Don't Wait, Django... Shoot!

This film should really be called Wait Django…just wait because that's what he does for most of the film! Periodically some guys turn up to be shot but it's all about the waiting.

Y'see, Django (this time played by Ivan "I'm a man, not a fish" Rassimov) is out for revenge after some bandits double cross his dad, steal his dad's money, then steal the money from themselves, then get themselves killed by another guy who steals his dad's money, then hides in a hotel with Django outside while some other guys come to Django's house and are all like 'where's Django at?', who then get themselves killed so some other guys turn up asking "Where's those guys at who were asking where Django's at?" and so on and so forth until just about everyone ends up dead.

Ivan and Rada Rassimov really look alike, eh? Never noticed that before. This one at least tries to be different, but in a rather uneventful way that must have saved a fortune on locations –Seriously, there's like four different locations here – Django's house, Bad guy number one's house, the village where the guy hides out, and bad guy number two's ranch. That's it! Thrown in a comic drunk guy, a fat sidekick and a whole lot of doing nothing and there's your film.

Good 'nervously tapping a silver dollar on a table' action though

Django (Ivan Rassimov) returns to the family home to find his father has been robbed and murdered by bandits. Ignoring the advice and pleas of his sister Mary (played by Rassimov's real life sister Rada), Django sets off to town for revenge. But this is merely the beginning of things...

There's enough enjoyment here for the very hardcore Spaghetti Western fan, but expectations levels really should be set at low. There's plenty of the standard Spag shootings, stand-offs and posturings, moody atmosphere and the music is pretty ace (Felice Di Stefano), but the structure of the pic is off.

Directed by Edoardo Mulargia and written by Vincenzo Musolino, the creators take a gamble by having the revenge aspect played out very early in the piece, the plot then thrusts a multitude of characters involved - in one way or another - in the search for the missing money taken when Django's pa was killed. The whole piece feels like a string of sequences stacked up against each other without a flowing sense of rhyme or reason. It doesn't help that this incarnation of Django is bland and it is in fact his side-kick Barrica (played by Ignazio Spalla) that engages more on the fun and entertainment front. The low budget shows on occasions (watch out for that deja vu feeling), whilst logic jumps and daftness are never far away.

Needlessly complex in telling and structure, pic is marginally saved by the action and some colourful characters, but really it is for those die-hard Spag fans only. 5/10

Here is another film which gives the name Django to the title character as an after-thought, in order to cash in on the popularity of that spaghetti western series. In this one, a gang of bandits kill a man who turns out to be Django's father which of course turns out to be pretty bad news for those criminals in the long run. And there's some missing money, or something.

This one stars Ivan Rassimov in the title role, yet he was completely unrecognisable here to me, so much so I thought there must have been a mistake in the credits here. Needless to say it turns out it was Rassimov but I guess he didn't make too much of an impression here, which is surprising given how memorable he was in some later 70's giallo flicks. I guess the western genre just wasn't too suited to him really. Much better was his sister Rada, who would also go on to appear in a prominent giallo, namely Dario Argento's Cat o' Nine Tails (1971). The reason I think I am rambling on about other movies is that this flick was so incredibly forgettable. Like many standard Italian westerns it contains nothing new or very interesting and instead just gives us more of the same. This isn't always a bad thing of course but when it's delivered in such an under par manner it gets old pretty quick. This one is strictly for die-hard fans of this sub-genre.

This Spaghetti Western from Mulargia is a very nice B-Movie with good actors, music and atmosphere.

The most time of the movie is placed in a little town and that is very good for the atmosphere of the movie. Ivan Rassimov is very good in the part of Django and also Petro Sanchez is a very good partner for him. Rassimov's sister plays his real sister Rada. You can also see the writer and director Vincenzo Musolino in the part of Hondo. The great score is composed by Felice Di Stefano who also composed a few other scores for Mulargia and Musolino.

All in all this Western is a great B-Movie and a must see for Spaghetti fans.

Directod Eduardo Mulargio (as Edward G. Muller!) churned out a bunch of cheapie spaghetti westerns in the genre's heyday in the late 60's to early 70's. Don't Wait Django, Shoot is one of them, with Ivan Rassimov (as Sean Todd - the blue-eyed character actor mostly known for his roles as villain and psychopathic killer in gialli) in the role of Django Foster (he's got a surname too this go around!) trying to avenge the death of his father by a bunch of Mexican cut-throat extras with greasy faces. The production values are as low as you'd expect from a Django clone probably made in a week to turn in a quick buck, there's lots of non-acting going on, the dialogue is very poor and the script seems to have been conceived in one day and written in another. Entire scenes seem to exist for no other reason than to communicate a single line and the gunfighting is dime a dozen. The movie looks like it was shot 15 minutes from Rome instead of Arizona, Sonora or wherever it's suppose to take place. There are dozens more well made, more interesting, more entertaining spaghetti westerns out there and I'm not even talking about the A-list pictures of Leone, Corbucci or Sollima. This is a third-tier quickie at best and just not a good movie.