The Stranger Returns (1968)

Great Film overall

Fantastic!

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

"The Stranger Returns", is much better than the first "Stranger" movie, just as "For a Few Dollars More" eclipsed "A Fistful of Dollars". The score here is an absolute "killer" , and very Morricone like. I would say that Warner Brothers has done a great job with the Archive Collection transfer. Colors are sharp and the musical score is clearly a highlight. The story itself, has Tony Anthony playing the low key sly fox, taking a beating, but eventually outsmarting Dan Vadis and his gang. There are several chuckles that actually work, and the action, although predictable, moves along at a good pace. I consider this film to be one of the better non-Leone spaghetti westerns, and is recommended viewing, especially for "spaghetti" fans. - MERK

I'm usually up for a good spaghetti western, but I found "The Stranger's Return" for the most part to be a below average sampling of the genre. While most other spaghetti westerns were able to take low budgets and squeeze every last penny out of them to make solid production values, this time around the low budget really shows. That would be a minor quibble had the movie been given energy and speed, but the movie feels very, very tired. It moves really slowly, and there is no feeling of passion at any moment. Instead, there is a crude and clumsy feeling, like the filmmakers were making things up as they went along and didn't have the time or resources to think things over carefully before shooting. As for the title character, Tony Anthony has absolutely no charisma. Oddly, his facial expression for most of the movie makes it appear that he's about to burst into tears at any moment. There are a few good touches that manage to come out here and there - the musical score, for one thing, isn't bad at all - but the movie as a whole is a tough slog to sit through.

Enjoyed the first film with Tony Anthony, "A Strange in Town" and this film is quite similar except there are women being raped and one shot dead while trying to hang out her laundry. There are a whole gang of laughing bandits who simply love to tease, torture and kill in cold blood. The Strange meets up with a rather crazy preacher who has all kinds of secrets to help the Stranger fight off this gang of bandits who are after a gold shipment and the Stranger assumes the identify of a murdered postal inspector. The Stranger is captured and given a good beating and was pulled by a rope behind a stagecoach and was then kicked and punched in the face constantly. The music in this picture added a great deal of sound effects throughout the entire film and I must say some of the gals in this picture were very good looking and sexy.

This second installment of the Stranger series is significantly better than the first film, and is a pretty average/middling entry to the Spaghetti Western genre. Its an amazing testament to the popularity of the Spaghetti Western that the first bland Stranger film was able to spawn any sequels at all. .As the Stranger appears, riding a black horse under a tattered umbrella, my first thoughts were of El Topo, but this isn't an Existentialist Western. This sequel is much more lighthearted a more easygoing tone than the first film, with some bits of humor (like his horse named `Pussy') and a more upbeat score. This time the Stranger is a bit more like Trinity than the Man with No Name, but the film still suffers from overall clumsiness and Anthony's lack of presence (and bad hair). Once again the Stranger tangles with a group of bandits after gold, their leader being a good cold-hearted villain, who is known for never missing a shot. The bandits and the Stranger are after not a wagon carrying a load of gold, but one actually made out of it. In this and the first Stranger film (Stranger in Town), they borrow the Fistful of Dollars/Django device where the Stranger is caught by the bad guys and beaten badly only to escape and exact his revenge, but it doesn't work in the same way. When Eastwood or Nero is captured and beaten, its like they have taken down an unstoppable giant, whereas with Anthony's Stranger he just comes off like a luckless weakling. To his credit, Anthony did co-write The Stranger Returns and it is a pretty good Spaghetti story, but why he allowed the pink shirt I'll never know.The finale is, once again, rather clumsy in its execution, with some badly composed action- for instance, a man follows the Stranger into a room only to quickly give up looking for him and start goofing off in front of a mirror, or the Stranger disguising some water barrels that a villain cant tell are water barrels even though he is only about two inches away, and an awkward face off at a table full of food that is supposed to be humorous. Overall though, it is better in style, story, and characters than the first Stranger film, and gets a 6/10 for the genre. Nothing special but well worth a look for the Spaghetti fan.