Gentleman Killer (1967)

Anthony Steffan plays a gambler who comes to a town on the American/Mexican border where bandits have taken over and the only law is maintained by his brother, a cavalry officer. The brother is shortly shot by the bandits, leaving Steffan to take over and right the situation.

I thought this was a pretty decent, mid-tier spaghetti western. The locations looked pretty good at times. Steffan was never the most skilled actor, but he does pretty well here – the role didn’t require great acting versatility anyway. The plot makes sense – OK, the bandits display their typical reluctance to just kill the hero in favour of rigging an elaborate death that somehow never happens, and there’s one scene where the saloon mistress goes riding through the countryside for no reason to find someone who should have been in town, but apart from those it’s not bad. The action is reasonably enjoyable with some nicely executed moments (a bit near the start in the jail with a noose springs to mind). The story is never going to win awards for originality, but has some nice twists: the hero spends most of the latter part of the film involuntarily trolleyed, for example.

The one complaint I have about it is that the seedy gentleman gambler side of the heroes character is not really expanded on after the introduction; once his brother’s been killed he’s pretty focused on revenge and that’s that. Also, the discussion of “The Gambler” makes it sound a bit like a Kenny Rodgers song at times (although I’m not convinced that’s a bad thing…).

Ps. Much of the rest of the world seems slightly more negative about this film that I am, so take my comparative “it’s OK; entertaining enough” with a pinch of salt.

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