TVPast Forums - Sabata Trilogy

Sabata Trilogy

Dvd: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...SIN=B000AQOHNK

Boxset: Sabata / Adios, Sabata / Return of Sabata

Sabata is an excellent combination of western action, acrobats, fancy gadgets, humor, good music and clever camera work. A trio of city-big-wigs attempt to empty the bank. Sabata finds out and blackmails the buch. The trio sends more and more bad guys to dispatch Sabata. With each attempt the henchmen are bumped-off (in increasingly funny and imaginative ways). After each attempt Sabata ups the anti. This continues until all hell breaks loose in a wonderfully filmed shootout.

Yul Brynner replaces Lee Van Cleef in the title role for 1971's Adios, Sabata, the second and best entry in producer Alberto Grimaldi's spaghetti Western trilogy about the mysterious stranger with an unknown past and a penchant for righteousness, as long as there's serious cash involved. While some fans will miss Van Cleef's iconic performance, Brynner is just as good. In fact, with his all-black outfit (replete with open-necked, fringe-bedecked shirt and a ten-foot scarf draped over one shoulder) and gold-plated rifle (equipped with a machine gun-like clip that only enhances his jaw-dropping marksmanship), this is a very cool Yul indeed. What's more, the film is several notches above both its predecessor (1969's Sabata) and its successor in almost every way; it's wittier, the editing and continuity are superior, the direction's more assured, the stunts are more convincing, and the action comes fast and furious. The story is formulaic - like Sabata, this one involves our hero and his trusty sidekicks attempting to relieve the bad guys of a load of loot that the villains stole in the first place. But Adios, Sabata also has a political element, insofar as the enemy, led by the truly evil Col. Skimmel (Gerard Herter), are occupying Austrians trying to suppress some noble Mexican revolutionaries fighting to keep their country free.

Return of Sabata, is both the strangest of the three and arguably the one that most embodies the spaghetti Western aesthetic. Sabata (Lee Van Cleef) and his sidekicks take on the greedy villain who's extorting tax money from the good citizens of Hobsonville, with double-crosses the most common currency.