Movielogr

Rating: 6 stars

Tags

Amazon Prime Italy Spaghetti Western bank robbery double cross

All movies seen on 08/23/2017

View on: IMDb | TMDb

The Road to Fort Alamo (1964)

Directed by Mario Bava

Western

Overview

A lone rider comes across a dying soldier, the victim of an Indian attack, who gives him a paper authorizing the payment of $150,000 to the U.S. Army. The rider gathers some colleagues who disguise themselves as soldiers and who take the paper to a bank. They get the money but a shoot-out occurs, an old woman is killed, and the gang acrimoniously splits up. Later some members of the gang meet up with some real U.S. Cavalry soldiers and together they must fight off new Indian attacks.

Length 79 minutes

Actors

Ken Clark | Jany Clair | Michel Lemoine | Adreina Paul | Alberto Cevenini | Antonio Gradoli | Gustavo De Nardo | Gérard Herter | Claudio Ruffini | Pietro Tordi

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Viewing Notes

Fortunate to have a non-horror Bava available on Amazon. Wondering if that was just a thing most directors had to do at the time, a western, since they were so popular. Amazon used to have a lot more Bava but I think with the addition of Shudder and other channels in their network they dropped them.

Interesting spaghetti western that clearly shows his hand in the work. Weird, maze-like stage sets amid on location wide shots and those colors. Very striking contrasts especially in the calvary blue and yellow against the mood lighting.

Seems to be an unwelcome trend on Amazon to find cut films this one being no exception; around 15min are trimmed from the listed runtime. My guess it that it was likely scenes of violence. There’s one edit when a sheriff is killed and it happens so suddenly off camera it seems like it was cut. Also with native american “Ozarks” attacking I’m sure some of those scenes were brutal.

At least the story is intact with Bava’s wild coloring and camera angles. This transfer also bounces back and forth between English and Italian w/subtitles. Probably not a complete English dub available any longer. Decent watch for Bava enthusiasts. Because of the Film Center series I’ve decided to watch his entire oeuvre where available.

Comments