Lee Van Cleef plays King, the leader of a gang who robs a bank but quickly loses the money to Alicia (Lollobrigida) who marries him and has him sent to a lunatic asylum. Much later, King gets the gang back together again to go after her. She has meanwhile married Montero (James Mason) and made a new plan to steal even more money. King and his companions meet her on a steamship, like the sound of 'million' and decide to postpone their revenge..."Bad Man's River" has got an excellent cast (Fajardo as a general, Sambrell as a bandit, Garko as a gunman are in supporting roles), and it surely has some great dialog worth quoting, such as Van Cleef/Lollobrigida on their first meeting: "What do you look for most on a man?" - "Honesty." - "Umm... second?", Van Cleef tries again. Or when Alicia reminds both men she's married to: "You should be friends, you've got a lot in common - me!" I think I watched this movie at least 5 times by now, on British TV, German DVD and Italian DVD. Unfortunately, on neither DVD release the picture format was correct, clearly cut on the right and left and the quality was rather grainy, so the perfect remaster is something I still wait for. I always thought of "Bad Man's River" as very entertaining despite its little flaws, and I'm rather surprised at the mostly negative other reviews here. It's neither a typical European western of the time in its tone nor as well directed as American comedies ('Cat Ballou', for example), maybe somewhat unluckily caught in the middle.

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.

Not really a spaghetti western; as well as Italy it was financed by Spain and France. It's meant to be a comedy western, MEANT to be; it has a handful of funny lines and a bizarre accent from James Mason. It's a complete mystery to me why he and Lee Van Cleef bothered to appear in this. Put simply, the film is boring - the characters are cardboard and the actors look like they'd be having more fun watching paint dry. The plot is clichéd and contrived, and difficult to follow. The freeze-frames at the beginning are just plain stupid. Beautiful as Gina Lollobrigida is, she just can't carry the film alone. Eugenio Martin really hasn't got an excuse for rearing such a turkey here, as the following year, he [the director] went on to make the far superior horror classic "Horror Express".And now, the plot: Roy King (Van Cleef) and his bank-robbing gang get caught up in a plan by his ex-wife and her new husband (James Mason) to steal $1 million from the Mexican government. But the group are captured and sent to a rebel stronghold. Besieged and under fire from the Mexican army, the rebel general is forced to offer King and his gang freedom if they can pull the rebel side through. And I only know that basic outline 'cause it's given in a slightly more in depth form on the packaging...Like I say, "Bad Man's River" is unquestionably awful. It's simply not even worth seeing as a curiosity piece. I bought it in a 2 for £10 sale and now consider that to have been a waste of money. Some people say that for the sake of top billing, Lee Van Cleef appeared in some real stinkers. This time, I'm inclined to agree.

I have seen this film in a double feature together with SABATA and it fell clearly short in comparison with the latter. The cast is good(Van Cleef, James Mason, Eduardo Fajardo and Gina Lollobrigida) and the "sets"(e.g. a riverboat) are somewhat original. But the score is mostly annoying and the story was unable to really involve me(Don't ask me intensely about the plot!). The Comedy is often fast paced and sometimes mildly funny.For people who like the country/pop/rock score, however, things might look certainly different. 3 / 10.