Lee Van Cleef Movies

Il Grande Duello is the original title of this Italian/French/West German production. The titular duel pits hard-bitten gunslinger Clayton (Lee Van Cleef) against the equally gritty Saxon (Horst Frank). Before this takes place, however, Clayton champions the cause of Newland (Peter O'Brien) a young punk who'd been framed on a murder charge. One of the beauties of the spaghetti western genre is that there were seldom any clearly defined Good or Bad Guys. This helped to keep the audience guessing as to the ultimate outcome of the film, thereby increasing the entertainment value tenfold. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this Italian crime drama, a new Don takes over a Mafia family and finds himself fighting for his life. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A Native American working for the government must investigate the Indian Commissioner's death. Soon he uncovers the schemes of a wealthy land owner and an assassination plot which will further victimize the local natives. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

In this spaghetti western, a quick-drawing, hard-riding granite faced, steel-eyed ex-Confederate soldier (Lee VanCleef) rides into a Texas town with the small travelling circus he works for as a stunt rider and bumps into a man who owes him $5,000. Wanting the money back, the vet decides to stay in town and it isn't long before he ends up embroiled in corruption and double-crosses as he fights to simultaneously save the townsfolk from the greedy, corrupt politician who runs the town and forces the residents to pay cripplingly high taxes and steal the crook's fortune. This is the third Sabata film and the second time VanCleef essayed the character. In the second film Adios Sabata, the title character was played by Yul Brynner. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Jim Brown and Lee Van Cleef team up for this western set on the Mexican border. Brown is Luke, who escapes from a chain gang after learning that a fortune in gold is hidden in the Mexican fortress of El Condor. He joins up with the snake-eyed crook Jaroo (Lee Van Cleef) and together they round up a tribe of Apaches, headed by Santana (Iron Eyes Cody), to attack the fort -- convincing the Indian renegades that the fort houses food and guns greatly needed by the Apaches. During their first crack at taking the fort, Luke and Jaroo are captured by the fort's commandant, Chavez (Patrick O'Neal). Claudine (Marianna Hall), the wife of the commandant, falls in love with Luke and she aids them in their escape from the fort. Later on, she is instrumental in getting Luke and Jaroo's band into the fort -- diverting the gaze of the fort's defenders by disrobing in front of a well-lit bedroom window. Chavez escapes, but Santana is shot by Jaroo after discovering that Jaroo deceived him. With Santana shot, the Apaches leave the fort, carrying the food and ammunition. Now the only ones left to defend the defenseless fort are Luke, Claudine, and Jaroo. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Bill (John Phillip Law) grows up to seek revenge on the gang that killed his parents. He meets up with Ryan (Lee Van Cleef), a veteran gunslinger seeking his own revenge for the ones who put him in prison. The two proceed to shoot everything that moves in this violent spaghetti western. Bill eventually discovers Ryan was there when his parents were killed and is torn between killing Ryan and letting him ride off into the sunset. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Jonathan Corbett (Lee Van Cleef) is one of the top lawmen in the State of Texas. He's so good at what he does, that he's been approached by Brokston (Walter Barnes), a wealthy speculator and power-broker, about running for the United States Senate. But there's one job that needs doing first which, if Corbett can finish it, will put him in an unchallengable position -- he has to hunt down and capture (dead or alive, with the emphasis on "dead") Cuchillo Sanchez (Tomas Milian), who's wanted for raping and killing a 12-year-old girl. Corbett does what he does best, pursuing Sanchez relentlessly and on his own level of intense brutality, past the border and into Mexico -- but along the way, Corbett learns what life is like for peasants like Sanchez, and what men like Brokston have to do with it. And he discovers that Sanchez may not be the murderer that Corbett thinks he is. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In the first episode of a three-part story, President Grant (William Bryant) asks Jason (Chuck Connors) to find out the reason that maverick general George Armstrong Custer (Robert Lansing) has been making public attacks against the Grant adminstration's Indian policy. Outwardly, it seems that Custer is concerned only with the safety of the white settlers who have nested in the territory controlled by Chief Crazy Horse (Michael Pate). But as Jason soon learns to his chagrin, his former West Point comrade Custer has an ulterior motive that may result in wholesale slaughter. Excerpts from "Call to Glory" were later combined with scenes from two other Branded episodes, "Fill No Glass for Me" and "Now Join the Human Race", to form the direct-to-video "feature film" Blade Rider: Revenge of the Indian Nations. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the concluding episode of a three-part story, sinister forces have conspired against both General Custer (Robert Lansing) and Indian chief Crazy Horse (Michael Pate), making a final bloody confrontation at the Little Big Horn all but inevitable. Acting on behalf of President Grant, Jason McCord (Chuck Connors) has received evidence that Indian shaman Sitting Bull (Felix Locher) did not murder a crooked Indian agent as claimed. Racing against time, McCord hurries to convey this information to Custer--who has already gathered his 7th Cavalry for a rendezvous with destiny. Excerpts from "Call to Glory" were later combined with scenes from two other Branded episodes, "Fill No Glass for Me" and "Now Join the Human Race", to form the direct-to-video "feature film" Blade Rider: Revenge of the Indian Nations. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though he hardly relishes the assignment, Jason (Chuck Connors) agrees to help a rural undertaker haul a coffin into town. Little does Jason know that the coffin's occupant is a very-much-alive outlaw who intends to rob the local Wells Fargo office. J. Pat O'Malley makes a return appearance as lovable reprobate Rufus L. Pitkin in this episode, which also includes a suitably menacing performance by the great Lee Van Cleef. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Returning to work after a four-week absence, Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) makes up for lost time by agreeing to represent cantankerous orange grower Amos Keller (Arthur Hunnicutt). To get even with Amos for messing up his plans to bulldoze the local orange groves, land developer Gerald Thornton is suing the old coot, claiming to have been bitten by Amos' dog Hard Tack. Things turns deadly serious, however, when Thornton is murdered and Amos' granddaughter Sandra (Natalie Trundy) is charged with the crime. Watch for future spaghetti-western icon Lee Van Cleef in a supporting role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Like Pontius Pilate, director John Ford asks "What is truth?" in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance--but unlike Pilate, Ford waits for an answer. The film opens in 1910, with distinguished and influential U.S. senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) and his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) returning to the dusty little frontier town where they met and married twenty-five years earlier. They have come back to attend the funeral of impoverished "nobody" Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). When a reporter asks why, Stoddard relates a film-long flashback. He recalls how, as a greenhorn lawyer, he had run afoul of notorious gunman Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), who worked for a powerful cartel which had the territory in its clutches. Time and again, "pilgrim" Stoddard had his hide saved by the much-feared but essentially decent Doniphon. It wasn't that Doniphon was particularly fond of Stoddard; it was simply that Hallie was in love with Stoddard, and Doniphon was in love with Hallie and would do anything to assure her happiness, even if it meant giving her up to a greenhorn. When Liberty Valance challenged Stoddard to a showdown, everyone in town was certain that the greenhorn didn't stand a chance. Still, when the smoke cleared, Stoddard was still standing, and Liberty Valance lay dead. On the strength of his reputation as the man who shot Valance, Stoddard was railroaded into a political career, in the hope that he'd rid the territory of corruption. Stoddard balked at the notion of winning an election simply because he killed a man-until Doniphon, in strictest confidence, told Stoddard the truth: It was Doniphon, not Stoddard, who shot down Valance. Stoddard was about to reveal this to the world, but Doniphon told him not to. It was far more important in Doniphon's eyes that a decent, honest man like Stoddard become a major political figure; Stoddard represented the "new" civilized west, while Doniphon knew that he and the West he represented were already anachronisms. Thus Stoddard went on to a spectacular political career, bringing extensive reforms to the state, while Doniphon faded into the woodwork. His story finished, the aged Stoddard asks the reporter if he plans to print the truth. The reporter responds by tearing up his notes. "This is the West, sir, " the reporter explains quietly. "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." Dismissed as just another cowboy opus at the time of its release, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance has since taken its proper place as one of the great Western classics. It questions the role of myth in forging the legends of the West, while setting this theme in the elegiac atmosphere of the West itself, set off by the aging Stewart and Wayne. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide