Garringo (1968)

Peter Lee Lawrence is an embittered killer, hunting down army officers in revenge for his father’s murder during his childhood. Anthony Steffan is Garringo, the army officer released from jail to track Lawrence down (a sort of “doesn’t play by the rules but he gets results, damn-it!” type). The rest of the film is a fairly straight-forward cat and mouse game with a few diversions involving bounty hunters and a Doctor and pretty daughter who have just moved to town. The other character of note is the Sheriff, Lawrence’s uncle, who provides Lawrence will a fairly idyllic childhood (ignoring the father’s murder) doing manly bonding such as shooting practice (see picture). In retrospect, this turns out to be a mistake.

I always quite like Peter Lee Lawrence as an actor, and he does well here: his character is both charming but also highly strung and prone to extreme violence and he captures that well. I’m less convinced by Steffan as Garringo: at the start a lot is made of his ruthless and violent interrogation techniques against somewhat innocent people, which put him on the trail of Lawrence. However this aspect is soon forgotten as he becomes a much more conventional hero and we end up with a much less interesting film as a result. To Steffan’s credit, this is probably an issue with the script more than his performance.

Overall, a decent, mid-tier Spaghetti Western. The plot is largely fairly conventional but does the job. The acting and characterisation are reasonable. The production standards are decent. It loses some interest in the middle, but is was generally enjoyable enough. The Explosive Media DVD looks very good, although the speech on the English soundtrack is a bit muffled at times.

Two other reviews (both quite positive):

• Shobary
• Spaghetti Western Database

Pictures