If You Want to Live … Shoot! (1968)

Sean Todd is Johnny Dark, a man who returns to town after a year working his gold mine and is immediately invited to join a crooked card game.

Ah, but this is a crooked card game with a twist. It’s rigged so that one stranger wins and one loses, prompting a showdown when the cheat is revealed.

Then the sheriff will place a bounty on the head of the card player who doesn’t die. That’s where quick gun Stack (Giovanni Cianfriglia) will step in to collect the bounty.

And since Johnny knows the location of a gold mine, the bounty on his head will be unusually large.

By the time the dust settles, Stack is wounded and determined to get even with Johnny. Johnny’s also wounded and rescued by the McGovern family.

That lands him smack dab in the middle of a land war. A townsman named Marlow is scooping up land for the railroad. Old man McGovern is one of the most determined holdouts. And the railroad has just given Marlow a tight new deadline for securing all the land it needs.

That’s going to draw Johnny into a new dispute, because he feels quite at home on the McGovern ranch. It reminds him of a happy childhood. And to say McGovern’s teenage daughter Sally is infatuated with the handsome stranger would be an understatement.

But what’s up with the well-dressed stranger named Donovan, who keeps showing up when Johnny needs him most?

Review:

This is a serious Spaghetti loaded with action, but featuring a few comic touches and different enough to satisfy most fans of the genre.

For instance, in Spaghetti land, bad guys can often be dropped by a single bullet from a mile away. In Stack, we have a twice-wounded villain who still keeps coming back for more.

And how many Spaghett Westerns give a prominent role to a teenage girl who’s smitten with the hero? So smitten in this case that she cuts off a lock of his hair in the middle of the night.

Johnny, meanwhile, winds up waging a three-sided war, trailed by Stack and his allies, trying to defend the McGoverns from Marlow and his men and winding up squaring off against Mexican bandit Alvarez too since he handles some of the gunplay for the land grabbers.

Directed by:
Sergio Garrone
as Willy S. Regan

Cast:
Ivan Rassimov … Johnny Dark
as Sean Todd
Giovanni Cianfriglia … Stack
as Ken Wood
Riccardo Garrone … Donovan
as Rick Garrett
Isabelle Savona … Sally McGovern
Tom Felleghy … Marlow
Aldo Cecconi … Hans Meuller
as Jim Clay
Franco Cobianchi ‘Ese … Alvarez
Cristina Penz …. Paquita
as Christel Penz
Amadeo Timpani … Sheriff
Brune Arie … Slim
John Bartha … Store owner
Consalvo Dell’Arti … Mason
Franco Cecconi … Tommy McGovern
Adriano Micantoni … Papa McGovern
Renato Mambor … Dick Logan

Runtime: 94 min.

aka:
Se vuoi vivere… spara!
The Outlaw Rider

Music: Vasco & Mancuso

Memorable lines:

Saloon girl: “Where do you come from?”
Saloon patron: “Does it matter? I’m here now.”

Hans Mueller, blacksmith, showing off his stock: “All the horses are from dead criminals that I buy from sheriffs and bounty killers. Bad men have good horses.”

Marlow: “I can’t thank you enough for having brought a whiff of sophistication to this dung hill, this stinking marque.”
Donovan: “Most places smell of their inhabitants. True, Marlow?”

Alvarez to Donovan: “That’s a beautiful suit you are wearing. It’d be a pity to spoil it, senor. So we will have to kill you in the nude.”

Trivia:

Aldo Cecconi has an interesting role as Hans Meuller, the town blacksmith. He carves chess pieces in his spare time and collects horses — the horses of bad men since they always have the best horses. Each stalled is adorned by a sign with the original owner’s name, including Arizona Colt, Gringo and Django!

Born in 1952, Isabelle Savona would have been 16 when this film was released. Her only other Spaghetti appearance was as a “bride” in “Blindman.” But she also had an early role in the comedy musical “Zum, Zum, Zum,” directed by Sergio and Bruno Corbucci.