Balladeer's Blog

With the Frontierado holiday coming up the first Friday in August I’ll be devoting more and more coverage to it. To learn more about this holiday click here: https://glitternight.com/2010/07/28/just-9-more-shopping-days-until-frontierado/

Some e-mailers have been asking why my Bad, The Weird And The Freaky posts haven’t covered bizarre westerns like Billy The Kid vs Dracula or Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter or The Terror of Tinytown. The only reason is because of how well-known those flicks are, since I prefer focusing on below-the- radar items. Once again, think of me as The Bronson Canyon Kid as I look at another weirdass western to get us all in the Frontierado mood.  

THE PRICE OF POWER (1969) – When it comes to Spaghetti Westerns most people are only familiar with the mainstream examples like the Clint Eastwood vehicles or the monumental classic Once Upon A Time In The West. There were literally more than 550 other Spaghetti Westerns made in the 60’s and 70’s since when the Italians do something they do it in a big, big way. Those hundreds of films vary in quality from pretty good to hilariously awful and the creative talents behind them often tried to outdo each other in terms of colorful heroes and oddball plots. My favorites include those movies where the Italians took more liberties with Western history than American filmmakers ever dreamed of. 

That brings us to The Price Of Power which was also released under the title Texas. The point of this film is … well, it’s hard to say really. Even after repeated viewings. It’s difficult to determine if the filmmakers were trying to make a statement about the alleged conspiracy behind the assassination of President John F Kennedy or about the civil rights movement, or about capitalism’s impact on the political process in a free society or what. Whatever they were trying to do the end result is like a history lesson taught by Ed Wood himself. Let’s compare the Continue reading →