Johnny Texas

1000 dollari sul nero / Blood at Sundown

December 18, 1966

Johnny has done twelve years for a crime he didn't commit. He returns to find that his brother Sartana is running runshod over the town. Johnny has also got to contend with the beautiful daughter of the man he supposedly killed. Sartana is fond of abusing Maneula and her dumb-mute brother.

'Now take a nice walk. It'll help you to think better.'

This is a dystopian setup, as I expect to find in a lot of spaghetti westerns. It's a town run by the criminal element. In this case, there's an alliance between an outright thug and a judge. State is indistinguishable from the underworld. The girl melts the heart of a bitter man. His transformation is reflected by the removal of an obscuring hat. The terrible state of society has been facilitated by the tacit approval of a maternal figure. We're all looking for a man to come out of the desert and restore order. In their own defense, the town's people are mostly pasive and useless for the longest time. Garko is effective at conveying the last days of a despot in his bunker.

Anthony Steffen's dubbed voice doesn't match the ultra-grizzled appearance of the character. The bad guys have their hideout in the ruins of an Aztec temple. One of the gang members, played by Sieghardt Rupp, in some shots looks like Timothy Carey. (I would have loved to have seen Timothy Carey in a spaghetti western, provided he did his own voice.) I dig the music by Michele Lacerenza.

'Very well. I love violence! What do you want?'

Alberto Cardone directed L'ira di Dio (1968.) Ernesto Gastaldi also wrote giallos like Your Vice is a Locked Room . .. and The Case of the Bloody Iris. Erika Blanc was in Kill, Baby, Kill (1966). Gianni Garko was no stranger to playing Sartana in films like I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death (1969.) (This predates all those films.) Carlo D'Angelo was in The Great Silence (1968). Roberto Miali was in something called Mole Men Against the Son of Hercules (1961.)

*** / *****