Forgotten Pistolero (1969)

Excellent adaptation.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Overall, Forgotten Pistlero is a solid Spaghetti Western – not great, but good enough. Like a lot of the SWs I've seen, the central theme in this one is revenge. The children of a man murdered by his wife and her lover want revenge. It may be a familiar set-up, but Ferdinando Baldi does an excellent job of building interest and tension right to the final moments. Baldi also throws in a lot of other bits that I've come to expect from an entertaining SW – mysterious strangers (Leonard Mann and Pietro Martellanza) with over-the-top gun skills, an impossibly beautiful heroine (played by Pilar Velazquez), a gang of cut-throat killers, and lots and lots of sweaty men. And the film's finale is about as downbeat as you'll find. It's not as dark as something like The Great Silence, but it's definitely not a happy ending. It stuck with me long after the movie ended. Good stuff.A few other thoughts:1. The music, while very good, is often derivative and very Morricone-esque. It will remind you of a dozen other scores - but that's not necessarily a bad thing. 2. The acting is good, but no one really stands out. The highlight of the cast for me has to be Luciana Paluzzi of Thunderball fame. 3. For what seems like a modestly budgeted SW, there are a couple of set-pieces that are exceptionally well filmed. For example, the waltz scene looks like it came out of a film with a budget far exceeding that of Forgotten Pistolero. It's gorgeous. The other is the film's finale. The burning building is another set-piece that's very well done. I'll give Forgotten Pistolero a rock-solid 7/10.

This Spaghetti western is an incredible hour and a half of cinema. The amazing music score pulls you in right away. It is beautiful and at the same time expresses a feeling of melancholy and impending doom. From the very beginning you know that the ending of this film is going to be one of those grandiose, emotional, over-the-top finales, and when you get there it doesn't disappoint.This is a great revenge story that, in some ways, can be likened to a Shakespearian tragedy. It's a tale of a wealthy family in which marital deception, betrayal, and murder brings on guilt, misery, fear, and ultimately death and destruction. It's also a great action story with lots of gun play, suspense, and some twists and turns.The movie is a quality production with decent acting, and most likely a higher than average budget for a eurowestern.This is a thoroughly enjoyable film from start to finish. Ferdinando Baldi's great direction, Roberto Pregadio's awesome music score, a riveting story, and solid acting performances make this a film that I would recommend to anyone.

As soon as the Forgotten Pistolero starts, the theme tune is instantly familiar - with the whistled score probably surpassed only by Morricone's Dollars trilogy soundtracks, or maybe the Magnificent Seven, when it comes to being used as the backdrop to western sketches everywhere. It is made all the more beautiful by the mountainous Almeria backdrop.The film itself is equally impressive. Directed by the prolific Ferdinando Baldi, it begins with Rafael (Pietro Martellanza) being pursued by a gang of Mexicans. Surviving the ambush (to the sound of that glorious theme), he finds himself finally locating child-hood friend Sebastian (Leonard Mann).Sebastian is informed that the woman he believed to be his mother, and who had raised him since a child, had in fact rescued him as an infant from the brutal attack and mass murder that had cost his father his life. Rafael tells him that this attack had been arranged by his real mother (Paluzzi) and her lover.Sebastian's sister, who had witnessed the massacre all those years ago, had since fallen in love with Rafael (for which he had been severely punished and hounded). The extent of this punishment becomes clear later in the movie when, whilst captive, he is forced to lie next to a beautiful lady, and taunted that he now only has his muscles to prove his manhood.This revenge story follows a different path to the majority of Euro-westerns, with emphasis on the tale rather than action (that said, there are some great action scenes). It is a highly captivating and atmospheric movie, gripping from start to finish. Well worth the watch but - warning - you'll be whistling the music for days!

Ferdinando Baldo needs only 85 minutes to deliver a family drama of high complexity. Rafael hates Anna Carrasco because she didn't permit him to marry her daughter. To accomplish his revenge he searches for Anna's son Sebastian who wants to avenge the murder of his father who was actually murdered by Anna. Anna back then was helped by her lover whom she replaced already by another men. I will not continue any further, I hope you've got an entry into the muddled plot. Unfortunately this isn't a Western plot which means that genre fans will be rather disappointed. Fans of serious drama will be disappointed by the high pace which never permits to get any deeper into the characters. Anna's daughter Conchita says: "I will not leave the town as long as the murderers of my father still live here". Well, I would always prefer not to live together with murderers but that quantity of logic is missing. The story as it is told often rises more questions than it answers. Acting is as good as the weak script permits, the women are really handsome. Sets and locations give the impression of being in Southern Spain and not in the American West most of the time.The high quality German DVD is a real bargain and has an English soundtrack.5 / 10 (**)