There's considerable amount of money behind this production, so the look of it is very good. It includes some interesting appearances by Gilbert Roland, Eddie Burns, and a brief cameo at the beginning by Christopher Lee. There are a few exciting gunfights, and a humorous bit or two - the satire on Django, the Man with No Name, and Sabata is amusing, especially when they are given the names of failed presidents of the Mexico revolution.The trouble is, there isn't any purpose in satirizing the Spaghetti Western as is attempted here. The key element in the Spaghettis is IRONY, which easily blends into comedy; in fact the source of all Spaghetti's is Kurosawa's Yojimbo, which is universally recognized as one of the great black comedies of all time, and most Spaghettis easily slipped over the edge into real comedy of a very sophisticated variety. Perhaps the best evidence of this is found in the Trinity films, which are both openly Spaghettis and openly slap-stick comedy. So why bother satirizing a genre that - by its very nature - satirizes itself? Consequently, I found the whole enterprise essentially unconvincing. None of these characters were people I would ever care about, the story was generically cliché, and the production values only reflected the money involved, not the passion of the director. Over all, a banal and futile effort to cash in on the phenomenon it mocks.

Unlike the other spaghetti Westerns, this one has characters that almost make sense, and can be identified to some degree. It still has the goofy gunplay of other spaghettis Westerns. A spaghetti, by the way, is another word for a Western with no plot, no characters you can care about, and goofy gunplay that doesn't make a bit of sense for the era, and relying on great music to make audiences feel something. This one is more lighthearted, like the ones that Bud Spencer and Terence Hill made together. They, too, were superior to the junk made by Eastwood and others, which sado-masochists make their friends watch, if they get a chance. It looks like everyone had a lot of fun making the movie, too. It was good to see a giant actor like Gilbert Roland, who wasn't even mentioned on the movie rental box, yet who was clearly the biggest name. His character was very enjoyable. There is a three way standoff at the end, which is much superior to the one it spoofs (The Good the Bad and the Ugly), simply because the characters are at least a bit likable and a bit identifiable. Not a good movie, but has a bit of fun to it.

ANY GUN CAN PLAY (2 outta 5 stars) Totally routine "spaghetti western" starring that guy who used to play "Kookie" on "77 Sunset Strip". The plot is some convoluted nonsense about some stolen gold coins and various gunmen of dubious motivation trying to track it down. This is one of those "lighthearted" westerns... which means lots of labored attempts at "comedy"... and some really atrocious music during most of the action sequences (you can tell this isn't Ennio Morricone's work). George Hilton plays a bounty hunter called "Stranger"... but he doesn't leave much of an impression... he just doesn't have the style of Clint Eastwood or Franco Nero, who are able to do a lot with a sparsely-written character. The ending is a complete homage/parody of the ending of "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly"... though it's barely amusing enough to be considered a "parody". The highlight of the movie is the first 5 minutes... which features actors patterned after Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and someone else (Is he supposed to be Eli Wallach? Franco Nero? It's not very clear...) who are confronted by Stranger. It's an amusing in-joke for fans of Sergio Leone fans and spaghetti western aficionados... but I imagine no one else would see the point.

I watched this today after not having seen it since it was released in 1968. It was a lot of fun, but admittedly it is not the equal of the Sergio Leone works, or even those of Sergio Corbucci - although both are spoofed here.In the opening scene we see a trio that has two resembling Eastwood and Van Cleef's characters in FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE and another who is clearly based on Franco Nero's Django. Clearly here Castellari is letting us know that he's going to have some fun at the expense of what had preceded him in the spaghetti western canon. George Hilton's bounty killer dispatches these three and we're informed that his next target is Monetero, played by veteran Gilbert Roland, then in his early 60s and still the epitome of machismo elegance. At this point he had been in the business for 40 years, and with the slightest of gestures, blows away his younger cast mates.Monetero and his gang rob a gold shipment from a train loaded with the cavalry as well as Edd Byrnes playing a bank employee. Kookie, Kookie, lend me some money. His gang gets away with the loot, but the money gets away from Monetero. The bank man is after Monetero for the gold shipment, Hilton's character ("They call me the Stranger" - a nod to Tony Anthony's films?) is after him for the reward, and the rest of the film play out a series of crosses and double-crosses, all with a fair dose of humor. The film even anticipates some of the later spaghetti westerns - particularly Gianfranco Parolini's "Sabata" films which also relied heavily on circus-styled gymnastics. Byrnes' character Clayton gets into some Faibanksian-styled gymnastics fights with both Hilton and later about six members of Monetero's gang, and then later both Byrnes and Hilton take on many of the same gang in a bathhouse.None of this is to be taken any more seriously than Terence Hill's antics in MY NAME IS NOBODY, it's probably just that this early in the game, it wasn't obvious that it was a spoof as the sub-genre was barely around for four years. A scene where Hilton and an insurance man spot each other through binoculars tips its hat to a similar scene in FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE, and the overall tale of three men and the search for hidden gold is obviously based on THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY. But the best homage comes at the end, a face-off among the three main characters that satirizes the similar scene in the latter film. Only the music fails to make the point here, whereas in other scenes the score is appropriate - as long as one keeps in mind that this is just an affectionate spoof, and on its own, it is an appealing film. The leads are more than capable - although the looping is often flat, and the production design quite attractive. Even at 105 minutes, the film moves quickly and never runs out of steam.