Black Killer

(1971) Black Killer SPAGHETTI WESTERN DUBBED

Co-written and directed by Carlo Croccolo including a small role as deputy sheriff, that has James Webb (Klaus Kinski) coming and moving into a small town called Tombstone with a load of books. Aside from those books he has some guns hidden inside of them. It appears the criminals of the O'Hara brothers has been terrorizing the town and as a result of the reward poster for the capture and kill of one of them being so small, he goes and murders the deputy sheriff so that the reward would be higher. After that one sheriff is murdered and killed, it is during then Burt Collins (Fred Robsham) comes into town and gets blackmailed to replace that dead sheriff. His actual intention is to visit his brother and see how he is doing living with his native American wife. And of course, he is going to butt heads with the O' Hara brothers.

Although, they are a dime a dozen quickie westerns for a fast buck, I like some for it's uniqueness as this movie is a prime example of it, even though guns hidden in books was done before in other Westerns and so forth, this movie more than overdose it.

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

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.

I'm getting bored with this plot now. A bunch of Mexican bandidos are terrorizing a Western frontier town with the aid of a local banker. A mysterious wonky-faced stranger (Klaus Kinski) turns up. He's got loads of books with guns in them and seems to be some sort of lawyer. Another more normal faced stranger turns up and after killing some bandidos, finds himself the new sheriff. This in turn causes the bandidos to go and murder his brother and gang-rape his sister in law. You know the drill.

This one tries to bring the old tired plot in line with the increasing excesses of the seventies by including nudity (hilariously random when it happens and nothing to do with anything!) and more violence and bloodshed. The rather bloody killing of the first sheriff aside, most of the first half of the film kind of wanders round in circles while they try and establish a reason for the gunslinger to get revenge on the bandits.

That said, they do also have the sister-in-law go on the rampage too – which also makes this some kind of half-arsed rape revenge flick too, but this plot has been driven into the ground and in being more extreme Black Killer ignores the tongue-in-cheek elements that make Guiliano Carnimeo's films of the same year more enjoyable.

I'm guessing though that Klaus Kinski fans would like it though. He's quite substantial here instead of the usual cameo, and is dubbed with a rather strange voice.

*Pulls up chair* You know, years ago, I said to the missus I said "I like Italian horror films, and the Mad Max rip offs, so I'm just gonna collect them" I said, saying in a speaking voice "I'll never collect Spaghetti Westerns…that way lies madness." I intoned in a sexy, breathy voice to the empty room I was addressing as the missus has already left by that point.

And I never did. In fact, I just made up the plots to all these reviews.

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.