Sartana - the complete rewatch

When Arrow Video released their Complete Sartana Blu Ray boxset, I got in the mood to rewatch all of the movies. Since I don't own a blu ray player, I couldn't purchase the boxset, but I got to the HD versions anyway. For four of them I even had to sync the subtitles and for one I had to translate them again, because the translation of the old ones was poor.  I watched the Garko movies for the first time ten years ago, second time some five or six years ago, so I didn't remember all of it. I watched the Hilton movie only once, five years ago. So how did I enjoy the movies this time?

If you meet Sartana, pray for your death (1968)

Actually, this movie gets better and better witch each rewatch. For the first time I didn't like it at all. Second time it was slightly better, but for some reason I thought there was not enough of our hero. Why? As I watched it now, I noticed that at least in the first half of the movie he's almost all the time on screen. But the movie is shared with William Berger's Lasky, Sydney Chaplin, Gianni Rizzo and Fernando Sancho as a Mexican general for a change. Too many players, confused plot, but now I almost got it apart from the beginning scene. Did it have any relation to the rest of the movie? Kinski's in it, just a little screentime, not much talking, but he's very effective. Great sets and costumes, awful locations. That sandpit looks really out of place.

I am Sartana, your angel of death (1969)

I always liked it, but this time it was quite boring. Maybe it did not very good subtitles, not matching the poor English audio, maybe it's just a little bit boring. The best scenes contain Klaus Kinski as a misfortuned bounty killer, a rather positive character this time. The worst scenes don't contain neither Sartana, nor Frank Wolff as his shabby partner, nor Kinski, just the bad guys. That means the first cca 12 minutes of the movies are overlong. The story is too complicated once again, but this time I didn't feel like many scenes were appearing later in the film than they should have. I regret I didn't wait for the HD version containing one scene more that presents us the villains, maybe with that it makes more sense. The final shootout in the church is not very suspenseful though.

Have a good funeral, my friend, Sartana will pay (1970)

I skipped the George Hilton movie for a while and watched all the Garko's Sartanas first. An entertaining one, not very complicated, action packed, great music, good cast (Wang, Giordano, Ressel, Induni, Liné). Confucius is wise, Sartana is wiser. Garko kicks ass. Not the best movie, but yes, the second best.

Light the fuse, Sartana is coming (1971)

Finally, at the fifth and last movie the production was joined by Spanish and so it has got much bigger budget, much better locations and slightly more stellar cast (Nieves Navarro, Piero Lulli - ok, he was in the Hilton movie, Frank Braña, Bruno Corazzari). Garko is at his coolest, the movie is fast paced and never drags, although the prologue in the jail is much more brutal than the rest of the movie. Several funny scenes, great music (Bruno Nicolai again), good cinematography, overall a very entertaining movie. And with cannons and machine gun disguised as a pipe organ! Priceless.

Sartana's here, trade your pistol for a coffin (1970)

Finally I got to rewatch the Hilton movie. It doesn't feel like a Sartana movie at all. Hilton just isn't Sartana. Bad guys aren't convincing, sets aren't convincing, the story is pretty lame and for most part is completely missing. No mystery this time. There's a scene with spaghetti regulars Federico Boido and Luciano Rossi as two very violent brothers, trying to torture Erika Blanc - this scene is in this mostly tongue in cheek movie absolutely out of place, but being one of the most memorable ones. It isn't one of the worst spaghetti westerns, far from it, but it's definitely the weakest official Sartana. Still better than any Sartana directed by Demofilo Fidani.

My ranking from top to bottom after this rewatch:
Light the fuse, Sartana is coming
Have a good funeral, my friend, Sartana will pay
If you meet Sartana pray for your death
I am Sartana, your angel of death
Sartana's here, trade your pistol for a coffin