Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

zardoz-13 There is an amusing line in American-made western parody "Rustler's Rhapsody" that all Spaghetti westerns had great music. Composer Angelo Francesco Lavagnino spices up Umberto Lenzi's violent horse opera about revenge and robbery with a haunting orchestral score that lingered with me long after I'd watched "Pistol for a Hundred Coffins," with Spaghetti western stalwart Peter Lee Lawrence and "Red River" alum John Ireland. Although this 84-minute oater is ostensibly about revenge-as are all Euro-westerns--Lenzi and co-scenarist Marco Leto of "Dead Men Don't Count "and Vittorio Salerno of "Twenty Thousand Dollars for Seven," adapting Eduardo Manzanos' story, have slipped in some interesting characters that you rarely see in horse operas. Peter Lee Lawrence's protagonist Jim Slade is a Jehovah's Witness as well as a conscientious objector who lands himself in a Confederate hard labor camp because he refuses to bear arms. Similarly, John Ireland plays a swift-shooting gunslinger who quotes scripture from the Bible at every opportunity despite not being an ordained preacher. Twists such as these and some surprises in this otherwise formulaic sagebrusher marks "Pistol for a Hundred Coffins" as an above-average shoot'em up with a body count. Interestingly, Lenzi appears to have redressed the same western movie set town that Sergio Leone lensed "A Fistful of Dollars" in, and the villain is played with gusto here by another Spaghetti western regular Piero Lulli. No, the hero doesn't endure the brutal beating that the bad guys gave Clint Eastwood in "A Fistful of Dollars." Primarily, this western takes place in the frontier town of Galveston (nothing like the real-life Galveston) and it concerns a prolonged effort by Corbett (Piero Lulli) and his trigger-happy pistoleros to rob the local bank of $200-thousand dollars that has been set aside from farmers to buy seeds for planting. The loot is delayed, and Corbett and his men hover over the town on its arid, mountainous outskirts, while Slade (Peter Lee Lawrence of "For A Few Bullets More") continues his manhunt for the dastards that killed his family. Most good stories concern characters that change over the course of the narrative, and Jim Slade changes from a man who refuses to kill to one who does kill. Principally, this change is prompted because his blood kin have been massacred. Nevertheless, during this stage of his life, he remains steadfast in his refusal to drink whiskey.Mind you, Umberto Lenzi wasn't the consummate stylist that Sergio Leone was, but Lenzi was prolific in his output and ventured into horror epics, World War 2 actioneers, cannibal movies, police procedurals, etc., with sixty-five films to his credit under his own name and pseudonyms. "Pistol for a Hundred Coffins" doesn't dawdle and the film isn't without comic relief when everybody seems to be spun around by a bullet shrieking through them. Franco Pesce has a blast playing an old codger who embalms and buries the scores of corpses that pile up after each gunfight. One of the more curious subplots that "Pistol for a Hundred Coffins" contains is one that you don't see often see: a bunch of lunatics held in the city jail after their asylum has burned to the ground. At one point, this maniacs, among one who is Spaghetti western regular Eduardo Fajardo, break out and launch an uncoordinated assault on the townspeople with anything they can get their hands on to kill them. Sadly, I haven't seen the letterboxed version of this blood-splattered Spaghetti western, but it ranks as an above-average entry.

morrison-dylan-fan For the 1968 poll on ICM,I decided that I would watch a number of Italian films from the year. A fan of his since Spasmo introduced me to the Giallo genre,I was thrilled to find one of the two Spaghetti Westerns auteur Umberto Lenzi had made was in 1968,which led to me opening the 100 coffins.The plot:Prepared not to take sides during the Civil War, Jim Slade is sent to jail for two years. Just before he is freed,Slade learns that outlaws have killed his family. Picking up a pistol once out,Slade gets a list of the outlaws who killed his family. Tracking the first ones down easily,Slade discovers that the final outlaw wants to take a town he rules down with him.View on the film:Made just before his Giallo era,director Umberto Lenzi & cinematographer Alejandro Ulloa load up on elements which would dominate Lenzi's unique style,as ultra-stylised whip-pans are shot with a scatter-gun energy by Lenzi,with the camera riding on Slade's bullets of revenge. Toning down his usual liking of violence,Lenzi displays a sharp eye for "space",where the lone sound of Angelo Francesco Lavagnino's light Jazzy score builds anticipating to Slade's shootout with an outlaw.Initially looking like an episodic revenge tale, Marco Leto/Eduardo Manzanos Brochero and Vittorio Salerno get Slade to put his revenge Western pistol down by getting him involved in the gritty local politics of the town,which along with giving the flick a neat line in gallows humour,also sets the town up to give Slade and the viewer an excellent twist of the gun. Joined by a stern John Ireland as town leader Douglas, Peter Lee Lawrence (who died of cancer just 30 years old in 1974) gives a wonderful performance as Slade,who masks Slade with an eerie look of false calm,which cracks as Slade opens the hundred coffins.

FightingWesterner Jailed for his religious objection to violence, Peter Lee Lawrence is released from prison at war's end, to find his parents murdered by a gang of thieves. Reversing his stance on killing (though not drinking!), he seeks vengeance, eventually taking a job in Galveston, protecting a cash shipment from the last and hardest of the bunch.From horror director Umberto Lenzi, this is a typically colorful, though somewhat routine Italian western, with some good double and triple-crosses, as well as a few oddball touches, like a jail full of giggling loonies from a burned-out asylum, escaping and wreaking havoc on the town!Though not terribly memorable, A Gun For A Hundred Graves (another great title) is decent enough entertainment for spaghetti western aficionados who want to see all the genre has to offer. John Ireland, who plays a quick-draw preacher, is always worth watching. There's also some pretty good Morricone-like musical themes.

spider89119 This western is the type of movie you might see from Something Weird Video or on MST3K. That's not meant to be a put-down (if it was I'd be putting down 2/3 of my movie collection). I really enjoyed this film.The movie is directed by Umberto Lenzi, who is better known for his Euro-horror movies. The horror influence is clearly evident here when an escaped band of drooling lunatics runs around grunting and killing everyone in sight. It's a real hoot to see spaghetti western regular Eduardo Fajardo playing the part of a giggling homicidal idiot. This alone makes it worthwhile to seek out this film.John Ireland is great as the gunslinging preacher, and Piero Lulli makes a great villain as usual. The acting from the rest of the cast is not exactly top-notch, but that just adds to the flavor of this film. It's quite funny in parts (perhaps unintentionally but one can never be sure).There are also some really funny lines in the movie, which I will not spoil by mentioning here. The way everyone overreacts to the fact that the hero likes to drink water is especially hilarious.I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoys both spaghetti westerns and strange, funny cult movies.