Adios, Sabata (DVD)

Directed by Gianfranco Parolini in 1971, ADIOS SABATA is set in Mexico and stars Yul Brynner as Sabata, who is hired to steal a lot of gold from the Austrian army but when he does so he finds that the gold has already been stolen, and the film then tells the story of how he tries to get it back. This is the second film in the SABATA trilogy which, like the DJANGO movies before it, was very popular and spawned lots of imitators. The other 2 films do not feature Brynner but instead star Lee Van Cleef, who I have to say that I prefer in the role. However Brynner does bringing a sense of brooding tension to the character which is to be respected. The ...  Read the complete review

The Italian filmmakers always loved a success. It didn't even matter whether the success was their own. They'd still take full advantage of this, no matter where it came from. In that way, one could almost look at the popular Italian spaghetti western genre of the 1960s and 70s as a direct parable of the film industry itself. When the historical epic craze suddenly died in the early 1960s, the formerly booming Italian factory that produced a lot of these, both their own and the American ones who came to shoot in Italy, were suddenly faced with a dead industry and plenty of people basically unemployed. That is until the market hole was found from the Italians love of ...  Read the complete review