Tag Archives: The Price Of Power (1969)

BEAUTIFUL CASEY JAMES PRESENTS BALLADEER’S BLOG’S OBSCURE SPAGHETTI WESTERNS

Balladeer's Blog's Official Movie Hostess, the legendary Casey James

Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess, the legendary Casey James

Casey James is as lethal as she is lovely and among her many roles in life she is kind enough to be Balladeer’s Blog’s Official Movie Hostess. This time around this voluptuous embodiment of men’s and many women’s desires is presenting the first in a series of my reviews of the more obscure Spaghetti Westerns – the ones not well known to viewers who are only familiar with Sergio Leone’s films. 

THE PRICE OF POWER (1969) –  There were literally more than 550 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 historical record to the plotline of this very odd movie.  Continue reading

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Filed under Bad and weird movies, Sex Symbols, Spaghetti Westerns

THE MOST LAUGHABLY WEIRD SPAGHETTI WESTERNS

mascot cowboy smallerWhat better way to start Frontierado Week than with a look at some of the most obscure but laughably weird Italian westerns? And what better way to start that list than with one of the countless  Spaghetti Westerns with phony Django titles?

The upcoming release of Quentin  Tarantino’s Django Unchained   will  reboot the Django saga by making him an African American and pitting him against racist villains out west. This will nicely blend Django’s bounty hunter tale with the 70s blaxploitation westerns  starring Fred Williamson and others as former slaves blowing away Neo-Confederates in the Wild West.

Franco Nero starred as the original Django but sadly has just a cameo in the reboot. The original movie was a monumental success everywhere in the world except the U.S. back in 1966. There was only one other “official” Django movie (also starring Nero) but there were literally nearly a hundred false Django movies featuring different actors in the lead role (my favorite being Terence Hill) or that just plain retitled and redubbed other Italian westerns to make them seem like Django movies.

django kill1. DJANGO KILL (1967) – Originally titled If You Live, Shoot!, this was one of the many Eurowesterns to be re-released to theaters years later as a phony Django movie just so it could clean up on the guaranteed cash cow of the Django name.

In this one our pseudo-Django finds himself involved with a kidnapped teen boy, the gay outlaws who have kidnapped and raped him (seriously), and their Wild West castle (?) where they torture their victims medieval-style, including roasting them on spits. Pseudo-Django shoots gold bullets in this flick and greedy townspeople rip open the corpses of the gunmen who fall to him just to get at the precious metal.

Even worse is the scene where the gold-hungry townspeople rip open the wounds of people who were just injured by the gold bullets, adding wince-inducing screams to the tableau. Continue reading

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Filed under Bad and weird movies, FRONTIERADO, Spaghetti Westerns

BAD MOVIE: THE PRICE OF POWER (1969)

 Time for another look at a Weird Western in anticipation of the Frontierado holiday coming up on Friday, August 3rd. 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. This flick restages the JFK assassination in the Wild West.  

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 Continue reading

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Filed under FRONTIERADO, Spaghetti Westerns

FRONTIERADO: THE BAD, THE WEIRD AND THE FREAKY PART THREE – THE JFK ASSASSINATION IN THE OLLLLLLD WEST!

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

24 Comments

Filed under FRONTIERADO