I am Sartana, your Angel of Death Review
I am Sartana, your Angel of Death (Sono Sartana, il vostro becchino)
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| I AM SARTANA, YOUR ANGEL OF DEATH (1969) |
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Our bounty hunters are the best! With these words, the North Western Bank tries to convince its clients that their money is save. When a bank is secured with the help of bounty hunters, it takes a special man to rob it: Sartana!
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In an ambiguous and outrageous opening scene, we witness the robbery of this bank that is thought to be impenetrable. The gang members wear the same clothes as the bounty hunters hired to defend it, and their leader, dressed in a cloak, pretends to enter the bank to collect the reward for an outlaw he has killed. Is this leader really Sartana ? Of course he isn’t, he’s only dressed like him, but the hoax is so effective that a reward is put on his head and he is soon chased by some of his former fellow bounty hunters, among them Klaus Kinsky and Gordon Mitchell. Alarmed, Sartana starts investigating the case with the help of a friend, a man with a dubious background called Buddy Ben (Frank Wolff). The trail leads them to the City of Poker Falls, where the gambling business is flourishing and crime is rampant …
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Apart from Alberto Cardone’s Blood at Sundown, in which Garko plays a villain called Sartana, this the second Sartana movie, following Gianfranco Parolini’s If you meet Sartana, pray for your Death Parolini was asked to direct the film first, but Carnimeo took over after Parolini had stepped back after a series of conflicts with the producers Aldo Addobbati and Paolo Moffa. As a result Garko got even more room to fill in his character. Instead of the spectral gunman from the first movie, Sartana is a more Houdini like illusionist here, still lethal, but a bit more down to earth. As usual the script is as tortuous as a footpath through the jungle, and even the most attentive viewers risk to get lost in the twists and turns.
The film seems to divide fans of the series. It’s rather episodic, especially during the first half, leading to some sluggishness, and Giovanni Bergamini’s show-off camerawork is a bit too obtrusive. Some fans didn’t like the idea of Sartana having an assistant, but of all Sartana movies this one is closest to a genuine detective story, and Carnimeo and his scriptwriters must have concluded that a true detective inevitably has his assistant: Holmes had Watson, Poirot had Hastings, so Sartana got Buddy Ben. Anyway, they’re a fine couple, gentleman Gianni and down-and-out Frank. If Sartana would likely be welcomed in the world of Jane Austen, Buddy Ben’s seems to be more at home in the miserable world of a Dickensian poorhouse. The costume design is quite impressive here. Kinsky might not be at his very best, but he’s still fun as a bounty hunter addicted to gambling, who interrupts a game of cards to shoot some bandits: with the price on their heads, he can pay his gambling debts. Mitchell’s part, on the other hand, is too short to make a lasting impression. The score by Vasco (Vassili Kojucharov) & (Elsio) Mancuso is okay, without being particularly distinguished.
I am Sartana, your Angel of Death still has some of the ferocious violence and sinister atmosphere of Parolini’s movie, but the depiction of Poker Falls as a 19th Century Atlantic City and the idea of a bank hiring a group of killers who pro-actively (!) track down wanted men to avoid possible robberies, indicate the burlesque, gimmick-ridden way the genre soon was to take. It is only a small step from Sartana’s shooting toy – the small Derringer that has both a cylinder and four shooting barrels – to the firing organs and sewing machines from Carnimeo’s later movies, or Terence Hill’s ultra-swift drawing of his gun, that can’t even be recorded correctly by the camera.
Reviewed version: Best Entertainment (German). The DVD is called Sartana, töten war sein täglich Brot, a very nice title, meaning Sartana, killing was his daily bread (maybe he wouldn't have been welcomed in the world of Jane Austen after all). The film is presented in its correct ratio, but is not anamorphically enhanced for widescreen TVs. Image quality still is pretty good; there’s some minor print damage, but colours are vivid and contrast rates are more than acceptable, even in the darker scenes. Audio comes in two languages, German and Italian, both DD 5.1. Both soundtracks are strong but not free from interferences, especially the German one. It’s not easy to choose between the two tracks: on the German track dialogue is loud and clear, but the music often sounds very shrill. The Italian audio seems alright at first, but it has some relapses, in which dialogue becomes rather hard to follow; it also seems a bit more clinical and less clear overall. The score, on the other hand, sounds much better than on the German track.
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The SARTANA series:
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--By Scherpschutter
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