ONE DAMNED DAY AT DAWN...DJANGO MEETS SARTANA! would have you believe it chronicles a meeting between those two icons of spaghetti western cinema, yet, as with so many others, the title is a misnomer and the names seem to have been added in post-production. That's particularly true in the case of Sartana (Fabio Testi), a rather weak and weedy sheriff who finds himself at the mercy of a criminal gang in this movie. At least Django is clad in black and thus looks the part...This middling western involves the usual clichéd gang of criminals wreaking havoc in a western town and bumping off anybody who gets in their way. When Sartana arrives in town to clean things up he finds himself with his hands full, so the silent and brooding Django steps in to help out. ONE DAMNED DAY AT DAWN... is full of action, but none of it is particularly impressive, with non-existent choreography and a whole lot of familiarity in the events that play out. The storyline is straightforward at best.Jack Betts (under the pseudonym Hunt Powers) successfully conveys Django's brooding persona, but Fabio Testi is a disappointment in this. His character is irritating and he only comes into his own at the climax. None of the others in the cast stand out. Director Demofilo Fidani made a career in cut-rate westerns but I suspect most of them are of second-rate quality, like this. Only a few scenes, like the bit with the arm wrestling and the candles, are memorable.

The idea of a spaghetti western uniting the genre icons of Django and Sartana could have been really great, but this movie screws it up in every way you can think of. While there is a character named "Django" in the movie, the other lead character is not named "Sartana". Needless to say, this Django does not carry a machine gun, and the other character does not have a box of tricks with him. I was prepared to still enjoy the western despite this deception, but boy, did I find it a long and hard slog. It's really boring, with scenes going by at a slow and endless pace. Even the sporadic action (gunfights, fisticuffs) doesn't manage to liven things up. In fairness, the movie is directed with a little atmosphere and a little grit, but this doesn't manage to make this worth watching, even if you are a spaghetti western fan.

The small desert town called Black City is besieged by a brutal band of bandits led by the villain Bud Willer (Dean Stratford) and ruthless Mexican called Paco Sanchez (Benito Pacifico). The gang holds up the Tombstone bank and flees with his loot . Earnest Jack Ronson/Sartana (Fabio Testi) arrives in town to establish law and order . Mysterious bounty hunter named Django (Jack Betts or Hunt Powers) helps Sartana out. They also help Peter's Widow (Simonetta Vitelli or Blondell , Demofilo Fidani's daughter and starred several films of his father) who was murdered by a gang of vicious outlaws . As astute Django and an inexperienced Sheriff join forces to terminate a reign of terror carried out by a brutal band of criminals . But shrewd bounty hunter Django imprisons Sartana and after that , mysterious Django faces off a duel against the crazed Bud and then the Mexican Sanchez seeks vendetta . Stubborn and cunning Django along with saintly roving gunslinger Sartana take on Sanchez .This below-average Ravioli Western packs thrills , action , brawls , crossfire and drags at times , balancing in ups and downs . The movie has the typical Spaghetti characters , as the violent facing , greedy antiheroes, bloody and spectacular showdowns, quick zooms , extreme baddies but being wretchedly directed . Here unite forces two mysterious heroes from Spaghetti Western : Sartana and Django , their history is the following : The first movie on Sartana as an avenger hero was by Frank Kramer (Gianfranco Parolini) interpreted by John Garco or Gianni Garco or Gary Hudson , besides it was starred by Klaus Kinski and William Berger . As always , the mythic personage appears elegant and dressed in black and with a killer look . After being continued by Alfonso Balcazar ¨Sartana non perdona or Sonora¨with Jorge Martin and Gilbert Roland . Miles Deem directed two Sartanas which are considered awful . Anthony Ascott (Giuliano Carmineo) realized several movies with George Hilton who replaces to Garco . Hilton plays more natural and roguish than Garco who was cold and peculiar . Garco starred various Sartanas with Carmineo as ¨¨Sartana the gravedigger'(69) , ¨Light the fuse Sartana is coming¨(71), among others.After successful original ¨Django¨ by Sergio Corbucci with Franco Nero , it was followed by several imitations , rip offs and cheesy copies , such as : ¨Pochi dollar per Django¨ or ¨Alambradas De Violencia¨ (1966) by Leon Klimowsky starred by Anthony Steffen , Gloria Osuna , Frank Wolff ; ¨El Mio Nome e Django¨ (1969) by Ferdinando Baldi with Terence Hill , Horst Frank , George Eastman ; ¨Django Le Bastard¨(1969) by Sergio Garrone with Anthony Steffen , Paolo Gozlino ; ¨¨Django defies Sartana¨(1969) by Pasquale Squitieri with George Ardisson and Tony Kendall ; ¨Ein Pressen Fur Django¨ or ¨Barro en Ojos¨(1971) by Edoardo Mulargia with Anthony Steffen ; and the official sequel titled ¨Il Grande Ritorno¨(1987) by Nello Rossati with Franco Nero , Christopher Connolly and Donald Pleasence .The picture was lousily directed by Demofilo Fidani or Miles Deem , considered to be the "Ed Wood of Spaghetti Western" and husband of Mila Vitelli Valenza ,a professional costume designer and father of actress Simonetta Vitelli , both of whom worked in various films of Demofilo . Fidani directed all kind of genres in low budget and exploitation pictures . He eventually had more pseudonyms than any working director in the world , similarly to Bruno Mattei . He followed shooting these taboo-breaking films with excursions into porno film , adventure , as ¨Karzan, Jungle Lord" and specially , Spaghetti as ¨Django and Sartana's Showdown in the West" , ¨Giù la Testa¨, "Sartana, the Invincible Gunman" , ¨El Sartana... l'Ombre Ta Mort¨, among others .

Shooting, killing, and name-dropping galore sums up what director & producer Demofilo Fidani's "One Damned Day At Dawn . . . Django Meets Sartana" (1970) does best. Hardcore Italian western fans will relish this non-stop, colorful, no-holds-barred orgy of gunplay and violence jammed into ninety bullet-blasting minutes. What "One Damned Day" does worst is tell an imaginative, coherent story with memorable characters, but Fidani—known to most as Miles Deem—never lets the plot get in the way of the pistol-packing pyrotechnics. Meanwhile, "One Damned Day" qualifies as the most generic spaghetti western that I have ever seen. Specifically, our two brave heroes: Django and Sartana appear virtually alike in looks and wardrobe with little to distinguish them from each other. Meaning, Fidani—who made at least five other oaters featuring the same title characters fanning their six-guns--and his uncredited scenarist give us precious little to individualize them. First, any well-versed spaghetti western fan knows that Django in his seminal incarnation as Franco Nero in Sergio Corbucci landmark western violated all the rules of Euro-western heroes. He dragged a coffin concealing a machine gun. However, Jack Betts—a.k.a. Hunt Powers—resembles the typical Hollywood western hero on horseback with his fast Colt's .45 revolver that he can shoot with unerring accuracy. Second, handsome Fabio Testi is practically unrecognizable as Sartana and projects neither the charisma that South American actor George Hilton earlier brought to the role nor the grit that Gianni Garko invested in his turns as Sartana. Neither of our heroes have any tricks up their sleeves nor do they spout any clever dialogue. They just shoot, kill, and ride like blazes. In an early scene, a group of grateful Mexican peasants pay tribute to Sartana as a sympathetic hero because he convinced them to re-open an abandoned mine that—as it turns out—still yields a fortune in money for them to meet their immediate needs. In other words, were they not named either Django or Sartana, we wouldn't know them apart or individually from the hundreds of other swift-shooting six-gunners that populated the spaghetti western. The villain—outlaw killer Burt Willer—is played by Gordon Mitchell look-a-look Dino Strano, and director Demofilo Fidani gives him more characterization than anybody else in this dandy dustraiser. He constantly argues with himself in a mirror while he plays poker with his reflection, only to warn his own image that he had better not cheat at cards! Okay, it may be going artistically out on a limb to suggest that Sartana and Django represent mirror images of themselves competing with a villain who has his own split-personality. As for the American and Mexican outlaws that constitute Willer's gang, they all look the same in their Stetsons/sombreros, right-handed six-shooters, unkempt beards and uncut hair. Moreover, they are all slim, trim, and athletic as all get out. You won't find any pot-bellied Bud Spencer or Mario Brega types in this cast. The best that you can say about all these corpses in search of our heroes' bullets is that stunt coordinator Benito Pacifico—if he didn't perform all the gags—has trained them well as they pitch, whirl, tumble, and smash into furniture, walls, or desert scenery when they take their slugs and die. Interestingly, most of them fall forward rather than backwards, but they look terrific doing it. Late in the last act, Fidani pulls out even more stops by having them photographed in slow motion like something out of a Sam Peckinpah bloodbath.The craggy mountain and desert style scenery are as stunning in its raw beauty as the babes who impersonate the dance-hall mistresses in this standard-issue European oater that benefits from a superior as well as atmospheric music score by composer Coriolano Gori. Gori puts a lot of snazzy jazz in his score with just enough Ennio Morricone bits and pieces to pay homage to the master. Gori's score deserves to be preserved on a soundtrack or at least the title tune should make a compilation disc. Again, the absence of a scenarist is interesting because "One Damned Day" delivers the bulk of its plot in the opening scenes. Burt Willer and his gang of cutthroat gunslingers have stolen an overdue U.S. cavalry payroll, and Willer wants to ensure that his gunmen and he make it safely across the border by kidnapping a beautiful but feisty American girl from a nearby ranch. The father as well as the authorities want to stop Willer and company before they—the villains—hightail it across the border, so they raise the rewards on them and Sartana and Django show up to cut several more notches on their pistol grips of their six-guns. Indeed, this western winds up on a predictable note, but not before three-fourths of the cast bites the dust. If you're a Euro-western fan and you want to kill 90 minutes with gusto, "One Damned Day At Dawn" is ideal entertainment.