Movie Number– 49
Title– The Last Gun (1964)
Running Time– 96 minutes (“Not Rated”)
Director– Sergio Bergonzelli
Writer– Ambrogio Molteni and James Wilde Jr.
Starring– Cameron Mitchell, Carl Möhner and Célina Cély

Movie Number– 50
Title– Four Dollars of Revenge (1965)
Running Time– 88 minutes (“Not Rated”)
Director– Jaime Jesús Balcázar
Writer– Bruno Corbucci, Aldo Grimaldi, and Giovanni Grimaldi
Starring– Robert Woods, Dana Ghia, and Angelo Infanti

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It is difficult to review film genres that one hasn’t spent a lot of time with, but sometimes it is a necessity of the job. Reviewing these films are no different than any other film, though, in that the critic sits back with an open mind and hopes to be entertained for a couple of hours. For me, the western genre falls into this category. Aside from a couple of the bigger names in the genre, this is one I haven’t spent much time with. I only say this so that the reader can understand where I am coming from as I sit down to watch this Mill Creek Entertainment double feature.

What I do know is that spaghetti westerns were big in the 1960s, and that Clint Eastwood cemented himself as a movie star with the Man With No Name Trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly). What Mill Creek Entertainment brings us in this double feature are two of the lesser-known films of the sub-genre: Bergonzelli’s The Last Gun (1964) and Balcázar’s Four Dollars of Revenge (1965).

The Last Gun

In The Last Gun, a gang lead by an evil man named Jess takes over a small town. Jess and his henchmen bully the small town’s local shopkeeper, and try to rape the women. Fortunately for the town, former outlaw Jim Hart has turned to a life of good instead of evil, and the masked man helps the small town deal with Jess and his gang.

The Last Gun is generic as genre films come. Though I haven’t watched much of this genre, this film reeks of the western’s equivalent to horror’s “five teens get lost on the highway and come across a creepy house”. The only thing that is memorable about The Last Gun is how similar it is to the story of Peter Parker/Spider-Man in that a masked man looks out for his town, and the love of his life. The acting is what I expected from the genre, with Cameron Mitchell standing out as the lead. Célina Cély is beautiful as Dolores, the main female role, but her acting isn’t as pretty.

The whole film builds to an incredibly predictable gunfight that the viewer can see coming from the first moment the protagonist, Jim Hart, is introduced. The worst part is that this gunfight is as unexciting as the opening gunfight, thus making this spaghetti western a snoozefest to sit through.

Four Dollars of Revenge

Four Dollars of Revenge tells the story of Captain Roy Dexter (Robert Woods), who is asked to escort a fortune of gold coins to Washington when Mexican bandits ambush him and his men. Dexter survives, but is subsequently accused of setting the whole ambush up, and is sentenced to life in prison. Dexter finds a way to escape the prison, and his goal becomes to punish those that set him up in the first place.

Where Four Dollars of Revenge trumps The Last Gun is in cinematography and story, but the plot structure is just as poor. Director Jaime Jesús Balcázar manages to find interesting camera angles and uses the beautiful landscape around him to his advantage. The action in Revenge is more exciting and prevalent than in Last Gun, and this gives the movie a forward-moving feeling, making it more exciting to watch. Unfortunately the way the plot unfolds is just as predictable as Last Gun, and I was able to guess the ending by the end of the first act.

The acting is on par with Last Gun, except for the lead, Robert Woods, who delivers an excellent performance. Woods is the only great actor in the bunch, though, and the rest of the cast ranges from mediocre to awful (most of the extras that have one or two lines are laughable).

Even though Four Dollars of Revenge is a better film than The Last Gun, neither are movies I would recommend to a friend. This is not a good place to start with the western genre, but fanatics looking for something else to fill in a couple of hours might enjoy the campiness that these two films bring to the genre. Aside from that niche audience, these films are not worth the time.

Branden Chowen

Branden has been a film fan since he was young, roaming the halls of Blockbuster Video, trying to find the grossest, scariest looking VHS covers to rent and watch alone in the basement. It wasn’t until recently, though, that Branden started seeking out the classics of cinema, and began to develop his true passion for the art form. Branden approaches each film with the unique perspective of having studied the art from the inside, having both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in acting. He has been a film critic since 2010, and has previously written for Inside Pulse Movies, We Love Cult, and Diehard Gamefan. His biggest achievement as a film critic, to date, has been founding Cinefessions and turning it from a personal blog to a true film website, housing hundreds of film and television reviews, and dozens of podcasts.