The Dirty Outlaws Review by J.D.
Review of The Dirty Outlaws (1967) aka El desperado / The Big Ripoff / King of the West;
Ok, as any of you who follow the genre know, Wild East has done a fantastic job as of late in bringing otherwise-forgotten Eurowesterns new life, with their ever-growing Spaghetti Western Collection, restored (and often double-features) on one DVD. I had the chance to catche Wild East’s The Dirty Outlaws, directed by Franco Rosetti in 1967. It stars Andrea Giordana (acting as “Chip Corman”) as an outlaw named Steve Blasko. While stopping at a drinking hole after getting away from a near hanging for horsethievery, a dying, delirious Confederate soldier stumbles upon him, ranting abut his blind father who’s sitting on a ton of gold that lives in a ghost town to the north. After the soldier dies, Steve heads north to trick the blind guy that he’s his son, so he can steal the gold. Unfortunately , there’s a gang that also happens to be waiting around for a Confederate gold shipment to pass through, so naturally, all hell breaks loose, double-crosses galore and plot twists, and lots of gunfights.
Although more or less your typical B-movie spag, I found myself liking this one due to the plot more than anything else, which seemed to have some originality about it. Throughout the movie, you did get that “what’s gonna happen next?” thing going on. The acting was so-so, althoug Giordana most definitely has some screen presence, and the two women in the film were quite nice on the eyes, as well. The soundtrack by Gianni Ferrio was typical, with some interesting moments, and reminded me a lot of Riz Ortolani’s soundtrack to Day of Anger.
This American/Italian co-production was actually quite heavy on the violence, in that there was quite a bit of gunplay going on. Not shocking by any standards, but a stark contrast to what you would have seen in an American western in 1967. And there was a rather funny scene where the bad gang tries to get a captured Rebel soldier to give up some info… by sticking lit matches in his ears (flames out, not in). It was funnier than hell because the guy’s screaming like he’s gettting disemboweled although I can’t possibly see why:
In the early days of the Bush administration, before settling on waterboarding, other torture techniques were tried. This one was found to be rather ineffective, as the matches would fall out of the ears as they burned down. It’s not torture.
Wild East did a great job on this, it looks and sounds great. All in all, I’d say check it out, it was a pretty decent flick. Not high art by any means, but entertaining nevertheless.
This article is part of the A Fistful of Pasta archive
