$100,000 for Ringo Review

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This was one of the most successful films of the early days of the genre and yet it’s gone and almost completely forgotten. Six westerns from 1965 made more than one billion lire at the Italian box-office, Leone’s For a Few Dollars more, four (!) movies starring Giuliano Gemma, and this one. In Italy alone more than five million people bought a ticket to see it. The Ringo movies had not only made a star out of former stuntman Giuliano Gemma, but also lent bankability to the name of Ringo. It was the second magical word (following ‘dollar’) and the first of a series of names (preceding Django, Sartana and Trinity) that would pop up over and over again in film titles. Richard Harrison enters the movie on the tones of Don Powel singing Ringo dove vai?, but the name isn’t mentioned in the movie. The original title was Tre per il Texas (Thee for Texas) and it’s clear that the project was retitled to cash in on the popularity of name Ringo.

Basically this was an Italian production. It was produced by Edmonto Amati for Fida Cinematografica, and the Spaniards only were there for the locations, the stuntmen and … Fernando Sancho. Amato absolutely wanted Sancho, whose appearances in the Ringo movies had made him very popular in Italy (1). His part as a shady lawman (is he really a deputy?) is a bit puzzling, but as we shall see, that’s not a bad thing in this particular case. Director Alberto de Martino was probably chosen because he was a friend of Leone; he had done several peplums, but had only been involved in one western production, the obscure The Heroes of Fort Worth. Harrison had been the star of two of his peplum movies, but had also been in Duello nel Texas (1963), that crucial first western production of Jolly Films and the infamous Papi & Colombo, who would change the history of film making with their second western (and some help of a Sergio, a Clint and an Ennio).

How can a film as successful as this one become so obscure? Well, maybe because it’s not very good, to put it mildly. The film opens with a rather bizarre scene, in which a woman, transporting a baby in a saddle bag, is persecuted by Indians. At one point she sends the horse and the baby forward, and decides to fight it out with the persecutors. She is soon surrounded by them, but then, all of a sudden, the Indians are shot in the back by a white man who subsequently … kills the woman with a spear. The scene could have been great, but as it is, it’s above all confusing. The woman and the baby were the wife and son of a man called Ward Cluster, a former resident of the valley, who is believed to be killed in the Civil war. When Harrison rides into the valley (in true Shane style) he is mistaken for Cluster, so people think he has returned to get even with the evil Cherry brothers. Even the kid from the opening scene – raised by the Indians – thinks Harrison is his father. Every time the kid appears on screen, Luis Bacalov’s score becomes plaintiff and mellow. Kids and spaghettis ...

Harrison keeps his shirt on throughout the movie, even when he’s whipped (probably because his upper body was thought to be too muscular for a western hero). Main villain Massimo Serrato (he used the pseudonym of John Barracuda!) is modeled after Gian Maria Volonté’s Ramon Rojo from Per un pugno di dollari|A Fistful of Dollars: he’s the most dangerous of three brothers, he doing some dirty business with the Mexican army, and he desperately loves somebody else’s wife. The Holy Family isn’t very virtuous in this case: the man is a drunkard and the woman has a dubious reputation. Their fate is pitiful.

What is surprising, is the total absence of style, especially compared to Di Martino next western, Django Shoots First. Amati wanted Spanish stuntmen because they were cheaper than the Italian ones, and apparently hired dozens of them. He shot a couple of large-scale action scenes with them, that were new within the genre. They’re dressed like Mexicans, Indians, others, and ride and run around, fall from great heights, jump over cliffs and obstacles, and it all looks terribly speeded up and utterly stupid. Harrison looks as if he’d rather pull off his shirt and knock everybody out in Hercules style, but he and Sancho play well together, and Sancho’s shady character provides the movie with the most interesting storyline: will this man turn out to be a good or a bad guy in the end?

-- By Scherpschutter