Bad Man's River (1974)

Some things I liked some I did not.

Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Lee Van Cleef plays King, the leader of a gang who robs a bank but quickly loses the money to Alicia (Lollobrigida) who marries him and has him sent to a lunatic asylum. Much later, King gets the gang back together again to go after her. She has meanwhile married Montero (James Mason) and made a new plan to steal even more money. King and his companions meet her on a steamship, like the sound of 'million' and decide to postpone their revenge..."Bad Man's River" has got an excellent cast (Fajardo as a general, Sambrell as a bandit, Garko as a gunman are in supporting roles), and it surely has some great dialog worth quoting, such as Van Cleef/Lollobrigida on their first meeting: "What do you look for most on a man?" - "Honesty." - "Umm... second?", Van Cleef tries again. Or when Alicia reminds both men she's married to: "You should be friends, you've got a lot in common - me!" I think I watched this movie at least 5 times by now, on British TV, German DVD and Italian DVD. Unfortunately, on neither DVD release the picture format was correct, clearly cut on the right and left and the quality was rather grainy, so the perfect remaster is something I still wait for. I always thought of "Bad Man's River" as very entertaining despite its little flaws, and I'm rather surprised at the mostly negative other reviews here. It's neither a typical European western of the time in its tone nor as well directed as American comedies ('Cat Ballou', for example), maybe somewhat unluckily caught in the middle.

With all the draws in the film - Lee Van Cleef, James Mason, Gina Lollabrigida - you would think there would be some redeeming quality to all the flowing marinara in this one. But sadly that's not the case. I had a bit of a struggle to make sense of the action, and about as difficult a time in keeping the minor characters straight. The best lines of the film have to do with my summary above, and another by Van Cleef describing his fascination with the banking business - he enjoyed transferring funds from one place to another. Sadly, that wasn't enough to carry the picture. I enjoy my share of spaghetti like the next Western fan, but this one was weak and and shy on the Parmesan. Recommended only for the die hard.

Bad Man's River is a spaghetti western movie which I chose based on Lee Van Cleef being on the cover -- I'm not a massive western fan but even I recognised Van Cleef as a fairly famous actor in the genre. Unfortunately this did not equate into a good movie. Van Cleef is, I assume, the character for the title song: "He's the baddest man in Bad Man's River, where virtue is a sin".Does this movie have a good plot? No. It involves a complicated process of blowing things up and stealing a bank cheque, but seems to revolve largely around Alicia -- played by Gina Lollobrigida -- who marries men and betrays them but for some reason they never think she'll do it again. I mean seriously, after the third time a woman has sold you down the river to death or worse you've pretty much only yourself to blame if it happens again -- and it does.However, if we ignore the shoddy plot we have to ask ourselves if we're left with a good action movie. We ask that question, and we receive a negative answer. I'm a keen believer in suspending disbelief in movies...you have to go with the flow and accept what the directors are trying to do. Yet there is a limit. This limit was not reached when the good buys never missed a shot and the bad guys aimed for the feet and never got a hit* -- even with a sub-machine gun -- but the limit was reached and passed and left eating dust when a protagonist would fire his gun twice and four men would fall over. And who knew that a cheap mattress would provide better cover from bullets than an inch of solid oak? It's impossible to suspend disbelief for this movie, the plot is appalling, and the acting stilted. I rate it: A bullet to the head.* Oh, one protagonist gets shot. At least, he falls against a wall clutching his arm or shoulder or chest or something. It doesn't slow him down though, in fact it doesn't even bleed.

Not really a spaghetti western; as well as Italy it was financed by Spain and France. It's meant to be a comedy western, MEANT to be; it has a handful of funny lines and a bizarre accent from James Mason. It's a complete mystery to me why he and Lee Van Cleef bothered to appear in this. Put simply, the film is boring - the characters are cardboard and the actors look like they'd be having more fun watching paint dry. The plot is clichéd and contrived, and difficult to follow. The freeze-frames at the beginning are just plain stupid. Beautiful as Gina Lollobrigida is, she just can't carry the film alone. Eugenio Martin really hasn't got an excuse for rearing such a turkey here, as the following year, he [the director] went on to make the far superior horror classic "Horror Express".And now, the plot: Roy King (Van Cleef) and his bank-robbing gang get caught up in a plan by his ex-wife and her new husband (James Mason) to steal $1 million from the Mexican government. But the group are captured and sent to a rebel stronghold. Besieged and under fire from the Mexican army, the rebel general is forced to offer King and his gang freedom if they can pull the rebel side through. And I only know that basic outline 'cause it's given in a slightly more in depth form on the packaging...Like I say, "Bad Man's River" is unquestionably awful. It's simply not even worth seeing as a curiosity piece. I bought it in a 2 for £10 sale and now consider that to have been a waste of money. Some people say that for the sake of top billing, Lee Van Cleef appeared in some real stinkers. This time, I'm inclined to agree.