El pistolero de negro

I was sold when I saw Klaus Kinski on the poster artwork. Playing the title character too. Sadly in spite of that, he actually plays secondary to Fred Robsahm's rugged heroic cowboy, corrupt townsfolk judge and flamboyant dressed, evil cackling Mexican bandit brothers in this surprisingly ruthless, yet formulaic spaghetti western set in the town Tombstone?!

What starts with a loose string of story threads and characters eventually had Kinski's sly, scheming lawyer as the glue holding the (confounded and raggedly edited) plot together. It's rather a collected performance, although the intensity in his eyes is all on show emoting every lingering thought. However he doesn't get much to do on the action front. Unless you enjoy watching him read, glare down, creeping about, peering out of windows or behind red curtains with books always in hand. Books you say, yep books. Oh there's a catch. Think Django with his coffin... now how about Black Killer/James Webb with his books. Even one with a built in draw string. Kinski gets creative with his pistol handling, real creative on the quick draw and faultless with his aim. The problem... I just wish we had more of it. It's a small novelty, but this along with the wicked spaghetti flavoured music score made a lasting impression.

Many spaghetti westerns had absurd gimmicks that made them memorable while at the same time subverting the iconography of their traditional American counterparts. Perhaps most famously there was Django and his coffin, in Black Killer we have Klaus Kinski's lawyer with his guns disguised as books! Like a lot of the spaghetti western gimmicks it's simultaneously completely silly and very cool. On the whole though, its business as usual spaghetti western style in this movie. We have a lawless town called, perhaps unsurprisingly, Tombstone which is terrorised by a gang of Mexican bandits called somewhat improbably the O'Hara gang. A mysterious drifter called Burt who is adept with a fire-arm comes into town and is made new sheriff by the fearful locals. The bandits subsequently kill his brother and rape his sister-in-law, an Indian called Sarah. Burt and Sarah band together, with the help of Kinski's lawyer to get revenge.

To be honest, the story-telling is a little confused and messy in this one. And it can appear a lot more convoluted than it really should do. But it ultimately is a pretty straightforward violent western. The sexual violence is fairly unpleasant, while one of the unfortunate early sheriffs is shot several times and then killed with a knife. It was good to see the character of Sarah get in on the retribution though – a female Indian with deadly skills with a bow and arrow made for a pleasant contrast to the typical taciturn gunfighter anti-hero she teams up with. Kinski is good as always as the lawyer who we can only assume the film is named after. He is in a rare good(ish) guy role in this one. He is dubbed with a silly English accent though it has to be said which is quite distracting. All-in-all though, this is a pretty entertaining spaghetti western.

I'm a big fan of Spaghetti Westerns, but unfortunately; Black Killer really isn't one of the best. The thing that I like best about this type of film is the entertainment value; and that is where Black Killer unfortunately falls down. The film is likely to be a target for many because of the fact that it stars the great Klaus Kinski, and indeed the actor the helped to make The Great Silence such a pleasure puts in a decent performance amidst a somewhat tedious movie. The plot is all over the place, but seems to have something to do with Kinski's lawyer character (complete with gun concealing books) and a band of Mexicans. The atmosphere is gritty, and the film features a handful of fairly nasty scenes; although it's not nearly as action packed as some of the other Spaghetti Westerns released around the same time. You cant really expect coherency from seventies Spaghetti Westerns, of course, and it really wouldn't be a problem if director Carlo Croccolo had managed to make the action entertaining and the characters interesting; but unfortunately this didn't happen. The title refers to the fact that Kinski dresses in black and goes around killing people; but even this theme has been done better in other films (e.g. The Grand Dual). Overall, someone may get some enjoyment out of this; but in a genre populated by entertaining films; I can't recommend seeing this one.

This film features good performances by the Italian actresses Marina Malfatti and Tiziani Dini. Bizarrely, although Malfatti is correctly credited in several of the earlier reviews on IMDb, and is also correctly credited on Wkikpedia, the cast list for this title on IMDb has been changed (vandalised) within the last year or so to credit Malfatti's part to a little-known actress named Marina Rabissi. I attempted to correct this some months ago, but the change has not been made. Malfatti looks convincing as a Native American, but the weakest feature of this film is the 'brownface' make-up of some of the Italian actors playing the O'Hara brothers who are the villains of this movie.

A dark, gritty and to the bone nihilistic western, that is really fun to watch. By all means one of the cheaper spaghetti's. But it's blessed with many cool scenes of violence, strange dialog and good old sleazzzzz. There's more than one moment of unnecessary nudity here. Don't take it to seriously though cause it's just a fun ride, and nothing more. The white horse Burt Collins rides is said to be the same horse that gets loaded in Cat Ballou. The actor Fred Robsahm is actually from Norway and he's currently residing in a small town called Lillesand. He does a lot of the stunt work in this movie (not just he's own). Kinski is cool as the weird lawyer that has a strange habit of transforming he's law books into deadly weapons. Great soundtrack and some nice cinematography gives the film good atmosphere and it's well worth the watch. Available on DVD from xploitedcinema