Review of Get Mean (1975) by Michael T — 21 Aug 2016

A very strange finale to "The Stranger" series starring Tony Anthony. By 1976, the Spaghetti Western was on its last legs and there were a lot of "Sunset Spaghetti Westerns" like Keoma with sombre stories set in decaying Western towns with Leonard Cohen-esque ballads sung in the background.

This is not one of those films. The Stranger started out as a rip-off of Clint Eastwood's "Man with no Name" character but by the final film in the series our hero finds himself in a frontier ghost town were gypsies hire him to return their princess (Diana Lorys looking a lot like Sophia Loren here) back home to Spain.

Once in Spain, the Stranger is confronted with Vikings, Moors, vicious Barbarians, evil spirits, a raging bull, and a diabolical Shakespeare-quoting hunchback (co-star and co-writer Lloyd Batista). A put-upon Stranger suffers several humiliating encounters and rough treatment at the hands of his enemies before he decides to "get mean" with his arsenal of guns and dynamite.

Only the Stranger seems to come from the 19th Century, everyone else is decked out like something from the Middle Ages or Renaissance. One wonders if producer Anthony and director Ferdinado Baldi had found a bunch of castles in Spain and a bunch of props and costumes left over from movies like El Cid and made this bizarre film which is pretty strange.

Nineteenth century Spain did not resemble this film in real life but why let history get in the way of an enjoyable if farcical Spaghetti Western.