FightingWesterner Using a pistol slipped to him by his sweetheart, bandit Tomas Milian escapes an armed transport before encountering hard-as-nails bounty hunter Richard Wyler in what's left of his nearly deserted hometown, where the people are squarely on his side.Although there's nothing much new here, there is a hard edge and a dead-serious nature to the proceedings that help make it enjoyable, along with Milian, who gives one of his typically offbeat performances, playing it cool and crazy! I wish I had a nickel for every time he basically played the same guy. Unfortunately though, Wyler is no match in the acting department and appears a little stiff.In an interesting reversal of what you normally see in western films, the town of basically law abiding people (including spaghetti western star Mario Brega) welcomes the villain and actively aids him against the hero!

J_J_Gittes My first film by Eugenio Martin, and I am deeply moved. Nagisa Oshima once wrote that all filmmakers want to film sex and death the most. I always understood the first part, never the second. I think, now I do. The moment when Tomas Milian's character lies on the ground, dying, his face covered with dirt, and we see only half of it, as the camera shows us an extreme close-up, with a lonely tear rolling down his cheeks as he exhales his last breaths that stir the dust of the soil to lift itself up from the ground a few more times.The relentlessness of the view. The relentlessness of the camera watching. That's been something which I've been pondering a lot ever since I started falling in love with cinema. Looking, not wanting to let go, and at last having to, at some point in time – because everything has to end. That is death. Everything is death. We die a thousand times each day.Those looks, those insisting eyes Martin keeps us showing and showing, paired with the melancholy tunes of master composer Stelvio Cipriani are the heart and soul of the whole movie. Which is a melodrama at its core, a subdued, forlorn melodrama. A film of the past, looking upon it. Once upon a time in the West.The editing is also top-notch always putting people side by side, giving everyone at least a little attention and thus creating an ensemble piece of people, connected like beads on a string. Everyone is important in this film. Because everyone is human.The dying – in the end we all have to die. I would like to think that at the end of the movie, the protagonist, a Bounty Killer, doesn't collect the bounty for Milian's character but lets the townspeople bury one of their own, one who used to belong. He is still a part of them.Anyways, the film is a statement, a demonstration, an elegy, wonderfully executed up until the end-titles which must have been some of the first in film history created in this now dominant way. 1966: After the credits have rolled, the image turns black and we remain to hear a wailing trumpet and finally the last strings of a soothing guitar. Maybe it's not what you see before you die, but what you hear. The last sounds of this world.

rmahaney4 Along with El Hombre que mató a Billy el Niño (1967), Condenados a vivir (1972), and a few other, El precio de un hombre (1966) is one of the best "Spanish" or "Iberian" westerns (written or directed by a Spanish filmmaker). Most of these films have tended to be overlooked next to the flashy and flamboyant Italian variant, which is unfortunate as they have a narrative coherency all their own that is well worth a look at. Of all of these movies, this one is perhaps the most accessible to Leone fans.Though based on a novel by American Marvin Albert, this movie follows the same basic patterns as other Mediterranean westerns. The basic Italian "resurrection/insurrection plot" (the protagonist is nearly killed, rises from the grave, then liberates the community) is represented by Richard Wyler's Luke Chilson, a bounty hunter whose monetary motivations prove to be the only reliable ones on this baroque frontier. The movie's primary focus, the "Ugly ones" of the American title, represents the preoccupations of the other Spanish westerns mentioned above. Outlaws are always distinguished from the rest of society by their desperate bestiality. In these movies, violence and corruption trap an innocent protagonist who, led by his own good intentions, in the end is corrupted and becomes as violent as those that brutalized him. This storyline is represented by Tomas Milian's Jose Gomez.These two story lines occur within a basic plot that seems to be based on the classic "siege westerns" of the 1950s like 3:10 to Yuma (1957). This creates an interesting social skein in which these two characters act. Neither is able to gain an advantage over the other without the support of the community, support that is based in the perceptions of these characters, their past and their roles, and the world in which all of this takes place. Halina Zalewska's Eden plays a similar role to the women in the Gastaldi written movies like Arizona Colt (1966) in which the alienated hero is integrated into the community through his relationship with her. In this movie, Eden is perhaps more active and her choices are as important as the actions of Chilson or Gomez. Altogether, this creates an interesting story that is very sophisticated for what is, basically, a B movie. The Italian/Spanish film industry was both decentralized and competitive enough for there to be strange, creative permutations of popular story lines that both satisfied and surprised. This movie does both. The movie starts slowly, carefully setting up the final acts in which it becomes more dreamlike as we participate in Jose's intoxicated, surreal disintegration. These scenes are similar to the almost psychedelic "pop-westerns" such as Sentenza di morte (1968) or Se sei vivo spara (1967). Typical of the Iberian variant, the ending is represents an ambiguous exorcism. In the other Spanish westerns mentioned, this exorcism is the ironic confirmation of a contagious violence. With this movie, instead we have a community that has been stripped of it's pretensions and is left truly disillusioned. The professional – the bounty hunter – once rejected in favor of the romantic Robin Hood is the only one left standing. At one point early in the movie Chilson's dollar to pay for a meal is rejected by the townsfolk, left in the dust. They won't except his currency and how it is earned. At the end of the film they are forced to except his "currency," at least in a sense. Enzo Barboni's cinematography helps give the film slightly more polished and stylized look than other, often static and crude, Spanish westerns. Barboni's was one of the most important filmmakers in the euro-western, shooting Django [1966] and Viva Django [1969] and also directing the two Trinity movies. Crispiani's score is effective and was reused in later films.Top spaghetti western list http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=21849907Average SWs http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=21849889For fanatics only (bottom of the barrel) http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=21849890

marc-366 This film was oh so close to nearly losing me. Maybe my attention span was limited - it had been a pretty tiring day after all (but thats another - and highly uninteresting - story!). But anyway, for pretty much the first third of the movie I was convinced that it was notable purely for being Tomas Milian's first foray into the Spaghetti Western genre that he is so renowned for (and rightly so).Milian plays Jose Gomez, an outlaw treated with reverence by the small population that make up his hometown. He is freed from captivity by Eden (Zalewska), who looks at Gomez with wanting eyes, seeing him as a local hero. However, bounty hunter Luke Chilson (Wyler) is on his trail, and arrives at the town ahead of the escapee, to the wrath of the very protective townsfolk. When Gomez does arrive in town, with a group of bandits at the helm, the locals begin to experience that he is no longer the great man that they believed him to be, and begin to witness first hand why he has the bounty on his head.Whilst the opening sequences are slow and stretched to near yawning point (even for me and, hey, I like slow films!), the second half of the movie more than makes up for it. The film really hits the heights as the locals witness the transformation of Gomez' character. Milian plays this role expertly, demonstrating clearly the promise that was to blossom fully in the very near future. Wyler's bounty hunter on the other-hand is far more restrained, yet apt for the character he portrays. There is also a fine supporting cast that includes Spaghetti favourites Mario Brega and Frank Brana, and a pretty powerful soundtrack provided by Cipriani.All in all, I am relieved that I sat through the slow beginning, because the film does have so much going for it once it does get going. May day improved considerably. Well worth viewing.