It's probably an indication of the popularity of the Italian western that a distinctly average and derivative film like A Stranger in Town should manage to spawn several sequels – The Stranger Returns, The Silent Stranger, Get Mean – starring Tony Anthony as the titular gunfighter.
But before we summarily dismiss the film as little more than the Fistful of Dollars rip-off that its original language title Un Dollaro tra i denti at least admits to, it's worth remembering that Leone's film was itself neither the first spaghetti western nor exactly a model of originality itself, given its pilferings from Yojimbo .
This said, A Stranger in Town is pretty derivative in terms of its plotting, as The Stranger arrives in a deserted border town and is advised to leave if he knows what's good for him. He doesn't and soon witnesses a group of bandits disguised as monks gun down a detachment of Mexican soldiers, whose uniforms they then don. It transpires that the bandits, led by the ruthless Aguilar, are here to collect a consignment of gold that the US Cavalry are about to deliver. It's at this point that The Stranger makes his purpose known: he's here, he says, to vouch for the identity of the Mexican contingent's leader, the US Cavalry officer who's about to arrive being an old friend. His price for helping Aguilar is half the gold…
Aguilar acts according to type, agrees to the deal only to renege on it at the earliest possible opportunity. Unsurprisingly he also makes the mistake of leaving The Stranger alive and thereby able to respond by taking all the money and heading into the desert outside town.
He can't just depart, however, with added complication being provided by the presence of a mother and her small child – scholars of the form will note that the Leone style Holy Family doesn't quite emerge – stuck in the town, prisoners of Aguilar..
Though laden with an indistinct score and a paucity of locations indicative of a limited budget, there's nevertheless enough in A Stranger in Town to make it worthwhile, with Frank Wolff delivering a nice Gian-Maria Volonte inspired turn as the bandit leader; amusing pared-down, riff-heavy dialogue – Aguilar's catchphrase“What am I? I am a fair man” a cue that he's about to demonstrate to the contrary – and brisk, efficient direction from Luigi Vanzi.
Beginning with a shot of The Stranger in silhouette, complete with parasol – the film's producer Allen Klein would subsequently producer Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo – The Stranger Returns / Un uomo, un cavallo, una pistola quickly emerges as a more self-assured work, as our hero lets his horse – named Pussy – graze and reacts to a commotion in the scrub by shooting… a rabbit.
Other than a crazy preacher with a liking for pyrotechnics things do settle down thereafter, however, as The Stranger happens upon the body of a postal inspector who – as we already know – has fallen victim to the group of bandits with whom he had plotted a stagecoach robbery. Thus the scene is set for a story even more marked by duplicity than its predecessor as The Stranger assumes the postal inspector's role and goes off in search of the bandits, the bounty on them and the missing gold…
Unsurprisingly Anthony seems more assured in the role this time round, though perhaps also has to be since his opposite number Dan Vadis doesn't really do much as the bandit chief except go through the evil motions.
Vanzi's direction is again no-nonsense, though slightly more expansive/expensive – as signalled by the presence of two identical coaches, one with gold hidden beneath its panels and the other not – while Francesco De Masi contributes a superior, if obviously ersatz Morricone score.
Though it offers the first two Stranger films on one DVD in widescreen format, it’s hard to be positive about this Region 0 NTSC release from Brazilian company Alfa Digital. The transfers are indistinct with washed out colour when compared to the three included trailers – two for the first film and one for the second, and which also have a habit of revealing too much of what happens – such that their only real advantage over a VHS that they shouldn’t degrade further with repeated viewings or duplication. It’s also uncertain whether the films are framed in correctly, with what looks to be the top of a station logo being intermittently visible at the bottom right.
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
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