The Price of Death (1972)

Gianni Garko plays a new character in this Spaghetti, the slick and smooth gunman named Silver, lured away from a holiday at his hacienda filled with lovely ladies by an old friend, lawyer Jeff Plummer.

Plummer wants him to save a scoundrel named Chester Conway (Klaus Kinski) from the hangman’s noose.

Someone has robbed Polly Whitaker’s saloon and gambling hall, killing one of Polly’s girls and a bartender in the process.

Two of the three outlaws wound up dead, too. The deaths are blamed on Chester, and he’s sentenced to hang.

But Polly is convinced he didn’t do it, though she wants Chester dead for her own reasons.

Plummer wants justice, and if that means freeing a no-account like Chester, so be it.

For a handsome sum, Silver takes the mission.

With the help of a pretend diary from the dead whore, he accomplishes his mission too, partly because Chester has an iron-clad allibi, of the most vicious sort.

Gianni Garko as Silver in The Price of Death (1972)

Klaus Kinski as Chester Conway in The Price of Death (1972)

Review:

Garko changed names for this film, but the character barely changed. Not as clever as most of the Sartana films, but far from the worst Spaghetti fare you’ll find by the early 1970s.

A couple of neat plot twists make up for what clearly was not a lavish budget.

The one oddity is the band or miners, who break out into Three Stooges style fights every time Silver crosses their path.

Gely Genka as Polly Whitaker in The Price of Death (1972)

Franco Abbiana as Jeff Plummer in The Price of Death (1972)

Directed by:
Lorenzo Gicca Palli

Cast:
Gianni Garko … Silver
as John Garko
Klaus Kinski … Chester Conway
Franco Abbiana .. Jeff Plummer
Gely Genka … Polly Whitaker
Luciano Catenacci … Sheriff Stanton
as Luciano Lorcas
Giancarlo Prete … The Reverend
Luciano Pigozzi … Dr. Rosenthal
Laura Gianoli … Polly’s sister
Alfredo Rizzo … Judge Atwell
Andrea Scotti … Coot

aka:
Il venditore di morte
The Last Gunfight

Composer: Mario Miglaiardi

Runtime: 89 min.

Luciano Catenacci as Sheriff Tom Stanton in The Price of Death (1972)

Alfredo Rizzo as Judge Atwell in The Price of Death (1972)

Memorable lines:

Doc, after examining a wounded outlaw: “Sheriff, this man’s dead.”
Sheriff: “But he’s still breathing.”
Doc: “That’s just because he hasn’t noticed it yet.”

Polly: “My luck is bad. The others are going to hang you. And I wanted to.”
Chester: “You can always pull my feet, you know.”
Polly: “It’s going to be gory, Chester. When they get through, nobody will be able to recognize your feet.”

Giancarlo Prete as The Reverend in The Price of Death (1972)

Luciano Pigozzi as Dr. Rosenthal in The Price of Death (1972)

Trivia:

Gianni Garko was best known as Sartana. Here, director Palli creates a new character for him, a suave playboy named Silver, who has a mansion-like hacienda and pretty women hanging about.

This was the only Spaghetti directed by Palli, though he also made “Blackie the Pirate” (1974), featuring the team of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer.

Laura Gianoli as Polly’s sister in The Price of Death (1972)

Gianni Garko as Silver in The Price of Death (1972)