As Frontierado fast approaches – Friday, August 7th this year – Balladeer’s Blog is here with another seasonal post. The Frontierado holiday is about the myth of the old west, not the grinding reality.
SARTANA: For the record, the Sartana movies starring Gianni Garko as the gambler-gunslinger are my favorites. His personality is a bit lighter than that of my top favorite Spaghetti Western gunslinger – Franco Nero in the original 1960s Django and its only official sequel, Django Strikes Again.
In addition, Sartana’s films generally stay away from negative emotions like the original Django carried around with him. Sartana’s world is filled mostly with gunmen as cold-blooded and professional as himself. They deserve to be killed and Sartana recognizes that he deserves it, too, it’s just that he proves harder to kill than his enemies ever do.
The Sartana movies start out pretty grounded (for Spaghetti Westerns) but as the franchise goes along the installments grow closer to Robert Conrad’s Wild, Wild West series and our hero’s trick guns almost equal James Bond’s gadgets. Sartana himself stops just short of being a swashbuckler as he boldly tweaks the villains with more and more audacity.
In this post I will first review the movies in which Gianni Garko played this unusual hero, then George Hilton’s “official” Sartana sequel, then touch on a few of the oddities. Like Django, Sartana inspired many, many “unofficial” sequels – several of which bear the name of the character in the title but not in the actual movie.
IF YOU MEET SARTANA … PRAY FOR YOUR DEATH (1968) – Sartana shadows a gold shipment being handled by stagecoach across the desert in one of the most distinctive Spaghetti Western entrances this side of Charles Bronson in Once Upon a Time in the West. From there, the double-crosses fly like shrapnel among the main characters.
Lasky (William Berger) and his outlaw gang ultimately succeed in robbing the shipment, but our snuff-sniffing villain slaughters his gang members when betrayal seems to be in the air. The only one he lets live is his buddy Morgan (THE Klaus Kinski) and the pair decide to try adding to their haul by blackmailing the banker and other supposedly “respectable” citizens who wanted the gold stolen. Continue reading
CIMARRON ROSE DUNN – Poco wrote a song about her. She appears in a 1915 Silent Film about Oklahoma Outlaws. She’s often mistakenly believed to be the subject of the 1952 western The Rose of Cimarron. And it’s not even certain if that’s really her in one of the alleged surviving photos of her. Rose Dunn may embody the embellishments that fight with the truth when it comes to various figures from the Old West. 
JOHNNY RINGO (1959) – Don Durant starred as the one and only Johnny Ringo, the real-life gunslinger. The fictional setting of this program takes place between Johnny’s original rise to fame during the Mason County War in Texas and his final years in Arizona as part of the Clanton-McLaury Crime Faction led by Curly Bill Brocius. Aaron Spelling was the producer.
IRISH NELLIE CASHMAN – Nellie Cashman was born Ellen O’Kissane in 1845. Sometime between 185o and 1852 her family moved to Boston, where the ambitious young woman was later working as a bellhop at Boston hotels. During the U.S. Civil War Nellie did some spying for the Union cause, following which she and her family moved to San Francisco in 1866. 
Irish Nellie used part of her growing fortune to finance the Sisters of Saint Anne. When snowstorms trapped dozens of gold seekers in the Cassiar Mountains in a series of avalanches, Irish Nellie heard that Canadian authorities were advising against rescue attempts due to how dangerous the Cassiars were. 
THE STEAM MAN OF THE PRAIRIES (1868) – Written by Edward Sylvester Ellis. Before the Frank Reade stories came this work that is often hailed as the first Dime Novel with a science fiction theme. 
JOHN WILSON VERMILLION aka TEXAS JACK VERMILLION and “SHOOT-YOUR-EYE-OUT” VERMILLION, was born in Virginia in 1842 to William and Nancy Vermillion. After the Civil War broke out in 1861, Jack enlisted in the 2nd Tennessee Cavalry sometime in 1862. 
Some accounts state Vermillion claimed to be from Texas and related Tall Tales that the Lone Star State had jackrabbits as big as horses. One illogical account claims that when Jack was asked why he was called Texas Jack he replied “Because I’m from Virginia.” Well, okay then! 
ROBBERY UNDER ARMS (1985) – The irreplaceable Sam Neill has passed away. Other sites will be focusing on Neill’s more well-known projects like the Jurassic Park movies, Reilly – Ace of Spies, The Hunt for Red October, Omen III: The Final Conflict, Event Horizon and so many others. In keeping with Balladeer’s Blog’s theme I’m taking a look at Sam’s neglected Bushranger movie Robbery Under Arms. 
On to Robbery Under Arms, the film is based on the Australian novel of the same name, which was published in serialized form in 1882 before being collected in novel form later in the decade. Robbery Under Arms is a monumental work of fiction Down Under and has been adapted several times since 1907 – a year after Australia’s silent movie The Story of the Kelly Gang. 
STORIES OF THE CENTURY aka TALES OF THE WEST (1954-1955) starred future Jock Ewing Jim Davis as Railroad Detective Matt Clark. Part anthology series and part historical fiction, this series presented Clark crossing paths with assorted real-life outlaws of the Old West. During Season One (26 half-hour episodes) his female sidekick was Frankie Adams (Mary Castle). Season Two ran just 13 half-hour episodes and co-starred Kristine Miller as Matt’s sidekick Margaret “Jonesy” Jones. 
THE EPISODES: 
While serving in the Tsar’s Imperial White Hussars (cavalry) and after seeing action in the Khivan Campaign, the future Russian Bill had a violent falling out with a superior officer. The exact nature of the conflict is not known and years later the Countess Telfrin would refer to it only as “a political affair.” 
Tatenbaum certainly looked and otherwise fit the part of the Old West Gambler better than the rougher outlaw he later became. He was described as a dandified dresser and sported expensive pistols. In addition he was well-spoken, well-educated and fluent in at least four languages, all of which would have accounted for his popularity with the ladies. His supposedly handsome face, curly blonde hair and moustache would have helped. 
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