Talk: Tony Anthony - A Stranger at Home

When I first saw "A Stranger in Town" it was the next Spaghetti western I saw after "A Fistful of Dollars". I thought Tony Anthony was maybe an alias for some Italian actor named Antonio Antonini. I didn't know who he was. Here was this little guy wearing a serape and getting the tar pounded out of him. A sure copy of The Man with No Name. The problem I had with the film was Clint came out of a cloud of dust to face Ramon and his gang head on. Sure he had an edge, an unseen iron breast plate, but he still walked down the middle of the street challenging his adversaries. Tony Anthony's "Stranger" was no No Man with No Name. He ran and hid from his foes and wasn't opposed to shooting one in the back or from a hidden gun under a table or any other trick he could use. This sure wasn't what I had hoped for in Italian westerns. I stopped going to see the genre and only saw Van Cleef and Leone westerns. It wasn't until 15 years later I got hooked on collecting the soundtracks that I revisted the genre and caught late night TV airings of some that made it into disrtribution in the U.S. I did go and see "Comin' At Ya!" at the theater and thought it was very good. I didn't care for the every ten minutes do something for a 3-D effect. The opening credits in the stable was fantastic because it was played straight. It wasn't until I interviewed Tony in the mid '90s that I understood his 'Stranger' character. He was a New York punk fighting like he would if he were in New York City. Then the back shooting taking advantage of situations made sense and I came away with a much better understanding of what he was trying to accomplish. Even "Get Mean" was an attempt to take the Stranger into other worlds and create a longer lasting character. Too bad I didn't understand it earlier because I missed a few Spaghetti's I would have loved to have seen on the big screen. -- Tom B.