No Room to Die (1969)

Una lunga fila di croci (AKA: No Room to Die/A Noose for Django/Hanging for Django) is directed by Sergio Garrone and features music by Vasco and Mancuso, with cinematography by Franco Villa. It stars Anthony Steffen, William Berger, Nicoletta Machiavelli, Mario Brega and Riccardo Garrone. Mexican's are being smuggled over the border to work as cheap labour for wealthy land baron Fargo (Garrone). Fargo's gang is made up of known criminals with bounties on their heads, this greatly interests two bounty hunters, Brandon (Steffen) and Murdock (Berger), who may have to team up to achieve their goals and stay ahead of the game? On plot terms it's simplicity 101, a couple of cool dudes are waging a war against the evil and wealthy town boss and his gang. In true Spaghetti Western style a lot of blood is shed, there's plenty of scowling from scuzzy men and pouting from the lead babe. A twist is thrown in for good measure, and on an action quota basis this never lacks in that department. In fact I think there might be more gunplay than actual dialogue! It's what I would call a safe Spaghetti Western, a chance to make a telling political point is wasted, but there's a lot of style around to ensure that the pic is never once dull. Garrone (Django the Bastard) knows his Spaghetti and indulges in the staples of the genre, with canted angles, revolving frames, whippy pans, zooms in and out, up-tilts and fight scenes that literally come through the camera. Add in Berger's 7 barrelled shotgun with its endless supply of bullets, a schizophrenic musical score, the gorgeous Machiavelli getting a female role of some substance, and it's all good really. Not top tier Spaghetti, and it is hardly original, but it keeps the plate warm with bullets and punches galore. 7/10

In the Spaghetti Western timeline, the year 1969 will always stand out, because during this year,surprisingly few Spaghetti Westerns were made. I like to call it a bridging year between the genres glory days and it's later twilight years. For example, most of the pre 1969 Spaghettis were the more well known and serious ones, with film's like the Dollars trilogy(1964-1966),ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST(1968)and THE BIG GUNDOWN(1966) giving the worn out western genre a new lease of life. But post 1969,the Spaghetti western novelty was beginning to wear off and the genre was becoming something of a joke,e.g with the Trinity films and the countless Django/Sartana spinoffs, the violent, brutal Spaghetti Western had died and the genre had been reduced to mostly cheaply made childish comedies in order for studios to make money.NO ROOM TO DIE was one of the Spaghettis made in 1969,a year when directors were unsure whether to make a serious, brooding film or a light-hearted one. The plot of this film is simple and doesn't take much explanation, two bounty hunters, Johnny Brandon(ANTHONY STEFFEN)and Everett Murdoch(WILLIAM BERGER)team up to catch a gang of outlaws who, under the pay of a corrupt banker, are smuggling illegal Mexican immigrants across the border where they are often exploited and taken advantage of. Murdoch is only interested in the money, but Brandon has a score to settle...Being honest, I was a little disappointed with this film, it was pretty average and wasn't as good as I had expected. It failed to impress me but at the same time it isn't the worst Spaghetti Western, it's a decent and serviceable flick. The storyline is very good and it's a little different to your usual Spaghetti premise, but it's full of plot holes. Johnny Brandon spends the whole film highlighting that he is not going after the baddies for the money but in the end we never find out what motivated him in the first place and in the final scene he gives all the money to the Mexican girl and says "You know what it's for", this confused me because we in the audience don't and never do find out what it's for,I guess the director wanted to leave it to our imaginations, but he did a very bad job of it.There's also a terrible lack of character development, the Mexican girl is in some way involved with the villain, but we never find out how or why. There's also a couple of flashbacks involving the villain, showing him as a child and then showing him as an adult shooting some guys in a saloon, mind you, these flashbacks were brilliantly done, shot in black and white, but I couldn't understand what they were all about, they are never explained and just seem pointless and unconnected with the film. The scene at the beginning, just after the opening credits, in which a wagon full of Mexicans is pushed over a cliff was terribly done, all we see is the Mexican's horror stricken faces accompanied with some atrocious camera spinning followed by the wagon lying in pieces at the bottom, it would have been much better if they had shown the full wagon flying over the cliff and crashing to the bottom.The film dragged quite a bit and was a little slow and tedious in parts with a fair few scenes of heavy dialogue. The action scenes were pretty good, I quite liked the shootouts but they all looked and seemed the same, making them kind of monotonous, they didn't really send me flying out of my chair, however I did enjoy watching all the stuntmen jerk about, fall of their horses and fall down hills as they got shot. The final duel/shootout between the villain,Murdoch and Brandon was suspenseful and did improve the film a little, look out for when Brandon shots Murdoch, the latter's facial expression is priceless. I though Murdoch's weapon of choice was awesome, it's a multiple barrelled Shotgun, similar to the one used by Richard Widmark in THE ALAMO(1960).The soundtrack was really good, there's a part of it that sounded to me like a tongue-in-cheek variation on the Dun-Dun-Dun thing, it's played at the beginning of most scenes or whenever someone appears to kill somebody and gives the film a rather comical feel. The acting and characters were good enough, Steffen and Berger were good as the two bounty hunters and I liked Mario Brega's character, they were interesting but just very poorly developed.To conclude, I wasn't exactly thrilled by this one, I wouldn't say its one if my favourite SWs, but it certainly isn't the worst. Bad character development, plot holes and lack of soul in the action scenes brought it down, I was originally going to give it a 7/10,but I think I'll be kind and give it an 8.

Experience taught me that, in case of spaghetti-westerns, it's always useful and interesting to Google-translate the original Italian titles. For some reason, the international titles in English are either irrelevant (most titles refer to in one way or another to the character of "Django" because that was the biggest commercial success) or nearly not exciting enough. Please disregard the English titles "A Noose for Django" and "No Room to Die" as the original title literally translates as "A Long Line of Crosses", which is – in my humble opinion as a western fanatic at least – a much more exhilarating and meaningful title. That being said, "A Long Line of Crosses" isn't the prototypic kind of spaghetti western that I would recommend in case you're fairly new to the genre. The film contains a number of fantastic elements, including a massively high body count and a terrific use of filming location and camera angles, but writer/director Sergio Garrone's script is too often confusing, incoherent and (unnecessarily) complex. Admittedly I often couldn't quite figure out why certain things happened, why some of the characters kept on double-crossing each other, or why the enemies didn't kill each other much earlier. The poor English dubbing obviously didn't help, neither. I'm relatively sure that the main plot focuses on the rich and supremely evil Mr. Fargo (depicted by the director's brother) who runs the highly immoral but profitable business of illegally smuggling poor Mexicans across the Texan border. Once he cashed the little amounts of money these people own, he sadistically dumps them into a ravine. The large list of notorious outlaws that he works with lures two different bounty hunters to town. Johnny Brandon and Everett "Preacherman" Murdock have two completely different personalities, but their pistols are equally fast and deadly. They close a pact to hunt down all the wanted criminals together, but Brandon is a defender of human rights whereas Preacherman is simply interested in the rewards. I honestly wouldn't ponder too much about the plot and merely enjoy the grotesque violence and delightful spaghetti western trademarks. "A Long Line of Crosses" bathes in that typical raw and filthy atmosphere, with lots of nasty-looking gunmen sweating and stinking in the burning sun, and the number of thugs falling dead from the cliffs or to the ground is practically countless. Anthony Steffen and particularly William Berger give away adequate performances, but – as usual – I personally liked the bad guy the most. Garrone is definitely the least brilliant Sergio of his generation of Italian western directors (defeated easily by Sergio Leone, Sergio Corbucci and Sergio Sollima) but I still appreciate his movies very much.

I love this movie. It is a masterpiece of the genre. It has it's flaws no doubt. The acting is good in places and wooden in others. Overall though it is a very cool film. If you like the Italina westerns, then don't hesitate to check this one out. The cinematography is top-notch, the music and sound effects are great! I especially love the way it starts! Bom bom BOM!!!!!!Anthony Steffen is not the best actor in the genre but he does a satisfactory job here. William Berger is great as always! It contains more of the Django style multi-barrel guns and surreal sequences and moving camera shots with cool angles and experimental shots. The movie does contain some violence towards animals (there is a cockfight sequence).