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Clint Eastwood may be the most famous actor associated with Spaghetti Westerns, but there are many great films in the subgenre that don't feature him. Directors like Sergio Sollima and Gianfranco Parolini have made noteworthy contributions to the Spaghetti Western subgenre with their films Face to Face and ...If You Meet Sartana Pray For Your Death. Lee Van Cleef's work in Westerns extends beyond his roles alongside Clint Eastwood, as demonstrated in Death Rides A Horse and Day of Anger.

Clint Eastwood starred in the three most famous Spaghetti Westerns, yet some of the best movies in the subgenre didn't even feature the actor or his iconic Man With No Name character. Having origins as far back as the advent of filmmaking in Europe, the term Spaghetti Western refers to the slew of action films dramatizing the American West coming out of Italy, most notably from famed director Sergio Leone.

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By Fred Blosser

“Binge-watching” is a relatively recent addition to our vocabulary, thanks to 24/7 streaming TV channels, but the concept itself isn’t new. On summer weekends in the 1970s, drive-in theatres offered the same opportunity for immersing yourself in cheap, all-night entertainment. There, you’d binge not on multiple episodes of “Peacemaker” or “Walking Dead” but instead on their Disco-era equivalent: triple or quadruple features of B-Westerns, soft-core sex comedies starring ex-Playboy Centerfolds, Kung-fu imports, and populist vigilante dramas.

Back then, one film on the bill in scratchy, tinny celluloid might have been “God’s Gun,” starring Lee Van Cleef. In the 1976 Western, now available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber, an outlaw gang led by Sam Clayton (Jack Palance) sweeps into town, demolishes the saloon owned by pretty Jenny (Sybil Danning), and kills a man at the poker table. Jenny is furious when...

Guest reviewer Lee Broughton returns with more vintage Spaghetti Westerns. Prolific Italo western star Anthony Steffen shoots first in Alberto Cardone’s gothic vengeance drama Blood at Sundown, and plays the revenge game straight up in Mario Caiano’s A Coffin for the Sheriff. The double bill disc also features appearances by genre stalwarts Gianni Garko, Erika Blanc and Eduardo Fajardo.

A Coffin for the Sheriff & Blood at Sundown

DVD

Wild East Productions

Color / Street Date January 8, 2014 / 19.95

Starring: Anthony Steffen.

Directed by Alberto Cardone & Mario Caiano

Reviewed by Lee Broughton

Blood at Sundown

1966 / 2:35 widescreen / 104 min. / 1000 dollari sul nero /

Starring: Anthony Steffen, Gianni Garko, Erika Blanc, Carlo D’Angelo, Sieghardt Rupp, Angelica Ott, Roberto Miali, Daniela Igliozzi, Gianni Solaro, Franco Fantasia, Carla Calo.

Cinematography: Gino Santini

Film Editor: Romeo Ciatti

Art Director: Amadeo Mellone

Original Music: Michele Lacerenza

Written by Ernesto Gastaldi, Vittorio Salerno

Produced by Marlon Sirko

Directed by...

By Tim Greaves

It was arguably the success of A Fistful of Dollars that really set the ball rolling on the slew of shameless spaghetti western rip-offs and cash-ins that proliferated throughout the 1960s, as film-makers jostled to get a taste of the sauce and chow down on a cut of the rewards from what quickly became a very profitable arena in which to be operating.

Sartana rode into town a little later than popular gunslingers such as Sabata, Django and Ringo, but he made enough of an impression to warrant a number of official sequels – and several unofficial ones too. Just five legitimate Sartana films were lensed, with Gianni Garko (billed as John Garko) headlining in four of them and George Hilton just one. Cucumber cool antihero Sartana was notably more dapper than most of his mud-spattered box office rivals, a real snappy dresser in fact; with his black cape lined in red silk,...

The 5-Disc Blu-ray Set The Complete Sartana will be available July 3rd From Arrow Video

Clint Eastwood s Man with No Name spawned imitations, each providing their own twist on the Eastwood antihero, and each of them then subject to their own spate of unofficial sequels, spoofs and cash-ins.

Sartana tapped into more than just his Spaghetti Western predecessors a mysterious figure, he has a spectral quality, aided by his Count Dracula-alike cloak which also nods towards comic strip figure Mandrake the Magician, with whom he shares he shares a penchant for card tricks. He takes pride in his appearance unlike the Eastwood s dusty wanderer or Nero s mud-caked drifter. And there s a dose of James Bond too in his fondness for gadgetry and the droll sense of humour.

Unsurprisingly, this unique figure in the genre was treated to four official follow-ups. The Complete Sartana collects all five films,...

Bourne and Mission: Impossible, right back to Harry Palmer and Danger Diabolik - meet the many pretenders to James Bond's throne...

Since 1962, the James Bond franchise has come to define the spy genre, for good or ill. More broadly, every thriller and action film that comes out now either uses them as inspiration, or attempts to ignore or re-work the tropes that have come to be associated with the series.

Coming off the release of Kingsman: The Secret Service, and with the release of a new Bond film this year, now seems like the perfect time to take a look at a sample of the films which have been inspired by James Bond — either as homages, parodies or reactions.

The Ipcress File (1965)

Produced by James Bond producer Harry Saltzman as a more grounded alternative to the largesse of Bond, The Ipcress File is more concerned with the intricacies of real spy-work — the endless paperwork,...

By Fred Blosser

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On a windy night, a black-clad stranger rides into Daugherty City, Texas. He flips a coin to a scruffy drunk who is strapped for the price of a drink. He exposes a crooked dice game in the local saloon, where most of the townsfolk seem to be congregated. Then he departs. In the meantime, down the street, a gang of acrobatic robbers breaks into the bank and heists a safe containing $100,000 in Army payroll money. The getaway crew escapes town before a wounded trooper can raise the alarm, but out on the trail they run into the stranger, Sabata, who picks them off with a tricked-out rifle and recovers the stolen money.

Thus, in under 15 minutes of running time, Gianfranco Parolini neatly sets up the events that will drive the remaining 90 minutes of his 1969 Spaghetti Western, "Ehi amico... c'è Sabata,...

Anyone who knows me knows I’ve long been a fan of the fairly obscure late 70s King Kong-inspired giant monster epic Yeti, Giant of the 20th Century. Barely released on VHS, never before on DVD, finally - at long last - this delirious b-movie bonanza is finally getting its long overdue DVD release.

For the uninitiated, Yeti, Giant of the 20th Century is a 1977 Italian production shot in Canada and then badly dubbed into English that was designed to ride the coattails of the 1976 big budget King Kong remake. Long before The Asylum the Italians were the true kings of the mockbuster.

From Gianfranco Parolini Aka Frank Kramer, co-writer and director of the Lee Van Cleef/Yul Brenner spaghetti western trilogy Sabata, Adios, Sabata, and The Return of Sabata, and starring Antonella Interlenghi (Fulci’s City of the Living Dead), Tony Kendall (Ossorio’s Return of the Evil Dead...

Swiss label Explosive Media (www.explosive-media.com) has  just released two classic Italian spaghetti westerns on Blu-ray from brand new HD transfers: Giulio Petroni's Death Rides a Horse (1967), starring Lee Van Cleef, John Phillip Law, and Mario Brega and Gianfranco Parolini's Sabata (1969), starring Lee Van Cleef, William Berger and Ignazio Spalla. Both films have their world-wide premiere on the Blu-ray format.

These new releases have newly-produced special features, bonus DVDs and illustrated booklets. Both are available for purchase in Switzerland and Germany via Amazon and have English tracks. Explosive Media released the brilliant Blu-ray version of Lee Van Cleef's The Big Gundown last year, so fans already know the calibre of content and quality presented by this Swiss company.

Death Rides a Horse

Fifteen years after four bandits massacred his family, a young man (John Phillip Law) seeks revenge. Several of the men responsible now hold positions...

An insurance fiddle on a strongbox of gold is initiated by a scheming cabal of town dignitaries in Gianfranco Parolini's 1968 angel of death film ... If You Meet Sartana, Pray For Your Death. Into the breach steps the Sartana (Gianni Garko), the most stylish character ever to set foot in the usually grubby and sweat-drenched world of the Spaghetti Western. He takes it upon himself to serve justice upon the outlaws, Mexican bandits and corrupt officialdom, in the process walking away with a coffin-load of loot, as he influences events, turns up unexpectedly, or simply takes matters into his own hands with the silver Sharp's Derringer and Winchester rifle that play integral roles in his personal arsenal.

Ample death, ample destruction and muchos double-crossing quickly follow.

Sartana, to give it the more popular and less unwieldy title, brings together such heavyweights of the Spaghetti Western genre as Gianni Garko (Blood At Sundown,...

Who knew that the Nazis -- one of the most brutal regimes in the history of brutal regimes -- would be responsible for such fun, mind-blowingly awesome entertainment? The second I see a dude in a grey German uniform and an eye patch enter the frame, I’m like ‘Whoa. That Nazi is going to provide me a great amount of entertainment this evening’. So, with Inglorious Bastards having recently premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, I figured I'd put together a list of some awesome WW2 films as a resource for anyone wanting to beef up their WW2 film knowledge before checking out Tarantino's self-proclaimed 'masterpiece'. It's worth noting that I focused on older films -- pre-1980 for the most part -- and only the stories featuring Nazi's. It was tough to cut this down to 15 films, but I'm sure you all will be able to come up with...