Death Rides a Horse (1967)

The real king of the Spaghetti Westerns was not Clint Eastwood, it was Lee Van Cleef.  In this one, Van Cleef is left holding the bag by the gang of outlaws he used to ride with who double cross him and leave him to serve 15 years at hard labor in the Territorial Prison.  On the trail for revenge, Van Cleef's path keeps running across John Phillip Law who is looking for the same gang to get revenge for the murder of his family.

Like Roger Ebert said in a 1969 review panning this movie, "The heroes of these films would save a lot of time if they'd accept one simple rule of thumb: Generally speaking, everyone they meet is either (a) the man who killed their families 15 years ago, (b) a stranger who is after the same villians for mysterious reasons of his own, or (c) their father, brother or son."

Although the movie was a step below the Eastwood movies, Death Rides A Horse is entertaining and, for a spaghetti western, well made and well acted.  The film was directed by Giulio Petroni and written by Luciano Vincenzoni who co-wrote The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and For a Few Dollars More with Sergio Leone.  The original score was written by Ennio Morricone.  The movie was released in Italy under the title Da Uomo a Uoma "From Man to Man."

According to Howard Hughes in Once Upon a Time in the Italian West: "One of the key themes of Lee Van Cleef's best post-Leone spaghetti westerns is corruption and capitalism in the west.  Ex-outlaw Walcott has gained a foothold in society and become the head of the Lyndon City Bank.  Having negotiated a deal with Senator Carlisle involving the Atchison/Santa Fe Railroad, he steals the senator's million-dollar public works donation.  This episode is another example of Vincenzoni using historical sources for his scenarios.  Much wheeler-dealing was done to decide a route for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe involving Cyrus K. Holliday, a Pennsylvania lawyer, who talked Congress into a huge land grant to support his grandiose, overreaching scheme."

Death Rides a Horse borrows heavily from other films.  The climatic shootout in the Mexican village, El Viento, which means ("The Wind"), is stolen from the climax of The Magnificent Seven, which in turn stole it from Kurisawa's Seven Samurai.

John Phillip Law comes close to biting the dust!

Again according to Hughes: "Death Rides a Horse" marked the end of Lee Van Cleef's most successful period in Europe; not in terms of box-office receipts ("Sabata" considerably outgrossed it in 1969), but in terms of quality.  With the exception of "Day of Anger" and "Sabata," Van Cleef was cast in second-rate star vehicles, with bizarre changes of pace, and some outright disasters - a foregone conclusion whenever Van Cleef attempted comedy.  In 1967 Van Cleef was at a crossroads: should he stay in Europe and enjoy the high life, or return to the U.S. and try to build on his comparative fame? . . . Van Cleef's agent, Tom Jennings, commented years later, 'Lee was always a bigger star everywhere else than in Hollywood.'  With Van Cleef's growing global popularity, they could probably spell his name everywhere - sadly everywhere except Hollywood."

Death Rides A Horse is a solid B+ Spaghetti Western.  Three and a half sixguns out of five.