They Call Him Cemetery

Written by the director of the famed Trinity comedy western films and directed by man who helmed 3 of the four official Sartana films, this outing works and doesn't at the same time.

The story of two greenhorn brothers fighting against a gang terrorizing ranchers is trite and only provides a reason to bring together the two main characters of the movie, Ace of Hearts/Cemetery (played by Garko) and Duke (played by Berger). Both are uber-cool bounty hunters who know and respect each other well and find themselves in a situation where they are working for opposite sides. Whenever these two actors are on the screen, either together or solo, the film is interesting. The direction is uneven as well, sometimes it's very stylish and well photographed, other times banal and full of gratuitous zooms. The script might have worked if the English actors who were chosen for the greenhorn brothers weren't so miscast. Bruno Nicolai's theme for the film is great but, like many of these films, it is repeated to the point of near insanity. The audio is very muffled in the English soundtrack and the print going around at this time is slightly cropped.

So it's not a complete waste of time, if a better print ever shows up I might watch it again.

The curse of following a formula is that you will necessarily be compared to the best examples of that formula. And the best of this pocket of movies is the Leone stuff. We've actually, I think, adjusted our definitions of camp and happy excess to suit those, because of a couple elements that appeal: the musical riffs, the Eastwood grin.

This one has a stylized west, absolutely no females in any frame. Good, bad and samurai. As with the Leone/samurai model, all the plot devices revolve around the noble rules of "the guild" of gunfighters for hire. All the humor is based on coolness associated with lethality. For those of us that like this sort of thing, the ultimate trip starts with Kurosawa, runs through Leone's copy and ends with Walter Hill's "Last Man Standing.

So this is a sort of waste of time, is less of everything that is defined elsewhere. But if you stumble on this, pay attention to the rule of twos. Its a simple way for writers to create superficial folds after the manner of Tolstoy.

Here you have two gunslingers, two bad guys, two factions in the good guys (the breeders), two comic sons, two more comic Mexican servants of the sons. If there were real writing going on, you'd see reflections from one pair to the other, tensions between pairs reflected in certain pairs and so on.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

A Bullet for a Stranger( or 'They call him Cementary') is a film thats howcases the best of spaghetti westerns. It's got humour, it's got awesome shootouts, and it has a great score.

The Characters are great,especially 'the guardian angel'. He is very similar to Blondie in the good the bad and the ugly. He is looking out for the two brothers, who are somewhat annoying, but eventually turn out to be admirable heroes.

The DVDs restoration is terrible quality, and should really be restored. But even with the sloppy DVD quality, the film stills holds through as epic and highly entertaining,

A bullet for a stranger is a great film and should be held up as one of the best Spagehtti westerns made.

Two fancy-pants brothers return west after years of eastern schooling and almost immediately anger the local gang of murderous extortionists. However, the boys have an ace up their sleeves in the form of ultra-cool gunslinger Gianni Garko, a mystery man with a debt to pay.

After the first several minutes of pretty silly slapstick, things get good, with lots of amusing touches and a neat performance by Garko, dubbed into English by an actor sounding like he's doing an impersonation of Clint Eastwood!

Whenever Garko disappears too long though, the movie begins to suffer. Still, it's worth recommending for spaghetti western fans who've already seen everything.

I've noticed that other viewers seem to overlook the connection between the brothers and the gunfighter, why he's protecting them. It's actually explained quite early on, in pretty certain terms.

This isn't a profound movie and doesn't try to be. It's a low budget action comedy (with a little bit of parody) which is great fun to watch, but doesn't try at all to be a classic.

Film scholars are gonna have nothing to go on here, but will inevitably compare it to Leone and Kurosawa just like they do to every other Spaghetti Western (or Samurai film in the case of Kurosawa specifically). Here's a hint: Just because it's a Western made in Italy doesn't mean the movie was trying to accomplish what Leone was.

The movie itself? As a fun movie I'd give it a ten out of ten, because it's perfect for what it is. If you have some spare time or if you see it in a bargain bin or whatever, go for it. It's a funny, quirky little movie. It's not a great film, but if movies like this didn't exist, I'd go freaking nuts. As much as I appreciate Citizen Kane, I'll never enjoy it like I enjoy these kinds of movies.