Klaus Kinski (billed as Kinsky); Franco Pesce; Gianni Rizzo. William Berger is Garko's chief adversary, a greedy gun for hire who'll stop at nothing for a payday. Pesce, as a very hyperactive coffin maker who seems to be channeling both Walter Brennan and the Italian comic Totò at the same time, is very funny. In the end everyone gets what they deserve! The music by Piero Piccioni is terrific.

The Spaghetti Western was always well known for it's quirky, colourful characters and anti-heroes, they were more than just your average, gruff cowboy seen in the American western. They often had their own unique characteristics which audiences remembered them for so well, also due to the James Bond craze, they were also given a wide range of weapons and gadgets,Sartana is one such example, a cunning, super fast and super smart gentleman gunslinger who dons a black cape,suit,white shirt and red neck tie, not to mention cowboy boots complete with Spurs. He uses a six shooter and Winchester rifle but often favours an easily hid Derringer, he is also very shrewd and creative in outsmarting his enemies and in the first of five films he is played by Spaghetti Western veteran Gianni Garko.The plot of this first film in the series "If you meet Sartana, prey for your death" is like this, a stagecoach carrying a gold shipment from the local bank is attacked by Mexican bandits who kill everybody on board,however,just as the bandits are about to make off with the gold, they themselves are attacked and all of them killed by sadistic outlaw Lasky(WILLIAM BERGER)and his men. But Lasky in turn kills his own men when they try and steal the gold,however,when he opens the strongbox, he finds it is full of rocks. Unknown to Lasky, the real gold has been hidden and he is also in league with the town's two corrupt bankers, Jeff Stewal and Al Holman who want the insurance money from the robbery as well as the gold, on top of this, a gang of ruthless Mexican bandits also want the gold, but things are made worse when mysterious gunslinger Sartana(GIANNI GARKO)comes on the scene and is also interested in the whereabouts of the gold. Everyone involved double crosses each other and the body count gets higher and higher, so who will get the gold...

The film is very similar to SABATA(1969)as Sartana dresses in the same way as the character of Sabata and displays the same characteristics and uses the same weapons. The storyline is also quite similar and SARTANA is directed by the same guy(GIANFRANCO PAROLINI,or FRANK KRAMER)who directed SABATA too. The film has a very body count and the action scenes are brilliantly done. The horse chases and shootouts are fantastic and I enjoyed watching all the guys fall through the air and perform hilarious stunts as they are shot. I loved the way Lasky uses a Machine Gun to dispatch his enemies and I loved the first scene when Sartana shoots 4 guys with his Derringer and then finishes off the other 2 with his Winchester, having only to bring the Rifle down from over his shoulder to shoot out the last two guys, really impressive. The stagecoach robbery in which the bandits chase and shoot at the stagecoach and are later all shot dead themselves was also excellently done. I was also impressed with the shootout between Sartana and Lasky and his men and the shootout at the bandit's hacienda, check out how Sartana rolls over whilst at the same time shooting his enemies in true Spaghetti fashion, also watch as Sartana crashes through a window and shots a few more guys, really cool. I liked the final duel between Sartana and Lasky, it was suspenseful and quite dramatic, also look out for the scene in which a group of guys chase Lasky into the countryside and enter a building rigged with Dynamite which Lasky shoots, causing the building to explode and there's a really funny scene where Sartana sets a trap for one of the bad guys, causing the latter to go flying out of a window, which really made me laugh. I was extremely impressed with the film's action scenes and thoroughly enjoyed watching them.

As I said earlier, the film has a very bondian feel to it in terms of the character of Sartana, who is sort of similar to James Bond. Just like Bond, Sartana is very sharp witted and makes a lot of smart jibes and remarks, you gotta love his first line at the beginning of the film before he shoots 6 guys, "I am your pallbearer". I really like the character of Sartana and he's played brilliantly by Gianni Garko, forget George Hilton or anyone else,Garko is the man and he succeeds fully in creating a really cool and likable Spaghetti Western anti-hero, he is a pleasure to watch. William Berger is also excellent as the double crossing Lasky and a more restrained Klaus Kinski is great as his silent partner, other Spaghetti veteran Fernando Sancho wonderfully plays the brutal bandit leader. Aside from Sartana though, my favourite character is probably the old man,Dusty,a coffin maker who helps Sartana, he's really funny and has some of the best lines. He appears in the other Sartana films alongside Garko, he reminds me of Walter Brennan who appeared as the same type of characters in dozens of American westerns.

The only thing I didn't like was the soundtrack which in my opinion was very poorly done, the storyline was good but it got a little confused at times as the characters are constantly double crossing each other and at times I didn't know who was double crossing you or why they're doing it.But the first entry in the Sartana series ranks among the best Spaghetti Westerns and I really enjoyed it, I have only seen one other Sartana film, LIGHT THE FUSE,SARTANA IS COMING(1970)and I would say that this film is just as great as the latter and is on a par with it.Fun,enjoyable and highly reccommened.9/10.

Shrewd and lethal ace gunslinger Sartana (a fine and commanding performance by Gianni Garko) goes after the dangerous band of thieves who held up a stagecoach for a fortune in gold. Sartana engages in a deadly battle of its with the equally crafty and ruthless Lasky (splendidly played to the wicked hilt by William Berger), a total bastard who's willing to do anything necessary (including killing his own men!) to have exclusive dibs on the booty. Director Gianfranco Paulini, who also co-wrote the convoluted script with Werner Hauff and Renato Izzo, relates the complex and compelling story of greed, deceit, and treachery at a constant snappy pace, stages the plentiful thrilling shoot-outs with considerable skill and brio, maintains an appropriately tough and gritty tone throughout, and tops everything off with a nice sense of amusingly sardonic humor. Moreover, there's a marvelously grotesque rogues' gallery of no-count villains: the always terrific Fernando Sancho as wicked bandit Jose Manuel Mendoza, Sydney Chaplin as shifty banker Jeff Stewal, Gianni Rizzo as gross fat creep Alman, Heidi Fischer as the fetching, but duplicitous Evelyn, and, in a regrettably brief role, the immortal Klaus Kinski as Lasky's icy henchman Morgan. Frank Pesce delivers a delightfully spry turn as rascally old coot undertaker Dusty. The tricky narrative keeps you on your toes with all its surprising twists and turns and culminates in a tense and exciting final confrontation between Sartana and Lasky. Both Sandro Mancori's expansive widescreen cinematography and Piero Piccioni's jaunty'n'groovy score are up to speed. An enjoyable film.