Los pistoleros de Casa Grande

Joe Daylight , notorious gunfighter and cattle thief, is planning his biggest scheme. With cattle prices at an all-time high after the American Civil War he plans to rustle not one but several of the giant herds roaming the vast ranches of south-west California. He rounds up a gang of outlaws and the first ranch they decide to attack is the Casa Grande

Gunfighters of Casa Grande, a US-Paella western, features no facial closeup of sweaty faces, with flies climbing up the nostrils, characters dressed in grimy bell bottoms and five men getting shot like tin cans by one man as prevalent in Spaghetti westerns but that's because this 1964 western shot in Spain predates Spaghetti western craze as started by Sergio Leone. Gunfighters of Casa Grande has more in common with traditional westerns - it's a simple tale, told in a well-made and efficient manner. There's some decent action, but it's the characters and their motivations that are the focal part. The most interesting character is played by Alex Nicol as an ambitious heel who is the lead actor - the fact that the second in command, a philosophical man known as Traveller, turns out to be the hero makes an interesting twist. Actually adds something to the story, giving it a different texture. Pity this western is criticised - I think unfairly. It's quite engaging and has good dialogue and performances.

This must go down as the worst western I have seen. The film lacks a coherent plot, in general the acting and dialogue are terrible, the score is over the top and the colour of the film is way too bright.

The lead actor Alex Nichol- laughably named Joe Daylight in this- puts in a performance that must go down as one of the worst in memory from a leading man. Smug looking and lacking one iota of screen presence or talent, it is excruciating to watch. The only highlights in the acting stakes come from Jorge Mistral as the Traveler who seems the only male actor in this film to have any semblance of ability.

The plot is almost unintelligible- nothing much seems to happen and from half an hour in it became an ordeal just to get to the end. Scene after scene is amateurish beyond belief including one laughable scene in which Diana Lorys is whipped 5 times with a belt but has no marks. Yes this is a low budget film but there is no excuse for such a shoddy effort.

Watch this film and marvel at just how bad it is.

Over the years I've watched hundreds of Westerns--both B movies and so-called A movies--and this has to be one of the worst I've ever seen. The costumes were flagrantly ill-considered, if not totally inappropriate to the individual actors, i.e. hats that seemed only reminiscently western or unsuitable to the individual actor; a hackneyed and sometimes non-existent plot; mostly no-name actors with virtually no talent; dialogue that belonged in a cartoon; and character names that bespoke of some foreign writer unfamiliar with the concept of exaggeration...not to mention unfamiliar with viewer etiquette, i.e. how not to insult the palette and intelligence of movie fans.

I can think of no redeeming grace for this film except the possibility of its inclusion in a list of the worst movie Westerns of all time.

Gunfighters of Casa Grande is directed by Roy Rowland and written by Clarke Reynolds and Borden and Patricia Chase. It stars Alex Nicol, Jorge Mistral, Dick Bentley, Steve Rowland, Phil Posner, Mercedes Alonso, Diana Lorys, María Granada. Music is by Johnny Douglas and cinematography by José F. Aguayo and Manuel MerinoJose.

After the war between The States, when the Eastern part of the United States was beef starved and inflated prices were paid at Northern railroad points ... a border raider evolved a plan that would lead to the greatest stolen cattle herd and pay off in the history of the West.

Out of MGM, this Spanish/American Western was filmed in Mexico and is a CinemaScope/Metrocolor production. What with that value and the opening salvo as written above, one wouldn't be unfair to expect a good movie. Sadly this isn't the case. The whole stolen herd thing is a bum steer, the narrative a muddled mess that ultimately loses focus on story telling sense. On breaking it down we have an uneasy group dynamic, where a handful of sharp shooting men - led by a devious tyrant wannabe called Joe Daylight (Nicol) - end up getting women trouble whilst dealing with bandido baddies.

It's all on testosterone overdrive, complete with what can only be described as a pissing contest, with the acting close to being as poor as the choppy story. The musical score is schizophrenic, with some of it sounding oddly like a play on The White Cliffs of Dover and comedy fare that wouldn't be out of place in a Cary Grant screwball piece. Locations are nice, but the colour mix is way too bright, but at least we have two entries in the Victor Mature and James Caan look a like competition...

Some competent action scenes, such as the finale and a defence of Casa Grande (the ranch) stop it being a complete dead loss, but it's not one that Western fans should seek out as a matter of need. 3/10

Veteran MGM B director Roy Rowland ended his career with three cheap westerns co-produced with MGM and shot in Spain. In some ways this looks like one of the gritty westerns that were being turned out by Italy, but while the body count is adequate, Rowland was too steeped in the MGM mystique -- this movie is too visually polite, the music score a tad too lush and the actors too clean to compare with Sergio Leone's 'Man With No Name', so the result is nothing particular: too pretty for grit, too gritty for a traditional B and even a script co-written by Borden Chase can't do much.

The actors try to do something with their performances, particularly Alex Nicol, but his character lacks enough definition to be particularly interesting. Director Rowland's son, Steve has a featured role as 'The Kid'. One wonders how he felt about that during the shoot.