Evengyny
Thanks for the memories!
Supelice
Dreadfully Boring
Yash Wade
Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.
Scott LeBrun
Lee Van Cleef, typically amusing, is cast as bandit Roy King, leader of a gang that also includes Angel Santos (Simon Andreu), Ed Pace (Gianni Garko), and Tom Odie (Jess Hahn). Roy makes the acquaintance of the devilish Alicia (Gina Lollobrigida), who's hatched a scheme with her fellow criminal Francisco Paco Montero to dupe the Mexican government out of a cool $1 million. But before that can happen, they fall into the clutches of revolutionaries (this tale takes place during the Mexican Revolution) and are forced to deal with them.As written by director Eugenio Martin ("Horror Express") and Hollywood veteran Philip Yordan ("Johnny Guitar", "El Cid"), this is a rather lightweight, forgettable Euro Western- comedy. While it's always nice to see the leading actors in anything, they've certainly been better utilized before and after. In the beginning, the movie is decidedly annoying, with too many dopey songs and Martin overdoing it on use of freeze frames. While it's appreciable that Martin and Yordan were going for irreverence, they make things just a little too silly.Adequate action sequences help, and the filmmaking is technically fairly slick. There are some fun gags, especially right at the start when two men are inside a bank vault.Lollobrigida and her co-star Diana Lorys are fine scenery attractions, and the former plays such a conniving character that she helps to keep things interesting. The movie doesn't really hit its stride until James Mason shows up. (For fans of the actor, be warned that almost an hour is over until he does.) It's a treat to see him in this kind of setting, and he gives the story a real shot in the arm.The exemplary cast of familiar faces also includes Aldo Sambrell, Lone Fleming, Eduardo Fajardo, and Sergio Fantoni.Admittedly, if one is looking for a Lee Van Cleef fix, they could do a lot better than this, but "Bad Man's River" delivers some undemanding fun for 92 minutes.Six out of 10.
julianfsmith
I would cheerfully watch a barrel of manure if it had Lee Van Cleef in
it. But I draw the line at this.By rights, films this bad should be hilarious. Yet this is anything
but. Why? Partly because it is SUPPOSED to be a comedy (did they decide
that before or after production - difficult to tell). But mostly
because there is no conviction. The over-riding production value is to
go through the motions and get the thing over with. Hence the appalling
score is unhingingly irritating and the "action" is so badly put
together with freeze frames and plot jumps that I assumed my DVD player
was playing up and I took the disk out to clean it. Sadly it didn't
help. An electric sander might have improved matters by making the
thing impossible to play. This film is drivel. Avoid.
arfdawg-1
Robber Roy King loses his wife, Alicia, to revolutionary Montero.Despite their rivalry they collaborate in an attempt to rob the Mexican government of one million dollars.Sort of a comedy spaghetti western.Lee Van Clef is wanted with an award on his head of a dollar. Wow.Directed like a TV movie. The print I saw was not wide screen.Nor was it pan and scan.That's right. It was swished.The title song will make your head explode.It's a very colorful movie. Just not so good.
MartinHafer
Wow, did the soundtrack for this film stink...and I mean STINK! Imagine if the same person who scored some of the old Rankin-Bass Christmas specials got together with a guy who produces elevator music--that's what the music from this film sounds like! The horrible lyrics and music are completely wrong for an Italian "Spaghetti Western"--and are about as far removed from the great Ennio Morricone (who scored all the greatest films of the genre) scores as you can get. It's full of weird Lawrence Welk-style singing, weird European rock and whatever else they felt like haphazardly chucking into it. And, sadly music is one of the biggest reasons you'd want to see one of these Italian westerns in the first place. Because of this, I nominate this film for the most god-awful soundtrack in film history. If there's a worse one, I'd love to hear about it! Another big reason to see the films is the incredibly tough characters and style. This film stars the meanest and scariest of the bad-men, Lee Van Cleef. Yet, inexplicably, they decided to make this one a bit of a comedy!!! Lee Van Cleef in a western comedy?! That makes about as much sense as Richard Nixon becoming one of the backup singers for Diana Ross!! Van Cleef should NEVER, EVER be in a comedy.The rest of the cast, apart from the no-name Italians who play most of the minor roles, is pretty odd as well. None other than James Mason co-stars (a guy who seemed totally out of place in the genre and sported a weird accent to say the least). And looking quite fetching, Italian star Gina Lollobrigida.So, at the outset, this film had some pretty substantial strikes against it. Could the rest of the film overcome this goofiness?! Well, not really. While there were a few good moments, too much emphasis on bad comedy that fell flat was the film's undoing. One of the worst scenes that was supposed to be funny was the scene where the bad guys came to talk to the Federale commander and then began throwing dynamite about--it was sloppy, impossible to believe and not the lest bit entertaining. Overall, a bad film that just didn't work, the plot never gels and is clearly among the least interesting Italian westerns I've ever seen. Thank you Eugenio Martin for putting the BAD in "Bad Man's River"!