Born to Kill (1967)

Gordon Mitchell is Rod Gordon, a fast gun who one night rides by a small ranch that has been raided, some of its buildings set ablaze.

It isn’t long before Gordon runs into Dodge (Aldo Berti), the man responsible for the raid, at the local saloon.

In fact, Gordon catches him cheating at cards, then cleans him out, so the animosity is mutual.

Especially after Dodge interrupts Gordon’s tryst with a whore, stealing back the money he lost at the poker table.

Turns out Dodge does the dirty work for a land speculator named Tyson.

Dodge and his men scare settlers off their land; then Tyson buys the property cheap.

Well, cheap land sounds good to Gordon, so he enters the fray, though he officially declines the contract some of the more stubborn residents — Lori Waladmore (Femi Benussi) and old John Storm among them — offer him to be their protector.

Review:

This one starts off promisingly enough, with Mitchell sharing a hotel room with a fly and a whore, who warns of a looming showdown with a bully named Bill.

Mitchell catches the fly and releases it, then strides out of the hotel to gun down Bill and two of his friends.

Unfortunately, folks, that’s as clever as this one gets. The bare bones plot has Gordon going around taking out Dodge’s men by the threes and fours with no clear motivation, often with no clear provocation other than the men are on the “wrong” side.

If Gordon really wants cheap land, he never buys any. And if he’s been smitten with pretty Lori Waldaore … well, he never shows that either.

Franco Guila plays the grizzled old-timer with a mule named Jenny, who doesn’t always stop where he wants her to.

Unfortunately, Femi doesn’t get to do much other than look worried a lot, though the film-ending closeup of her smile winds up being one of the highlights.

Directed by:
Antonio Mollica
as Tony Mulligan

Cast:
Gordon Mitchell … Rod Gordon
Femi Benussi … Lori Waldamore
Aldo Berti … Dodge
Franco Gula … John Storm
Fed Coplan … Tiny
Gualtiero Rispoli … Saloon owner
Giovanna Lenzi … Rose
Nino Musco …. Smith
Tom Felleghy … Mr. Tyson
Angela Portaluri … Saloon girl

Runtime: 88 min.

aka:
Nato per uccidere

Music: Felice Di Stefano

Memorable lines:

Rod Gordon, after catching a fly buzzing around his hotel room and releasing it out the window: “Live in peace while you can.”

Old-timer John Storm after Gordon guns down two men: “What did I tell you, Tiny? He’s better than a house full of rattlesnakes.”

Old timer John Storm of Gordon: “He’s gone through more men by himself than a whole epidemic of smallpox.”

Trivia:

This marked the directorial debut of Antonio Mollica, who also wrote the story. He would direct just three films and one other Spaghetti Western, 1970’s “Twenty Paces to Death” (aka “Sharango”).

A graduate of the sword and sandal films so popular in the early 1960s, Gordon Mitchell wound up appearing in more than 30 Spaghetti Westerns. This was a rare instance in which he was top billed and played the hero.