Customer Reviews

Badman's River

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Spaghetti western collectors should know the Geneon release is a nice letterboxed, widescreen transfer. Colors are slightly faded and its non-anamporphic, but otherwise this is a fantastic looking picture for a budget label. Consequently, I was able to sit back and enjoy the film as intended. Actually it is quite funny at times, and nowhere near as bad as reviews would lead you to believe.

A western film that stands upside down right on its head. Many thieves and robbers, on the frontier with Mexico, in the midst of the Mexican Revolution, with Mexican soldiers and Mexican revolutionaries, with all kinds of gangsters and other outlaws, with frightened bankers who get held or blown up, with women who are nothing but entertainment. Well, nearly all of them, except one who is a master mind in getting rich on the back of the thieves and robbers, the soldiers and revolutionaries, the gangsters and outlaws, the bankers and cops when necessary. She manipulates all of them men with her charm and flesh and she gets the money when it is ripe, without even making the slightest effort, except at luring all these men into falling into her trap. And you can be sure she never shuts her trap. Brilliant and funny with a Lolobrigida that is coming of age and starting her lovely and enticing career.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Robber Roy, King loses his wife Alicia, to the revolutionary, soldier, Montero. Despite their rivalry, however, they collaborate in an attempt to rob the Mexican government of $1,000,000. With a great cast, performing at their best, and wonderful original sets, Bad Man's river is certainly a cut river is certainly a cut above the usual western fare.

This is NOT the George Archainbaud/Gig Young crime story from 1950. Rather, it's a 1971 spaghetti western directed by Eugenio Martín, starring Lee van Cleef and James Mason.
My review of the Martin/van Cleef HUNT THE MAN DOWN (aka BAD MAN'S RIVER):
Awful. Terrible attempt at fusing comedy, tinkly popular tunes and spaghetti western action. Painful to watch and, because it has such a needlessly convoluted plot, almost impossible to describe. The three stars (van Cleef, Mason, and Gina Lollabrigida) look lost and a little ashamed. Not worth your time at any price.

This film is about schlemiels and schlemazels and a con-artist. A schlemiel is a person who does stupid acts, while a schlemazel is one who has bad luck. The schlemiel is like the idiot who insists on throwing his feces out of his window onto the street because his great-grandfather did it in England. "It's a tradition," he says. The schlemazel is the fellow who steps into it. Lee Van Cleef and his three outlaw cohorts are both schlemiels and schlemazels, and Gina Lollabrigia, the con-artist, is the only intelligent person in this humorous farce.

Lee - who wears a bad wig and a bowler hat that seems too small for him - and his gang undertake robbery after robbery but end up with nothing. As in the first event of the film where they rob a bank, take off with the loot, but Lee loses it to Gina who marries him for his money - or, at least, Lee thinks he is being married - and then has him committed to an insane asylum and takes off with the loot.

The film is filled with Keystone Cop type chases. Lee and the gang are chased by Mexicans and their opponents the revolutionaries as well as bounty hunters seeking the large reward offered for their capture. James Mason has a part in a scheme to get one million dollars and doesn't act in his usual suave style. Gina moves from man to man, whoever has money. She is involved in each scheme but not to help Lee, although she says she is; she is only out to help herself. I do not recommend seeing the film; while it is funny, it is also silly.

Lee Van Cleef,James Mason along with the incomparable Gina Lolobrigida star in this great,classic western comedy about 2 men attempting to rob the Mexican Governmnt of a million dollars.It's a must see!!