lazarillo Giulio Carinomeo (aka Anthony Ascott) was not really in the class of great Italian directors like Sergio Leone or Sergio Corbucci, but he was a solid Spaghetti Western director, and this is one of his better efforts. A pair of husband-and-wife American adventurers discover a vein of gold in the badlands of Mexico controlled by a notorious Mexican bandit named "Chato". They are besieged by bandits and the husband is crippled and trapped by a rock slide, so his wife (Pascale Petit) has to go for help to the rough-and-tumble nearby town of "Nido de Aguila" ("Eagle's Nest")where most of the surly locals are much more interested in trying to rape the pretty "gringa" than in helping her rescue her husband. She does meet a seemingly amoral American mercenary (Jeffrey Hunter), who agrees to help her out for a share of the gold, and the latter puts together a gang of treacherous Mexican cutthroats (as well as false gringo preacher)to accompany them. The pair are in jeopardy then not only from "Chato's" band, but from their own vicious gang.There is a real aura of menace hanging over this movie as pretty much all these rough men are after "the gold . . .and the woman" in that order. (Ironically, these Mexican borderlands are still pretty much ruled by bandits, but it's drugs rather than gold or gringas that they fight over these days). There's a surprising amount of female nudity here for this genre (although not much by the standards of later Italian genre films). The woman are pretty much treated like chattel, but it isn't so much Petit's gringa that gets freely passed around as a guitar-playing Mexican prostitute (former Miss Italy Daniela Giordano with a spray-on tan). The Old West was not portrayed with this much raw savagery in any of the American Westerns and really only a few of the Italian ones like "Cutthroat Nine" or "Four for the Apocalypse".The real weak link here is probably Jeffrey Hunter as the only halfway decent guy around. He looks the part of a mercenary, but he just isn't very compelling. There were any number of Italian or expatriate American actors who could have played this role better. The end also doesn't really live up to the sense of menace created in the early going, and exploitative tag-line, "They came for the gold and her body. . . they didn't get the gold" is pretty inaccurate (for better or worse) as another reviewer mentioned. Still, this is a solidly entertaining pasta oater

lost-in-limbo I've seen my fair share of spaghetti westerns from the cheap to the grand and immensely obscure, and Giuliano Carmineo's "Find A Place to Die" is your basic effort that hardly distinguishes itself from the many of its kind. It's ably made, but never strikes up any sort of momentum or much in way of excitement from its well-worn staples. More often it came across as tepid, sluggish and overly drawn-out. The gun-fights became dull in their robotic actions, brawls were nothing but venom-less and the characters didn't make much of an impression (with a very non-threatening villain). Not a good sign. Even the camera-work lacked that adventurous aspect (except for maybe one or two frames) and the spotty music score bellows out the cues. Some passages worked when going for something with a sensually relax tone, but when its trying to arouse it never works. Sound FX literally seems to cop a real pounding. Location choices hold an atmospheric edge, and creates a dusty and gritty visualization that suit's the film's ugly, greedy outlook within the story's progression. Even on that point it does seem to be missing out on the blood-lust, which the untapped premise doesn't seem to break out or even capitalize on. The woodenly blank-ridden script adds little, and keeps things by the book. The film might have had limp characterisations, but the performances aren't bad. Jeffery Hunter basically sweats it out, and grits his teeth in a washed-up lead part. Adolfo Lastretti's gun-slinging priest could've made for an interesting character, but falls in the shadows. However the beautiful women are the highlights. The stunning Pascale Petit does a fine job, and Daniela Giordano gives her role plenty of kick. Not complete dreck, but a very so-so spaghetti western that will hardly leave an imprint.

Coventry This is only the third film I've seen from director Giuliano Carnimeo, but he definitely already ranks as one of the most versatile cult-filmmakers of Italy. The three films couldn't be more different in tone and content! "Ratman" is a repulsive, ultra-sadistic and sleaze-filled 80's horror flick about a medical experiment gone bad, "The Case of the Bloody Iris" stands as one of the most stylish and convoluted Giallo mysteries of the 70's and then this "Find to Place to Die" is a traditional spaghetti western that came out during the highlight-years of the genre. This is a competently scripted and well-made Western effort, but the story is too routine and forgettable to be counted among the best in its kind. I honestly have to admit I especially purchased this film because the tagline on the DVD-cover sounded so utterly cool. "They followed her for the gold and her body… But they didn't get the gold". Promising concept, but not exactly accurate. The story indeed centers on an attractive woman who, along with her husband, discovered a goldmine near the Texan-Mexican border, but there's very little sleaze & raping going on. When her husband is badly wounded by a gang of gold-greedy bandits, the woman undertakes a dangerous journey to the nearest town to find help. When she mentions the goldmine, she immediately finds a handful of man willing to join her. Among them are a banished confederate soldier, a bloodthirsty priest and a several random gunslingers with an unhealthy interest in money and power. "Find a Place to Die" contains all the basic plot-ingredients of a solid spaghetti-western, but it's incredibly slow-paced and even the gunfights appear to be tedious. Especially the entire middle-section is painfully soporific and only contains sappy dialogs and redundant sub plot. The final gunfight is pretty cool (and lasts exceptionally long), but I think something went wrong with the editing, as the showdown between the heroic Joe Collins and the traitorous main villain happens off-screen. The filming locations are convincing and atmospheric and the acting performances are adequate. The music isn't very impressive and someone should have paid more attention to the continuity.

Steve Nyland (Squonkamatic) I was not sure at first, but I hate this movie. It looks like it was a drag, and even the music sounds forced. Everyone looks sweaty, hot, and like their costumes don't fit them very well. Jeffery Hunter appears OLD, fat and tired. He looks as desperate and at the end of his rope as his character was supposed to be, but I don't think it's an act. For one or two scenes the film sort of springs into motion, and it has some nice use of location and architecture (the shot of that large, squarish building in the background of a couple of scenes is impressive).But the film does not have the spunky cartoonish zest of a traditional Giuliano Carmineo film. I've acquired it as a widescreen print that Diamond Ent. appropriated from VCI when their DVD went Out of Print. It looks as though VCI's people attempted a digital enhancement to re-color an old, intact but color rotted print, and the result is this bizarre palette shift in places where everyone's face is beet red, rocks are orange and the skies are green. It has a Cowboy Movie mentality where guys pop up from behind rocks, squeeze off a shot, duck, pop back up, then pretend to be shot by throwing their arms up in the air and dramatically spinning around before flopping on the ground. Yawn.The frame compositions are interesting, the female leads are attractive and I like the ambiguous character who turns out to be the villain at the end. But I don't know. Jeff Hunter keeps getting his ass kicked, and doesn't really have any specialized skills that I can see which would set him apart from just another lout with a Winchester and an ax to grind. He looks uncomfortable in the role, either like he felt that the material was beneath him, or his pants were too tight. And don't get me started on that shirt he is wearing: Were they trying to make him look washed up & about to die of some horrible terminal disease? He sort of waddles around rather than sauntering like a Clint, Gianni Garko or even a John Phillip Law. Perhaps that is the point -- To humanize the Gringo, ala MINNESOTA CLAY, rather than having a cartoon character like Eastwood's Joe or Garko's Sartana.The problem is that like Sergio Corbucci's MINNESOTA CLAY, the movie simply SUCKS. It's a slog: I've watched it three times in vain attempts to find something about the film that I genuinely enjoy, and all I get is that big, square building in the background of a couple shots. It is an intriguing structure that looks so huge I wonder what it was really built for, where it is, and if it's still standing today. Gives you something better to think about than the movie anyway, and Carmineo cleaned up his routine by the time he inherited the Sartana legacy and made some wonderful films right through 1988's RATMAN. He had a nice comic book touch, and his movies are usually more interesting & fun than they had to be.But this isn't one of them, and whatever camp fun factor is to be had by watching a former Captain of the USS Enterprise in a Pasghetti Western is quickly blown clear by the first sight of Jeff Hunter in his little shirt there, pot belly pushing at the fabric and sweat popping out on his face with effort from being constrained by such tight pants. Just awful.