"Sugar Colt" director Franco Giraldi's above-average Spaghetti western "A Minute to Pray, A Second to Die" is grim and cynical with a trio of Americans: Alex Cord, Arthur Kennedy, and Robert Ryan. Composer Carlo Rustichelli contributes an atmospheric score, and "Keoma" lenser Aiace Parolin makes everything look Euro-western cool. All the shots are perfectly composed with regard to the players on camera and the arena of action. Louis Garfinkle, who later provided the story for Oscar-winning Vietnam epic "The Deer Hunter," Ugo Liberatore of "The Tramplers," and Albert Band of "The Hellbenders" have written an exciting western about an outlaw, Clay McCord (Alex Cord), on the dodge. Bounty hunters flock after McCord and his partner Fred Duskin (Giampiero Albertini of "Commandos") and beat them at a mission. McCord knows Father Santana who runs the mission, and he is bringing him a bottle of whiskey. Two bounty hunters, Jesús María (Aldo Sambrell of "Navajo Joe") and Sein (Antonio Molino Rojo of "A Bullet for Sandoval"), kill the monk in cold blood. These bounty hunters are so bad that they remove the body from the head and stuff it into a bag rather than drag an entire corpse around with them. The bounty hunters try to ambush them. Sein masquerades as a priest, but Clay is too quick for them. He guns down Sein, and Fred takes care of Jesús. The fly in the ointment is that Clay suffers from tremors of the right arm, like the John Wayne character Cole Thornton did in Howard Hawks' "El Dorado." Clay takes refuge in the border town of Escondido. Incidentally, Escondido is run an imposed hombre named Krant (Mario Brega of "A Fistful of Dollars"), and he is no friend to McCord. The scene where Clay is walking with a bottle in his hand that casts the reflection of a desperado posed to shot him in the back with a rifle is neat. The story is peppered with flashbacks, and we learn how Clay turned into a swift-shooting, crack-shot of a gunslinger. Clay's poor ailing father is ridiculed and dragged unceremoniously through the streets while suffering a seizure. Clay snatches a six-gun and blasts away at the bastards.

I caught this for the first time a few nights ago on television. I expected to only tune in for a few minutes, but found myself intrigued by the movie. I ended up watching it all and found it surprisingly compelling. The acting by the three American leads was quite good, especially that of Alex Cord. He plays a gunslinger with quite a degree of vulnerability. Very different from how most of them are portrayed in westerns. He ended up in several situations where he was at the mercy of the bounty hunters. The final shootout between the three leads and the bad guys was very good, as was the scene where the doctor digs a bullet out of Clay McCord. Somewhat gruesome, but realistic. I must admit that, despite my initial misgivings at watching a "spaghetti western", I ended up enjoying this film quite a bit. I would recommend it to anyone who likes westerns.

The cast alone tells you this will be a notch above the usual Italian western. Veteran actors Robert Ryan and Arthur Kennedy team up with Alex Cord who, at the time, seemed on the verge of stardom. The result is a movie that's both off-beat and down-beat and yet it'll satisfy those who seek more from a western than just gunplay. Especially interesting here is the character played by Alex Cord. One expects the "hero" in these westerns to be taciturn and introspective, but "Clay McCord" is an extreme example and, surprisingly enough, he's often shone in a passive, even weak position. Much is made of the fact that he fears falling prey to the epileptic fits which immobilized his father, and in these moments of helplessness he's either at the mercy of those who wish to harm him or those who wish to help him. To emphasize his passivity, Clay McCord -- don't you love that name? -- is often shone stripped to the waist as if he were little more than an attractive plaything being put on display. There's even a strong masochistic streak in his nature, most in evidence when he's used as a punching bag by his enemies and then suspended by his wrists and left hanging above the middle of a street. Not only does he often fail to protect himself, but McCord is equally ineffective in protecting those around him. Nearly everyone who helps him is killed. While "A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die" is far from being a complete success, it has a depth and a tone which sets it apart and causes it to linger in the memory. It's also a good showcase for Alex Cord whose career tended to decline after this point following a few promising years in the mid-1960s. He must have been about 34 years old when he filmed this -- in his physical prime -- and the scene of him hanging by his wrists, bare-chested and sweaty, is a memorable piece of cinematic "beefcake."

I saw this movie over 20 years ago and had rather fond memories of it. Catching again on Cinemax this month, I realized how little discernment I had about films back then. This is an utterly ordinary spaghetti western, with absolutely nothing noteworthy about it. Script, direction, acting, photography are all a big blah. Stick with the Sergio Leone westerns!