Crazy Westerners

If you're like me, you found this movie researching other westerns to watch with Terence Hill in the cast. If you've seen a lot of westerns, then this one from 1967 is a treat, not to be taken seriously. It's a parody (note the intentionally blue-eyed Indian chief). Elvis Presley was doing westerns around the same time, so I guess it was decided to do one to showcase an Italian female rock star. The song-and-dance production numbers are first rate with large numbers of dancers and extras and choreography. Sometimes the audio sounds mono on the quick-paced songs (in Italian), that's my only complaint. I've seen things in this western I've never seen in other westerns. There's even some cartoon animation. Since it is a western, there is some shooting of guns and death (sometimes portrayed with humor), some physical fighting, but no foul language or nudity and it is suitable for the entire family to sit down and watch in my opinion. The filmmakers wanted to ensure that teenage fans of Rita Pavone could see it so they kept it clean.

Little Rita Pavone is on a holy mission, given to her by Indian chief Gordon Mitchell, to steal and destroy the root of all evil, all the gold in the west!

With Rita singing over the bodies of murdered people, laughing at other people's demise, and stealing gold, she seems more like the villain than the hero!

Though a terminally silly musical-comedy, this has a few modest things going for it, like good production values, photography (by Trinity creator Enzo Barboni), and an all-star cast that includes Terence Hill, Kirk Morris, Fernando Sancho, and a slew of other familiar European faces. However, the plot and musical numbers are pretty bad.

There is some novelty value to be had though, especially for those that endeavor to see every spaghetti western ever made, with a lot of it's latter-day notoriety having to do with Rita's showdown with a surprisingly accurate depiction of Django, looking almost exactly as he did at the end of the first film.

The quote "Frontier Humor" is from the movie. That sums up this amazing movie. "Little Rita of the West (A. K. A. "Crazy Westerners") is mind blowing. The fact that it is a "Spaghetti Western" - made in Italy a week after the Spaghetti Western was born - and its a rock n' Roll musical exists tickles me to no end!

The songs are catchy and memorable...even if you don't understand what they are saying. I'm shocked this movie didn't get on the Midnight movie circuit. It has everything Rocky Horror has.. but its not a parody or spoof of the Spaghetti Westerns..as they just started making them a year or two prior. "LIttle Rita of the West" is its own glorious creation.

There are some scenes where it drags. Mostly one or two in the middle ..and at the very end. There is one moment with Terrence Hills character that brings up a personal story for him..but gets totally dropped not 2 minutes later and never brought back up.. but at that point, you don't care as it doesn't effect the main and Rita's story at all.

Why people rate this below a 7 out of 10 baffles me.

One of those Col. Tom Parker-ish vehicles for the rising pop musician, but even at their worst, the Elvis movies would manage a moment of wit that made them bearable. Little Rita nel West is a decidedly inferior offering in the category. All but one of the musical numbers terrible, with star Rita Pavone English-dubbed for dialogue, Italian lip-synched for the songs. The Monkees did this sort of thing better. Little Rita is one big labored joke, a clunky spoof of spaghetti Westerns so lacking in subtlety that it's easy to tell that the movie was made for an audience no older than twelve. Little Rita's appearance in defiance of her chronological age seems to have been expressly engineered for that demographic. Then after an hour of cinematic imbecility she sings "Tu Sei Come", a longing, melancholy ballad perfectly shot day for night, and with one song nearly redeems this silly movie.

The 'Spaghetti Western' fan's Bible, 'The Good, The Bad and The Violent' by Thomas Weisser really gives this movie a hard time, even voting it one of the Top 10 Worst Spaghetti Westerns Of All Time(No.9 to be exact)...but that's all a little too harsh. Compared to the Franco and Ciccio efforts, or any movie by Demofilo Fidani, or indeed any of the cheap, shoddy Sartana cash-ins; this is quite a solid little movie.

And it's good for a laugh.

Weisser and his cohorts even admit that the sequences in the movie featuring Django are quite droll. As are the scenes with Johnny Ringo and Black Star(called Black 'Stand' in the subtitles of the version I watched). Indeed, the scenes which parody the Spaghetti Western cliches are extremely stylish and very well done.

The song and dance numbers, often cut from American prints, are quite bizarre and I feel that this movie would be better served on a double-bill with 'Head', the Monkees movie.

A word of warning though, if you see this movie on the Japanese DVD then you'd be as well turning the English Subtitles OFF if you want to follow the plot as they make no sense whatsoever...especially in the lyrics to the songs. Or keep them on and get an extra few laughs for your money.

All in all I enjoyed this fun movie and it's certainly an alternative to, say, the vile misogyny of something like Cut-Throats Nine.