Franco Rossetti Movies

In this spaghetti western, set during the last days of the Civil War, an outlaw finds a dying Confederate officer. As the officer expires, he tells the outlaw about a cache of gold hidden in his blind father's home. The enterprising thief takes the dead man's clothes and tricks the father and his housekeeper into believing that he is the son. He is just about ready to begin looking for the gold when an outlaw gang comes to town and forces him to help them rob an army payroll wagon. He then tries to abscond with the loot. The bandits torture him, shoot him, and leave him for dead. Then they shoot the blind father. The hero gets better and gets grisly revenge upon the outlaws. He saves a special treat for the gang leader. First he uses mud to blind him. Then he puts a gun in his hand and kills him. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Not originally a "Ringo" entry, this exciting spaghetti western was redubbed to exploit the series' popular success. Mark Damon plays Ringo (Johnny in the original), a bounty-hunter who is hired to nab outlaw leader Franco Derosa, but ends up taking on Derosa's entire gang and demolishing half of Coldstone City with dynamite before the situation is resolved. Skillfully directed by Sergio Corbucci, this action-packed film features a stirring Carlo Savina soundtrack and numerous explosions, as well as an engaging performance by Damon, star of Roger Corman's The Fall of the House of Usher. Corbucci went on to direct the immensely popular Django. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

The Continental cast and scenes of intense violence may earmark Texas, Addio as a spaghetti Western, but the plot of this Italian/Spanish production unspools very much like its Hollywood counterpart. Django star Franco Nero's character provides the link; his two-fisted, taciturn Texas sheriff, Burt Sullivan, is cut from the same unwavering in-his-duty cloth as Gary Cooper's lawmen as he crosses the border to bring wealthy and sadistic Mexican crime boss Cisco Delgado (José Suárez) to justice for the murder of his father. Sullivan's body count may be staggeringly high by the film's fade-out, but his kills are strictly in defense of himself, his greenhorn brother, Jim (Cole Kitosch, aka Alberto Dell'Acqua or Robert Widmark), or later, a group of Mexican revolutionaries led by lawyer Luigi Pistilli that attempts to overthrow Delgado's corrupt regime. Director Ferdinando Baldi (whose Western curriculum vitae includes the more European-flavored Blindman [1971] and Get Mean [1975], with American ex-pat actor Tony Anthony) makes excellent use of the Almeira, Spain, locations (well photographed by future Trinity Is Still My Name director Enzo Barboni); and if his pacing is occasionally draggy, he more than makes up for it with a wealth of well-staged brawls and shoot-outs. His script (written with Django co-scribe Franco Rossetti) is lean and solid, with a hint of noir in its central dark secret regarding Delgado's relationship with Sullivan's family. ~ Paul Gaita, Rovi

One of the many Italian sword-and-sandal adventure stories roughly depicting historical events -- sometimes too graphically -- this drama by director Lionello de Felice has its merits. The action moves along at a good clip, as Constantine's (Cornel Wilde) rise to power is depicted, amidst battling armies and political intrigue. All the well-publicized, old Roman entertainments such as feeding Christians to the lions are shown in more detail than might be necessary, leading to one of the main points of featuring Constantine at all -- he was the emperor who gave Christians the freedom to worship as they pleased. His cronies and his enemies, his loves and his successes all have their moment in the sun. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi