Torrez Gordon needs new blood for his gang of outlaws, so he breaks into a prison to brand the inmates with the 'S' of the Scorpion gang. You gotta love the way these Italian stunt men spin around when they are shot. Some of them even got their horses doing it! Only one man refuses to join Gordon's gang: a clean cut dandy who calls himself Arizona Colt, after the state and the pistol.
This is not your usual Spaghetti Western. The man with no name never cared about his appearance. Arizona however, hides in his underwear, hanging upside down from a tree to take another outlaw's outfit, all to keep his precious suit clean! The score is also more American in nature than usual: very brassy and with the occasional comic banjo thrown in for good measure.
Colt is off to Blackstone Hill where we are introduced to a lot of supporting characters that have little to add to the picture. Dolores, who work in a bar full of men, is killed by a drunk in the barn before the audience gets a change to care about her. When her father asks Arizona to go after the killer, he not only demands money in return but the other daughter, Jane too (so he isn't a total fruitcake after all). Jane does not object either, since this is the only guy in town who knows what a bathtub looks like. He's so clean his teeth shine in the dark.
It gets even sillier when the Scorpion gang stumbles upon a gang of singing cowboys. The scene starts of quite amusing, with Gordon's right hand man Big Whiskey smelling out each person's valuables. But when the gang leader pulls out his golden pocket watch (don't they always?) and starts shooting all of these Gene Autry's in the back, Whiskey is not amused. He eventually teams up with Arizona, who has failed his mission in order to learn the usual lesion in humility.
While he is recuperating in an abandoned church, Jane comes begging for his help again. It seems Gordon is now holding the entire town hostage. Luckily Whiskey is an explosives expert and the two of them decide to take on all the Scorpions. Ever the showoff, Arizona kills each one of them in a different way, making use of household objects like rocking chairs and of course his acrobatics. In the sequel, "Arizona si scatenò... e li fece fuori tutti" (1970), the much dirtier Anthony Steffen took over the lead from Giuliano Gemma.
5 out of 10
