Hey Amigo ... You're Dead! Review

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Hey Amigo ... You're Dead !


The fourth and final spaghetti western by Paolo Bianchini, the director or I Want Him Dead and The Gatlin Gun. Made in 1970, it’s a late spaghetti western of the violent kind: there’s some comic relief, but there’s no slapstick comedy in the style of Trinity. Apart from a handful of scenes featuring Marco Zuanelli (who plays the part of the ebullient Mexican side-kick - called Loco! - in the style of Fernando Sancho) this is quite a moody film.

The inhabitants of a border town are taken hostage by a group of eight bandits, led by a man called Burnett, a sadistic murderer dressed like a gentleman. The bandits are waiting for the stagecoach to arrive in town and one of the townspeople, Dave ‘Doc’ Williams, a post officer, is forced to give them some assistance. When the robbery turns into a blood bath, Doc is blamed by the townspeople for what happened. To redeem himself, Doc takes up his guns and swears to track the murderers down, one by one ...


Hey Amigo ... sei Morto was made on a shoestring but Bianchini manages to give his movie an austere instead of a cheap look. The town scenes are particularly fine. Bianchini uses crisp editing and unusual angles to give the familiar locations a new look. The towns (De Laurentiis and Elios) look empty, creating an atmosphere of doom and desperation, as if to illustrate the slow decay of the genre. The script is not too complicated but there are a couple of nice twists. Doc Williams follows the bandits to a deserted mine and manages to eliminate them, but one of the gang members, the most perverted of the bunch, seems to have double-crossed his partners and ran off with the money. But when Doc catches up with him in a nearby town, it becomes clear that the man is not in possession of the money either. So what the hell happened?


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The characters are superficially drawn, but theyr're quite colorful and Preston’s ‘Doc’ Williams is an interesting type of western hero; he vaguely reminded me of the undaunted but tormented characters played by Randolph Scott in the Ranown Cycle, but gradually becomes more like the traditional spaghetti western anti-hero: the brutalities performed by the bandits in ‘his’ town, have turned the peaceful ‘Doc’ into a unforgiving man, endorsing the idea that blood calls for blood. The bandits are an assorted bunch of maniacs, Aldo Berti being a standout as a sexually deranged lunatic (what else?) and it’s nice to see another actor performing the Fernando Sancho Show. This guy Loco is quite a type. This is a nice low-budget spaghetti; it’s by no means great, but fans of the genre will find it easy to enjoy. Carlo Savina's score sounded familiar, but maybe that was just an idea.


BRIEF REVIEW

A late spaghetti western of the violent kind, made on a shoestring, but atmospheric, filmed with a sense of style. Wayde Preston is a peaceful post officer who turns into an unforgiving man after bandits have caused a massacre in his hometown.

Dir: Paolo Bianchini - Cast: Wayde Preston, Rik Battaglia, Marco Zuanelli, Aldo Berti, Anna Malsson, Lucio Zarini, Raf Baldassarre - Music: Carlo Savina

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--By Scherpschutter

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