Best movie ever!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Crooked bankers plan an insurance swindle and hire a Mexican gang to steal the bank's gold but they also pay Lasky's gang to kill the Mexicans.

For the first film in what would come to be the Sartana series, star Gianni Garko wanted a character whose motivation was more than just vengeance. After turning down script after script, Renato Izzi's take on the character - a man free from sentiment who pits rivals against one another - Sartana was born.What breaks the character away from the mold is both his air of mystery and his love of gadgets, which many attribute to director Gianfranco Parolini (God's Gun) love of James Bond films. His first line of dialogue says all you need to know about him. When faced with an entire gang of killers, led by Morgan (Klaus Kinski, Death Smiles at a Murderer), one of them says, "You look just like a scarecrow." Sartana coldly replies, "I am your pallbearer," before ruthlessly killing everyone but the gang's leader.The first few scenes of this movie set up that everyone is looking for coffins filled with gold, from Morgan's gang to a Mexican army led by General Jose Manuel Mendoza (Fernando Sancho, Return of the Blind Dead), who says, "How many times I tell you... that my name is Don José Manuel Francisco Mendoza Montezuma de la Plata Perez Rodriguez... but you can call me General Tampico!" Then there's another group led by Lasky (William Berger, a frequent actor in Jesus Franco films), who uses a gatling gun to wipe out his rivals. He's working with/blackmailing Stewal (Sydney Chaplin, son of Charlie who appeared in Satan's Cheerleaders) and Alman, a politician and banker.Sartana remains the fly in Lasky's ointment, taking his money in a card game and defeating Morgan, who is sent to kill him. He even wipes out Lasky's entire gang. But then Stewal and Alman turn him in to Mendoza, who goes after both Lasky and Sartana.What follows is an elaborate series of double-crosses, with Stewal trying to escape with the gold but being killed by Mendoza to Lasky killing Mendoza and his men and Alman's wife killing him and taking Lasky to the gold before he kills her. Finally, Lasky and Sartana have a duel, which ends with our hero riding out of town with the coffin filled with gold.This film sets up the character of Sartana quite well - no one is sure why he does what he does, appearing with the sound of a dead man's watch, being able to seemingly disappear at will. He's always a few steps ahead of his enemies and always appears unflappable in the face of sure death.

Nice Spaghetti Western. The story concerns four rival groups out to get a chest full of gold. While the plot is actually almost incomprehensible, it's fun to watch Sartana and others switch allegiances about every five minutes. But the story here is secondary to the action. The body count is very high with entire gangs being wiped out by the burst of a Gatling gun. Gianni Garko as Sartana and William Berger as Lasky are just fun to watch. It's not the best Spaghetti Western I've seen, but I'm glad to finally have a copy.While the movie prominently lists Klaus Kinski in the credits, his screen time totals about 10 minutes.

Sartana (played superbly by John Garko) has one of the greatest entrances on screen of all the Spaghetti protagonists. When accused of looking like a scarecrow, he utters the classic line "I am your pallbearer" before gunning down all the bandits facing him. A classic moment, with the black clad Sartana setting the scene perfectly for this Gothic tinged western.The story itself is a very complicated affair, and one which I'm not completely sure I followed from beginning to end (I blame the wine consumption). In simple terms, the story evolves around a stagecoach robbery and murder (with the culprits themselves hijacked and massacred by Lasky - played by the ever brilliant William Berger - and his gang). Enter Sartana, in the midst of further double crossing and more double crossing. And cue bloodshed aplenty! Sartana combines the gadgetry of Parolini's later Sabata movies, with the darkness and brutality of Django. There are classic performances from Garko and Berger together with the familiar faces of Fernando Sancho and Klaus Kinski.The success of Sartana is clearly demonstrated by the string of sequels (and name-checks) that followed. And rightly so, the character is in equal parts cool, mysterious and deadly. Much like the film. I just wish I understood it better (time to put away the bottle, and rewind the video perhaps).