Requiem for a Gringo (1968)

Lang Jeffries plays Ross Logan, who returns to his ranch looking for peace and discovers his younger brother Dan is busy chasing pretty girls at the nearby Ramirez hacienda.

When Dan is slow to return and bandits try to rustle the Logans’ horse herd, Ross suspects something might be wrong and heads out to investigate.

He finds young Dan’s body swinging from the archway that leads to the Ramirez spread. Seems the ranch has been taken over by a bandit named Porforio Carranza (Fernando Sancho) and his band of thieves and killers.

That band includes the vicious Charlie Fair (Aldo Sambrell), the black-clad gunman named Ted Corbin (Carlo Gaddi) and a dude with an eye for riches and pretty women named Tom Leather (Ruben Rojo).

One of the pretty women Leather has his eyes on is Carranza’s girl, Alma (Femi Benussi), who would far rather sneak off for a tryst with him than share a bed with the bandit leader, regardless of the number of jewels he gives her.

Meanwhile, Logan is looking for revenge. And since a special lunar event is coming up on April 17, he figures to use that to his advantage.

Review:

A stylish Spaghetti that features Carranza’s odd manner of staging gunfights — if you want a spot in his gang, you have to outduel someone who’s already a member — a scene in which Femi is draped in nothing but jewels and Logan’s almost mystical method of doling out vengeance.

Sancho is more reserved than normal as an aging bandit leader beginning to doubt his own invincibility. But filmmakers don’t give us nearly enough of Femi. And the film would have benefited from a less wooden performance in the lead role.

As subplots, we have gunfighter Corbin continually threatening to ruin a pretty young maiden named Nina (Maria Paredes) and all the lead bandits purposely trying to thin out the gang so the survivors get a bigger share of the loot from their latest job.

Angelo Francesco Lavagnino serves up a rousing score.

Directed by:
Eugenio Martin, Jose Luis Merino

Cast:
Lang Jeffries … Ross Logan
Fernando Sancho … Porforio Carranza
Femi Benussi … Alma
Carlo Gaddi … Ted Corbin
Ruben Rojo … Tom Leather
Aldo Sambrell … Charlie Fair
Carlo Simoni … Dan Logan
Giuliana Garavaglia … Lupe
Angel Alverez … Samuel
Maria Paredes … Nina

aka:
Requiem para el gringo
Duel in the Eclipse
7 Shadows for a Gunfighter
Requiem per un gringo

Score:
Angelo Francesco Lavagnino

Memorable lines:

Corbin to Nina: “You know I’d never try to force you to go with me. But don’t play on it. You have one last chance. Tonight, you’d better open your door or I swear I’ll kill you. You get me? Don’t make a mistake, Nina. I’ve been patient with you. I get vicious!”

Carranza: “Give me the gun. Around here, no one carries weapons without my permission.”
Ross Logan: “You take away a man’s gun, you take away his soul. And I’m quite fond of mine.”

Kid Erickson of Ross Logan: “Do you know who he is?”
Carranza: “I don’t, but I’ve got a bad feeling.”
Kid Erickson: “Let’s get rid of him.”
Carranza: “He could be a federal agent, a marshal or a sheriff. I want to know more though. We’ll make him talk. And afterward we’ll say a mass — a requiem for a gringo.”

Ross Logan: “Four of your men came to Samuel’s hotel. I had to kill them. In self defense, of course. Sorry, Carranza. Really sorry.”
Carranza: “You know because of those four men I put the noose on four peonies.”
Logan: “You disappoint me. That’s like kicking an old dog when you’re afraid to do it to a man.”

Carranza: “You’re crazy, Logan. Crazy as a mad hen. But you’ve laid your last egg, hombre.”

Ranch hand: “You are here to stay, now that the West is at peace?”
Ross Logan: “The West will never be at peace, but I’m tired, and I’m looking for my own peace.”

Trivia:

Pretty Femi Benussi, who has a scene here dressed in nothing but jewels, appeared in 83 films, including 64 in the seven-year span from 1968 through 1975. Her other Spaghettis included Lee Van Cleef’s “Stranger and a Gunfighter,” in which she’s one of four women with part of a treasure map on her derriere.

Lang Jefferies was born William Lappin. During the Battle of Inchon in the Korean War, he was one of three survivors in his 177-man unit. He returned to the U.S., became an actor and was briefly married to Rhonda Fleming. This marked his only Spaghetti Western.