Ultra-cautious storekeeper Cameron Mitchell uses his reputation as an unarmed near-pacifist to cover up his activities as an infamous, leather-clad, masked gunman, taking on a nasty bunch of outlaws who've taken over the local saloon and targeted the family of his favorite girl.This earlier-than-most spaghetti western is fairly colorful (both figuratively and literally), with some interesting villains. Carl Möhner is a standout as the gang's morally ambiguous, guitar-strumming newest member. A few more familiar European faces and the perverse (for 1964), sexually threatening atmosphere also help keep things mildly interesting.Though nowhere near the bottom of the barrel, a few complaints are that the masked superhero aspect of the film is woefully underused and that his identity is as plain as the nose on your face. Mitchell fared much better the following year in Sergio Corbucci's Minnesota Clay.Still, it's pleasant enough viewing for hardcore spaghetti fans.

The fact that Cameron Mitchell is in this movie should give you a warning as to what is to come. If not, let me put it bluntly - this is a TERRIBLE western! Though made in the same year as "A Fistful Of Dollars", this probably came first - if the makers of this movie had seen that movie, they probably would have given their plans a major overhaul. As it is, this movie seems to be trying to capture the feel and style of American westerns made in the '50s, but totally botches it. It has a sterile feeling to it, with scenes playing like loose dress rehearsals instead of having any kind of strong feeling. Most of the movie is just boring talk, and while the few action scenes have a few unintended chuckles (like a woman being molested protesting blandly due to the rotten dubbing), they are at best dull and mechanical. Even the music score, which it typically great in a Euro western like this, is unmemorable!

I've seen a lot of westerns, but I've seen few like this one. At first I thought it was a comedy or a parody. It starts off with what has to be the most mind-numbingly awful "theme" song in motion picture history by an off-key singer who stumbles over his words, actually loses his place once--why they didn't just re-record it is beyond me--and not a single line of this opus rhymes. Then a short, chubby, beer-bellied "gunslinger" standing on top of a large boulder calls out some guy walking his horse (!), gets shot for his trouble, slides down the boulder, and in the next shot his body is lying at least 25 feet from it--and it's on flat land! Then, although I didn't think it was possible, the film goes downhill from there. Everybody laughs hysterically all through the movie: the bad guys, the saloon girls, and especially the leader of the bad guys, who has apparently ingested a year's supply of laughing gas because he can't stop roaring with laughter, even as he's shooting everybody within eyesight--civilians, cowboys he meets on the trail, women he's just raped, his own men . . . you name 'em, this guy shoots 'em. And, of course, he does so without reloading his pistol; at one point he fires at least 12 rounds in a row from a six-shot revolver. What's even more hysterical is that he's wearing a hat that is at least two sizes too small for him. It was only after about 15 minutes of watching this atrocity that it finally sunk in that this was NOT a parody or a comedy. The people who made this stinkeroo actually thought they were making a "serious" western. Amazing.Another curious thing about this movie is the dubbing. We all know that the English dubbing of Italian movies of the time, whether westerns or Hercules-type epics, was atrocious beyond belief, and this one carries on that noble tradition. But even star Cameron Mitchell's voice is dubbed, and not by Mitchell, which is very odd. What's even odder is that Mitchell is obviously speaking English but the English lines the dubber speaks don't match Mitchell's lip movements, which makes no sense at all. But neither does anything else in this relentlessly stupid, senseless idiocy (wait until you get a load of the "masked avenger" who shows up about a quarter of the way through this thing). The "action" scenes are laughable, the cinematography is terrible--it looks like it was shot on an 8mm home movie camera--the "script" is something even Ed Wood would have been too embarrassed to put his name on, the "acting" wouldn't pass muster in a one-day-wonder porn flick. In other words, this movie is not only worthless, it's BEYOND worthless. Shoving your head into a drill press wouldn't be as painful as having to sit through this thing. Don't waste your time.

This is a fairly decent example of one of the early Italian westerns. It was made before the Leone influence began to dominate, but it still has an unmistakably Euro-western feel to it.The music score is actually pretty good. It has enough cool sounding guitar and organ notes to set it apart from the boring music found in most American westerns. The cheesy dubbing is also here in full force. The movie made me chuckle a few times, which is always a plus, whether the humor is intentional or not.This is a standard good guys vs. bad guys story with a lone ranger-like lead character named Jim Hart, played adequately by Cameron Mitchell. Hart's friend, the man called Guitar, is actually more like the typical spaghetti western protagonist. Neither good nor bad, Guitar is simply out for his own good time. Kitty Carver is stunning as Dolores, the feisty barmaid who becomes Guitar's girlfriend. She has that incredible exotic beauty that so many female spaghetti western characters possess. Livio Lorenzon is entertaining as Jess, the cheesy, over the top villain who keeps laughing through the whole movie, even while he is dying in the finale! It is possible that this film may have been trying to be an American western, but, thankfully, it did not succeed. It's much more entertaining just the way it is. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, but if you're a die-hard spaghetti western fan who doesn't take things too seriously, this one's worth a watch.