Ride and Kill (1964)

There’s trouble in the town of Tombstone. The town mayor, judge, banker and saloon keeper have hired a gang of cut-throats led by a dressed-all-in-black gunman named Moody (Claudio Undari) to squeeze protection money out of all the landowners in the region.

The sheriff can do little to stop the killers and, when he tries, he winds up dead.

The town has two choices for a new sheriff. There’s Brandy (Alex Nicol), the town drunk. He’d take the job out of anger over the killing of the sheriff and his young helper.

And there’s Steve Donnelly (Luis Induni), recently released from prison on parole to work on a ranch owned by Alice McCormick.

When Alice balks at losing her foreman, the town decides to unite behind Brandy.

He has another reason to turn his life around — the love of a pretty woman named Eva (Maite Blasco), one of the landowners in danger of losing her property because she can’t pay the protection money demanded of her.

Review:

This early Spaghetti lacks many of the trademarks of the genre, flashbacks, bizarre weapons, bizarre twists. Twice, the actors break into song, as though this were a 1940s series Western.

More problematic is the character of Eva, a helper in the local saloon. The prettiest young lady around, she professes to have never had a boyfriend.

For some reason that’s sure to bewilder the viewer, she falls for a much older man who’s both drunk and penniless.

One of the more clever moments comes when Brandy fools the banker into turning over all the money in his new, foolproof safe.

Directed by:
Jose Luis Borau
aka: J.L. Boraw

Cast:
Alex Nicol … Brandy
Claudio Undari … Moody
as Robert Hundar
Maite Blasco … Eva
as Margaret Grayson
Luis Induni … Steve Donnelly
as Albert Lockwood
George Rigaud …. David “Beau” Pritchard
Renzo Palmer … Pastor Andrews
as Lawrence Palmer
Giuseppe Addobbati … Judge Stauffer
as John MacDouglas
Antonio Casas … Sheriff Clymer
Natalia Silva … Alice McCormick
Manuel Ayuso … Mayor
Paola Barbara … Mrs. Stauffer
as Pauline Baards
Antonio Gradoli … Underhill (banker)

Runtime: 88 min.

Also with: Frank Brana, Jose Canalejas, Wilfredo Casao, Alfonso de la Vega, Rafael Hernandez, Mark Johnson, Juan Lizarraga, Victor Bayo, Miguel del Castillo, giovanni Petti, Hector Quiroga, Alfonso Rojas, Eleana Santonja, Jose Villasante

aka:
Cavalca e uccidi
Brandy
Town Without Law

Score: Riz Ortolani

Memorable lines:

Brandy: “Be careful, sheriff. One false move with me and I’ll shoot you so full of holes they won’t find your tin badge.”

Steve Donnelly, looking over Moody’s all-in-black attire: “Huh, those funeral duds sure do suit you, Moody.”

Eva: “You know, I don’t like you drinking so much.”
Brandy: “I know, but what else is there to do?”
Eva: “Did you ever think of getting a job?”

Trivia:

One of three Spaghetti Westerns for Alex Nicol, who had roles in several 1950 Westerns, including as a spoiled, and slightly deranged rancher’s son in The Man From Laramie (1955).

This marked the only Spaghetti and one of just a few film appearances for Maite Blasco, who became a fixture on Spanish television shows in the 1960s and 1970s and whose last television role, according to IMDb, was in a 2014 Spanish mini-series called “El Rey.”