Someone’s robbing stagecoaches between Silver City and Tombstone and, in the latest theft, they’ve made off with $200,000 that had been sewn into the clothing of the banker who was transporting the money.
Jack Balman (William Berger) is thrown into jail as a suspect. Another suspect with a broken arm is already in that jail. The two decide to cooperate.
If the real outlaw will share the identity of the three gang members he knows, Jack will break out of jail, go to Tombstone, find the $200,000 in loot suspected to be hidden there, then they’ll split the money.
And so Jack heads to Tombstone, knowing he’s looking for a crooked sheriff, a saloon owner named Jim Bailey and a gunman known as Blackie Norton. The fourth gang member proves the most influential of all.
What’s more, there are other hired guns hanging around Tombstone willing to help do away with an unwelcome intruder, if the price is right.
William Berger as Jack Balman spots something that he wants more than missing loot in Ringo’s Big Night (1965)
Eduardo Fajardo as Mayor Joseph Finley, facing questioning by the judge in Ringo’s Big Night (1965)
Review:
Maffei offers up a couple of neat plot twists and has a couple of characters meet their demise in unexpected ways. But those twists aren’t enough to lift this film above the routine, and Berger’s performance in the lead role doesn’t help.
Nor does this silliness. Thrown in jail, Jack Balman insists his cellmate take off his pants. He wraps those pants around the bars of his jail cell window. He wraps the other end around the bed, then leans the bed against the wall. He jumps on the bed. Presto, the window falls out.
It might be the easiest jailbreak in Spaghetti history. And he later breaks back into jail through the same window!
Oh, and someone must have had a bondage fetish considering the number of characters who are tied up or otherwise restrained in this film. Adrianna Ambessi might be the only female to spend most of a film tied to the end of her bed with her own robe while she’s still wearing it.
Jose Bodalo as Sam Murdock, Tombstone’s crooked sheriff in Ringo’s Big Night (1965)
Adriana Ambesi as sallon girl Annette meets Jack Balman for the first time in Ringo’s Big Night (1965)
Directed by:
Mario Maffei
Cast:
William Berger … Jack Balman
Eduardo Fajardo … Mayor Joseph Finley
Adriana Ambessi … Annette
Walter Maestosi … John Crowl
Tom Felleghy … Judge Nottingham
George Rigaud … Jim Bailey
as Jose Rigaud
Guido de Salvi … Norman Ford
Antonio Moreno … Bartender
Francisco Moran … Blackie Norton
Jose Badalo … Sheriff Sam Murdock
Armando Calvo … Jose
aka:
La grande notte di Ringo
Score: Carlo Rustichelli
Runtime: 94 min.
Francisco Moran as Black Norton, the fast gun among the crooked town leaders in Tombstone in Ringo’s Big Night (1965)
Armando Calvo as Jose, the Mexican bandit Black Norton recruits to do away with Jack Balman in Ringo’s Big Night (1965)
Memorable lines:
Judge Nottingham: “Right now, I want you to tell me everything you did between yesterday and today. Who your accomplices are. And, most importantly, who’s the head of your gang.”
Jack Balman: “I’m always by myself. My accomplices are me. And my boss is my gun.”
Annette: “In Tombstone, if you get nosy, you’ll be found dead.
Jack Balman: “Will I? What’s the disease?”
Annette: “The usual. It’s called lead poisoning.”
John Crowl: “The men who are the gunmen of today could become the greatest sheriffs of tomorrow.”
Jack Balman: “I’m not trigger happy. I just draw fast.”
Walter Maestosi as John Crowl, the prisoner Jack Balman coerces into being his partner in Ringo’s Big Night (1965)
Tom Felleghy as Judge Nottingham, determined to halt a string of holdups around Silver City in Ringo’s Big Night (1965)
Trivia:
In France and Belgium, this became a Django film. In Greece and America, it became a Ringo film. Naturally, there’s not a Django or Ringo to be found anywhere in the cast.
According to several published reports, William Berger was arrested in August 1970 after police found hashish in his villa near Naples, Italy. He and his second wife, the actress Carolyn Lobravico were arrested imprisoned. Lobravico died of acute peritonitis while still in custody. The two had appeared together in the Italian horror film “Shadow of Illusion,” released in 1970.
Guido De Salvi as Silver City Sheriff Norman Ford, investigating the theft of $200,000 in RIngo’s Big Night (1965)
Jose Bodalo as Tombstone sheriff Sam Murdock, trying to drink away his trouble in Ringo’s Big Night (1965)
George Riguad as saloon owner Jim Bailey frets with his bartender (Antonio Moreno) over the stranger in Tombstone in Ringo’s Big Night (1965)
Adriana Ambesi as Annette, making sure Jack Balman (William Berger) gets a cool reception in Tombstone in Ringo’s Big Night (1965)
Jose Bodalo as Sheriff Sam Murdock, confronted by Jack Balman (William Berger) over a missing $200,000 in Ringo’s Big Night (1965)
Eduardo Fajardo as Mayor Joseph Finley, leader of the crooked Tombstone town leaders in RIngo’s Big Night (1965)
William Berger as Jack Balman confronts Mayor Joseph Finley about a stolen $200,000 in Ringo’s Big Night (1965)
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