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Powerful

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Confederate soldier Anthony Steffan returns, possibly from the grave, to get revenge on the treacherous former commanding officers who double-crossed and sold him and his fellow soldiers out to the Yankees.Gritty, moody, and atmospheric, this was reportedly the uncredited inspiration for Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter and does indeed bear a few similarities. Fans of the Eastwood film should definitely check this out.One of two problems I had with the movie was the unconvincing casting of Rada Rassimov in the role of the chief heavy's kept woman. To me anyway, she looks like her brother, actor Ivan Rassimov in a blonde wig and dress!Also, I really wish they hadn't stamped the movie and it's main character with the name Django. (The real Django fought for the Union, remember?) I'm sorry to say it kind of cheapened, ever so slightly, an otherwise highly original film.However, the direction and a fascinating performance by Steffan outweigh the any negatives on the part of the film.

A black-clad stranger walks into a small town. It's your typical spaghetti western town that exists in the borders somewhere between the b-movie universe and myth. He walks through the empty streets and stops outside a saloon. He nails in the ground a cross bearing a name and that day's date. He's Django, "the devil from hell".Django the Bastard AKA The Stranger's Gundown is yet another in a long string of unofficial Django clone but sadly not among the top tier ones even by Django clone standards. Spaghettis were dime a dozen in the late 60's, most of them shot on shoe-string budgets over two weeks from identical scripts and sets with not much else going for them than a barebones script and the promise of European audiences flocking to the nearest cinema to sate their hunger of greasy Mexican villains and laconic nameless strangers.Antonio Steffen plays another unofficial Django. The novelty this time around is that his Django exists somewhere in the elusive field between lone ranger, angel of death and vengeful ghost. If that sounds all too familiar, yes this is the movie that was the key inspiration behind Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter and deserves credit for that reason alone. The execution however doesn't match the idea nor does it mine its full potential.The opening shot is cool but can't mask the movie's low-budget. This is low-low-budget and everything reflects that. The story is fairly simple but the narrative stretched thin with the pace suffering as a result. Some set-pieces have a charm to them but can't take on their full impact due to a lack of budget. Steffen is very good on his role as the laconic Django that is influenced more by Eastwood's Man with no Name than Franco Nero's Django from Sergio Corbucci's original. He appears out of nowhere, shoots people then disappears into the dark again, making him an elusive force of revenge. There's a dark and brooding atmosphere running throughout the movie, although it's not as successful in that aspect as Frank Krammer's original Sartana from the same year.So, what we have here is a missed opportunity but not without its charm. As it is, Eastwood's High Plains Drifter is a superior interpretation of the same idea, but spaghetti western fans owe it to themselves to watch this forgotten little flick, even out of genre curiosity.

(aka: DJANGO THE BASTARD or THE STRANGER WORE A GUN)Presented by American schlockmeister Herman Cohen, this has an excellent opening title score by Vasco and Mancuso with a woman hissing "Django" and wailing vocals, similar to Edda d'Orso with great orchestration to boot !! I like it !!According to the press release from VCI, this originally had an X rating (for violence) which might explain why it has a 1974 date on it, even though the film was made in '69. Not sure why that took place since there's nothing in this film to warrant that. It certainly isn't any more violent than a lot of the other films of this genre.It has some decent gunplay as Django wreaks revenge on those three Confederate officers who betrayed them to the yankees, but there isn't a whole lot of blood compared to say Fulci's FOUR GUNMAN FOR THE APOCALYPSE (1975). Even the Eastwood trilogy has more blood in it than this one. The flashback to the Civil War scene also looked sloppy and stagy, so don't expect a repeat of the Civil War scenes from THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY. Throw up a few tents and have a few extras fall unconvincingly. It had to be filmed quickly, I guess.Also Anthony Steffan is kinda bland compared to say Franco Nero or John Phillip Law, which puts him in the REALLY bland category. He doesn't look particularly like an anti-hero, instead he looks like one of the bad guys. I guess that since he is a grim-reaper type of character in this film, you wouldn't want him to look the leading man.Thomas Weisser, author of "Spaghetti Westerns" rates this one pretty high although I'm not as enthused about it as he is. I'll still give it a 7 out of 10, more for what I consider the exceptional score than for the film itself.

A mysterious gunfighter dressed in black arrives at a western town and starts killing selected people who had betrayed him in the past.The question is if the mysterious gunfighter is alive or dead... But you have to watch the movie to find it out!!...Great performance of Anthony Steffen as the stranger who seeks revenge.This movie could be a hybrid of Clint Eastwood`s "High plains drifter" and "Pale rider".You won´t be disappointed.