Lee Van Cleef returns as the title character in this third Sabata film. He’s a trick shooter traveling with a circus, tagging along because a fellow circus performer named Pickles is a master counterfeiter, and Sabata figures Pickles will eventually find a way to make his skill pay.
The circus lands in Hobsonville, a town run by Irishmen with Joe McIntock as the leader of the pack.
McIntock taxes everything residents buy — luxuries like booze at 20 percent, frills like women of the night at 50 percent — all in the name of a brighter future for Hobsonville.
There are even lots staked out where a school and the largest hospital in the state will be built someday.
Sabata suspects McIntock is taxing residents to line his own pockets, and refuses to pay any taxes.
And he enlists the assistance of an old army buddy named Clyde (Reiner Schone), who just happens to owe him $5,000.
With Sabata applying the pressure, the McIntock empire begins to come unglued. So the town boss sets out to eliminate our hero.
Lee Van Cleef is Sabata, who follows a counterfeiter to Hobsonville in Return of Sabata (1971)
Reiner Schone as Clyde, Sartana’s conniving old friend in Return of Sabata (1971)
Review:
An intriguing opening finds Sabata facing off against several fashionably clad gunmen while a tribunal looks on. Naturally, he picks them off, one by one. It’s only after the shooting ends that we learn it’s part of a circus act.
Unfortunately, the rest of the film isn’t as clever and this turns out to be the weakest of the Sabata films. Instead of focusing on plot, director Gianfranco Parolina guides us from one scene to another filled with gadgetry, acrobatics and a light-hearted touch that never once hints that Sabata might not prevail.
Reiner Schone is annoying as Sabata’s sidekick Clyde. Annabelle Incontrera looks lovely as the saloon gal Sabata hooks up with, but has little else to do. Ignazio Spalla, appearing in his third Sabata film, spends most of this one carrying around a drum he bangs on to encourage Hobsonville residents to pay their taxes.
Of course, in keeping with the theme of the film, it’s not just a drum. It’s filled with guns. Must have been damned heavy to carry around.
Ignazio Spalla (Pedro Sanchez) as Bronco, who works with Sartana in Return of Sabata (1971)
Giampiero Albertini as Joe McIntock, the swindler mascarading as a town leader in Return of Sabata (1971)
Directed by:
Gianfranco Parolini
as Frank Kramer
Cast:
Lee Van Cleef … Sabata
Reiner Schone … Clyde
Giampiero Albertini … Joe McIntock
Annabella Incontrera … Maggie
Ignazio Spalla … Bronco
Jacqueline Alexandre … Jackie
Gianni Rizzo … Jeremy Sweeney
Vassili Karis … Bionda
Aldo Canti … Angel
as Nick Jordan
John Bartha … Sheriff
Also with: Günther Stoll, Carmelo Reale, Franco Fantasia, Ileana Rigano, Dante Cona, Gérard Boucaron, Bucaron Gerard, Vittorio Fanfoni, Fortunato Arena, Attilio Dottesio, Federico Boido, Bruno Arié
aka:
E tornato Sabata … hia chiuso un’altra volta
Score: Marcello Giombini
Runtime: 105 min.
Annabella Incontrera as Maggie, the whore with a soft spot for Sabata in Return of Sabata (1971)
Gianni Rizzo as Jeremy Sweeney, McIntock’s partner in Return of Sabata (1971)
Memorable lines:
Clyde, after offering to become Sabata’s partner: “Don’t forget, major, during the war I was by your side with the South.”
Sabata: “I suppose that’s another reason we lost, lieutenant.”
Sabata, having chased two baddies from a whore’s room: “See, Maggie, I’m old-fashioned. I don’t like orgies.”
Clyde, having heard the disturbance: “Anyone hurt?”
Sabata, standing with Maggie. “I just want a little piece. And quiet.”
Clyde: “And if you swindle me on the deal?”
Sartana: “I’m not like you.”
Clyde: “No? A guy who’d shoot his finger off in wartime, just to spend his 20 days convalescence with the colonel’s wife is a lot worse. Now, sure, you weren’t wrong. He was a pig, she was lovely and he deserved it, but you take advantage of any situation that comes along …”
Bronco: “Is that gold worth dying for?”
Sartana: “Well, I wouldn’t like to do it.”
McIntock to his wife: “You turned out just like everybody else. Crawling around. Sniveling like a bitch in heat. And only to steal my gold. To steal my gold!”
Vassili Karis as Fionda, a circus acrobat working with Sabata in Return of Sabata (1971)
Aldo Canti (Nick Jordan) as Angel, one of the circus acrobats in Return of Sabata (1971)
Trivia:
* While there were undoubtedly many worse Spaghetti Westerns to follow, this film has the distinction of being included in the 1978 book “The 50 Worst Films of All Time” by Harry Medved and Randy Dreyfus.
* In the film, Clyde refers to Sartana shooting off his own finger to spend more time with a colonel’s wife. In truth, Van Cleef was missing half of one of his middle fingers, the result of an accident while building a playhouse for his daughter.
* Jacqueline Alexandre, who plays the villain’s wife here, was a popular French journalist, TV host and newscaster who acted in a few films as a hobby. This was her only Spaghetti appearance.
Jacqueline Alexandre as Jackie McIntock, who doesn’t only have eyes for her husband in Return of Sabata (1971)
John Bartha (Jonas Bartha) as the sheriff, forever suspicious of Sartana in Return of Sabata (1971)
Maria Pia Giancaro as Diane, the circus girl in Return of Sabata (1971)
Ignazio Spalla (Pedro Sanchez) as Bronco and Lee Van Cleef as Sabata plotting in Return of Sabata (1971)
Annabella Incontrera as Maggie, showing off her pretty smile in Return of Sabata (1971)
Lee Van Cleef as Sabata about to deploy another well-hidden weapon in Return of Sabata (1971)
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