The dusty looking Spaghetti western "The Bounty Killer," known also as "The Ugly Ones," ranks as an above-average, Italian-made oater with the prolific Tomas Milian as a charismatic outlaw and Richard Wyler as a bounty hunter. "Bad Man's River" director Eugenio Martín, along with genre pioneers José Gutiérrez Maesso of "Minnesota Clay" and James Donald Prindle of "Gunfight at Red Sands," did something entirely different from most Spaghetti westerns. They used an American western novel written by Marvin Albert as their source material. In fact, Albert wrote several other westerns that Hollywood turned into westerns. "Rough Night in Jericho," "Duel at Diablo," "Bullet for a Badman," and "The Law and Jake Wade" were the others. Despite the atriocus dubbing on the Echo Bridge version, "The Bounty Killer" is a fast-paced horse opera lensed on western sets left over from other westerns around Alme. and against mountains terrain that the best of the early Spaghetti westerns were made. The arid Spanish scenery substitutes splendidly for the parched American southwest, with future "Trinity" helmer Enzo Barboni creating striking pictorial compositions that are complemented by "A Stranger in Town" composer Stelvio Cipriani's catchy, atmospheric music. "The Bounty Killer" appeared during the first phase of the Spaghetti western, when the Europeans made them with noisy gunfights, screaming horses, and thoroughly despicable villains. Nothing is really distinctive about Richard Wyler's heroic bounty hunter. He looks like he could have ridden out of a 1950s' Hollywood sagebrusher.
Review of The Ugly Ones
