Review of A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die

I watched this film yesterday evening on ITV4 when I could have tuned into "The Hairy Bikers' Cookbook".Well,nobody's perfect. I can only imagine that ITV in its wisdom cut huge swathes of the storyline in order to fit it into their Saturday dead - time slot. Set during the War between the States the story opens on the eve of a mass hanging in a fort occupied by Union soldiers.For no reason that was apparent Mr J.Coburn and Mr B.Spence are brought to the fort in a waggon and the C.O. immediately seizes on Mr Coburn as the ideal man to lead a suicide raid on an enemy - held fort."I'll need 12 men" says Mr Coburn between drags on his cigarillo and delicate sips of his red wine that he has already pronounced as "good",denoting that he is a man of some culture. You see,Mr Coburn had been the officer in charge of the fort but had surrendered to the Rebs and been considered "yeller" although the fact that the Reb colonel had threatened to murder his wife and child might have concentrated his mind somewhat.Despite being handed his prize the odious colonel (Mr T.Savalas) went ahead and slaughtered Mr Coburn's family just for the fun of it. He doesn't get twelve men but plucks seven from the shadow of the gallows (including one wearing his late wife's crucifix,a point that is never explained or referred to again)and,with the promise of untold riches ringing in their ears,they set off,pausing only to have lunch at an isolated farm occupied by a family of psychos who they discover have trapped unwary Confederate soldiers and stolen whatever unwary Confederate Soldiers carry on their persons.then killed them.We don't actually see the bodies - a touch of sensitivity rather negated by the wholesale murder that occurs later in the film. They execute the Addams Family(There were four of them but I only counted three shots so possibly they lined them up one behind the other) and hop on a convenient passing Iron Horse. An awful lot of time is wasted as Mr Spence ingratiates himself with the reb grunts but eventually Mr Coburn and his scurvy crew get inside the fort and kill near enough every damn living thing except Mr Savalas who,with the dignity of an injured bull on its knees submits to the killing stroke of the sword wielded by Mr Coburn. That's the Code of the West - I guess. The music is intrusive,the guitar sounds a little flat to me,and the actual recording of the soundtrack is blurred. The dubbing is poor,the colour variable and Mr Savals's jacket as he faces his executioner is very untidy below the waist.He must have put it on in a hurry. Perhaps if anyone has seen a full - length version of "A reason to live,a reason to die",they can tip me the wink about Mr Coburn's wife's crucifix.It would be nice to know.