SARTANA’S HERE… TRADE YOUR PISTOL FOR A COFFIN (1970) ***

George Hilton takes over for Gianni Garko in this fifth and final Sartana adventure.  Hilton is kind of like Roger Moore to Garko’s Sean Connery.  He’s quicker with a joke and doesn’t seem to be taking it all too seriously.  He also gets a variety of goofy (but cool) gadgets and gimmicks that help endear him to the audience.  There’s a great scene early on where he kills a bunch of guys with a gun hidden in a loaf of bread (he calls it a “Sandwich gun”) that perfectly sets the tone for what’s to come.  

Spencer (Piero Lulli) is the crooked owner of a mining town who chisels prospectors out of their profits by keeping the gold dust for himself.  Sartana makes an uneasy alliance with the no-good Mantas (Nello Pazzafini) to rob his office and clean him out.  Double and triple-crosses abound, but things get even more complicated when another gunfighter, Sabbath (Charles Southwood) enters the fray.

The plot is merely a riff on similar themes found in the other Sartana pictures, but director Giuliano Carnimeo mines plenty of humor out of the scenario to make this one of the more entertaining films in the series.  The plot is also reminiscent of the previous Hilton/Carnimeo team-up, The Moment to Kill, except it’s slicker, faster paced, and much more fun than that film.  I was particularly impressed with Carnimeo’s inventive camerawork during a tense poker game that helped up the stakes both dramatically and in the game. 

Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin has all the scenes of Sartana one-upping the bad guys in inventive ways that you’ve come to expect from the series.  There’s a great moment where Sartana is taking a bath and some bad hombres get the drop on him, but he takes them out with a gun hidden in his boot.  I think my favorite bit though was when Sartana played checkers using full shot glasses as playing pieces.  Every time he jumps his opponent’s piece, they have to take the shot.  This is an awesome idea that I’m just dying to try at my next party. 

One thing that makes Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin different than the other Sartana movies is the use of the character Baxter Red.  In the other films, he’s the rich guy behind the plot who’s manipulating the other characters.  Here, he’s just the main villain’s henchman.  It’s a small change to the formula, but one worth mentioning.

The best addition to the mix is Sabbath.  He’s a badass “dandy” gunfighter who carries a frilly parasol with him wherever he goes.  Don’t let that fool you because he also has shotguns hidden in his saddle and isn’t afraid to use them.  Sartana’s final confrontation with Sabbath is just one of the movie’s many highlights.  I wouldn’t dream of spoiling just how it all plays out.  Southwood and Hilton have a lot of chemistry together and Erika (The Devil’s Nightmare) Blanc is a lot of fun as a backstabbing madam. 

AKA:  I am Sartana… Trade Your Guns for a Coffin.  AKA:  Sartana’s Coming, Get Your Coffins Ready.  AKA:  Fistful of Lead.