4 Star

Greed, Revolution and More Greed.

From the director that brought the world the “Kommissar X” movies, Gianfranco Parolini, he now turns his had to the popular “Spaghetti Western” genre with his strong character Sabata. A man with unimaginable gun skills and a glint in his eye that says “Just Try Me”. Sabata deals out his justice with an array of never before seen weaponry, and a wit that will cut you in half. The trilogy fits well in the “Spaghetti Western” Genre, with the typical music supplied by Marcello Giombini and Bruno Nicolai.

Sabata

Daughtery, Texas, it is dark, and the army are at the bank loading their payroll of $100, 000 into the two ton safe buried in the wall of the bank. With armed guards inside and out, they feel that everything will be safe till the morning, but no, there are very agile people that get up to the first floor balcony and eliminate the guards very quickly and quietly as others disguised as soldiers do the same outside. A team of horses, ropes and a trolley later the safe is on the back of a wagon and away. As revelers enjoy the night in the bar, a soldier has survived and alerts the town to the robbery.

Elsewhere in Daughtery, Sabata (Lee Van Cleef, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Magnificent Seven Ride!) meets Carrincha (Ignazio Spalla, Go with God, Gringo, Seven Nuns in Kansas City), an alcoholic Confederate veteran and his silent height loving friend Indio aka Alley cat (Aldo Canti, Five for Hell, War of the Planets). With the town in uproar, Sabata rides out of town and when he returns there are seven bodies and a safe all safe and well and a grateful army officer, earning a lawful reward of $5ooo. Whilst out doing what he does, Sabata meets Banjo (William Berger, Today We Kill, Tomorrow We Die!, The Son of Zorro), who is also just passing through. But he claims to know Sabata from a while ago.

Sabata now has a problem, as it is the people who run the town that are responsible for the robbery. They wanted the money to buy the surrounding land as the railway company will be coming through the area in the near future. These people are Stengel (Franco Ressel, The Four Musketeers, War Italian Style), Judge O’Hara (Gianni Rizzo, The Name of the Rose, Return of Sabata) and Ferguson (Antonio Gradoli, Adiós, Sabata, Mister X) and they want that money, but it is Sabata that has the evidence that will link them to the robbery and Sabata wants a high price for his silence. With many twists and turns, quips and marksmanship, double-dealing and double crossings, this is a true Spaghetti Western.

Adiós, Sabata (aka Indio Black)

This time we see  Sabata played by Yul Brenner (The Magnificent Seven, Westworld, The King and I) and instead of relying on his four-barreled pistol he has a mares-leg rifle with a harmonica style cartridge that he is amazingly accurate with. The time is for revolution in Mexico as Maximilian I is a ruthless Austrian ruler, and he has Colonel Skimmel (Gérard Herter, The Great War, To Hell and Back) to dish out his own ruthless style of order.

Sabata is a man of fortune, and he is tasked with acquiring the colonels massive stash of gold dust, and with a few known faces with different names he sets about his work. But as usual by now there are twists and turns and double crossings, Also staring Dean Reed (Buckaroo: The Winchester Does Not Forgive, The Nephews of Zorro) as Ballantine the replacement Banjo character.

Return of Sabata

Lee Van Cleef reprises the role of Sabata, this time he is showing off his quick-draw skills in a travelling circus which arrives at a small Texas town where there is a Casino come brothel run by a man that owes Sabata five thousand dollars and Sabata decides to stay in town and collect on the debt. Whilst in town he discovers that the local landowners the McIntock’s are running a scam of charging huge taxes under the pretense of improving the town, when actually they want the fortune for themselves, so that means that Sabata wants it for himself and his familiar friends with different names.

Sabata Fast shooting and deadly.

A must-have for the Lee Van Cleef or Spaghetti Western fan. A Great release by (Eureka Classics)

The Sabata Trilogy (Eureka Classics) is available on Blu-ray

SPECIAL THREE DISC BLU-RAY EDITION CONTAINS

O-Card Slipcase
Reversible Sleeve featuring original poster artwork for each film
1080p presentations on Blu-ray from High-Definition transfers
English audio options
Optional English SDH Subtitles
Sabata – Brand new feature length audio commentary by author / critic Kim Newman
Adiós, Sabata – Brand new feature length audio commentary by filmmaker and historian Mike Siegel
Return of Sabata – Brand new feature length audio commentary by authors C. Courtney Joyner & Henry Parke
New video pieces on each film by Austin Fisher, author of Radical Frontiers in the Spaghetti Western: Politics, Violence and Popular Italian Cinema
Trailers
Stills Galleries
PLUS: A Limited-Edition Collector’s Booklet featuring new writing by Western expert Howard Hughes [First Print Run of 2000 copies only]