Killers: Bandidos

A brutal train robbery turns vicious when Billy Kane (Venantino Venantini) and his united gangs of bandits take all valuables and butcher everyone they find. When it comes to the final car, however, someone on board executes the robbers with precise pistol fire: one shot, one kill. It’s a professional sharpshooter’s talent, and Billy knows this man’s signature. Richard Martin (Enrico Maria Salerno) is responsible for these shots, and both he and Billy Kane share history. Enough for Martin to declare “You’d better kill me, Billy, or I’m gonna kill you.” Billy Kane chooses not to kill his partner, shooting him in the hands instead. Thus rendered a cripple, the gang leaves Martin for dead.

Years later, Martin is touring the countryside with a sharpshooter show. He’s not the gunman attraction anymore but the barker, and when his latest attraction is ambushed and killed by a trio of thugs, Martin loses his cool and starts a barroom brawl with the murderers. It is there that he makes the acquaintance of a stranger who is good with his fists, good looking enough to charm crowds and hopefully good with a gun; Martin makes the young man a partner, tutors him in the way of the dueling pistol and six-shooter, and they set out to make some money.

However, finding money is the furthest thing from Martin’s mind. He’s been nurtured on vengeance fantasies for so long that they seem to be all the bread and water he needs. His hope is to make Ricky Shot (Terry Jenkins) his new set of hands, and have those hands kill Billy Kane.

However, Ricky Shot has his own plans. As it turns out he’s an escaped convict with his own reasons for finding Billy Kane, and those reasons are less murderous … at least at first.

Who will get a crack at Billy first? Martin? Ricky Shot? Kane’s old, double crossed partner Vigonza (Cris Huerta)? Or maybe some of the gang members who’ve been burned by partnerships with the greedy outlaw? Billy’s shooting hands are still quick as the devil, but is he ready to face this kind of opposition? Massimo Dallamano helms a visually stunning entry in the cycle of spaghetti westerns with Bandidos (1967).

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with westerns has heard of the films of Sergio Leone—the godfather of the spaghetti westerns. That term originally came about as a means to describe or encapsulate the plethora of western films shot in Spain and Italy, often helmed by Italian directors. Leone’s Man With No Name series launched Clint Eastwood’s career into the stratosphere as cinema’s loveable tough hombre, and Leone pretty well redefined what westerns could do, how they could look while doing it, and the artistry of filming violence. Peckinpah would refine the violence angle later on, but Leone brought a clockmaker’s precision to the way these pictures were made, edited, scored, and presented.

The man who directed Bandidos was the cinematographer for the first two of those pictures, A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965). He collaborated with Leone to give those films their lovely images, and that talent for photography translates into this, his first feature film as director. (Prior to it, he directed a documentary, but that’s a different kettle of fish). For Bandidos, he was also one of two credited directors of photography (the other being the prolific Emilio Foreiscot). To say that this film is on a level with Leone’s film is not an overstatement. The storyline might not be as complex as Leone’s masterpieces, but the look and feel and flow of images is on par. The moving camera passing over the train, surrounded by corpses, is a stunning conclusion to a violent opening. There’s a terrific scene at a bar later on where a bottle slides along the bar, the camera behind it, only to have it hoisted up to a traveling outlaw’s mouth, which is great fun. The visuals are often incredible and never less than great. The characters are flawed, layered individuals who manage to show those layers both through dialogue as well as the way they walk, hobble, shake, shudder, scowl, and look. This is a film that manages to convey a lot of information through the visuals, and it does so with unexpected angles, unusual positions, intriguing lighting, and a meticulous use of both the close up and the wide angle. The film is a gem of photography and cinematography, worth considering for those two elements alone.

However, the acting is also mighty fine.

Salerno is great as the broken man, who still burns with the hateful fire of a thousand suns. He’s got the look and the grit, but he does a terrific job always reminding us of the weakness in those hands. They seemed like such strong hands once, but now they are nothing. However, there’s more to Martin than his disability or his efforts to overcome it. And Salerno manages to milk the mentor role for all its worth. There’s a suspenseful scene where he’s teaching the kid to shoot straight by standing beside a lit stick of dynamite. “Hit the wick or get yourself another teacher.” It’s a lovely scene, which Salerno sells through his craft.

Likewise, Venantini does a terrific job as the fastest gun alive, a man with few scruples but unspoken depths. He’s got a terrific sense of timing, and of carrying his weight, to make himself look lethal as a cobra poised to strike. His character is a liar, a cheat, a backstabber, and a cold blooded killer, but he’s also charismatic as hell. And there’s a scene where Ricky Shot surprises him and instills a debt, that is pretty incredible both for the action scene that plays out as well as the aftermath where Kane has to choose one of his men to pay off said debt … Great, great acting.

Finally, there is Terry Jenkins, the first person we see in the film—though we don’t realize it—who gets his ass thrown off a moving train for not having a ticket. He’s got the strong silent quality Eastwood exemplified in various westerns and cop actioners. However, he’s also got a vulnerability he’s not afraid to show as well. This is not the ultimate badass with no fear, he’s a very human character with several flaws, who knows what he wants and understands what needs to happen before he can get those desires.

As great as they are, it is Cris Huerta who steals the scenes he appears in. He plays a hefty braggart, the Mexican bandit leader who manages to somehow get away with things, and who established a mini-empire south of the border for himself. He’s funny and fiendish, a terrific character who is perhaps shallower in terms of layers, but who is nevertheless a potent firecracker.

And none of these people would have much to interest to do without a script. Luis Laso and Juan Cobos are credited with the story (essentially an early draft/treatment), while Romano Migliorini & Gianbattista Mussetto and Juan Cobos are credited with the screenplay. I’m not sure which of those credited screenwriters came up with the idea of a bar half in Texas and half in Mexico with a massive white line drawn down the middle, but it’s a terrific image used for the perfect amount of comedy as the right time.

The emotional stew this film creates is a savory one, rich with different elements that work together in intriguing ways. It’s a violent action film with comic touches, a touching psychological character study, and a meditation on motivations. The only critique I have for it is the inclusion of Betty Starr (María Martín) and her beauties for more than the first saloon scene they are in … She doesn’t have much to do but act maternal, and not many opportunities for that. It’s a shame the screenwriters couldn’t find some better use for her character, but they already had enough dramatic meat on their story with Ricky Shot being metaphorically pulled between two strong personalities.

The Arrow edition includes a lovely transfer and both English and Italian versions of the film, as well as commentary from Kat Ellinger, and a set of interesting features focusing on the film’s history and director, an interview with Luigi Perelli, and another interview with Gino Barbacane. It’s a good package for an overlooked film.

Bandidos is as tough and gritty a spaghetti western as you’d care to find, layered in its characterizations and visually stunning to boot. Dallamano takes the lessons he learned from Leone’s flicks and applied it to his own film, giving several spectacles working together and a clockmaker’s precision in organizing and executing the events. It’s a feast for the eyes.

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Bandidos is available in the Vengeance Trails Blu-ray boxed set from Arrow. It is also available in DVD a VOD edition.

Next, we round out our watch of the Vengeance Trails Blu-ray boxed set‘s flicks with the final entry in the set, a gothic western called And God Said To Cain (1970). Here, Klaus Kinski stars as the troubled young man in search of satisfaction, and he’s got one heck of a ride through Hell to get it. It is available in a VOD edition.

Writing for “Killers: Bandidos” is copyright © 2022 by Daniel R. Robichaud.

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