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.

This spaghetti western has a very good music score and a great performance by Klaus Kinski as a strange lawyer who kills with books that have guns inside of them. He's really a natural for the role. His look and mannerisms fit the character perfectly.

Not only does this western have Kinski, it also has a family of Mexican thugs named O'Hara! There's definitely nothing like a good old Italian western.

This is one of those movies that will have you scratching your head a lot if you try to make perfect sense of everything that happens. It's best not to think about it too hard. Just sit back and enjoy it for what it is. It's got style, action, violence, weirdness, and an interesting though somewhat vague storyline.

All in all, it's pretty good stuff for the spaghetti western fan.

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

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.

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.