Rent Barquero (1970)

Terrific stuff - Barquero review by sb

FILM & REVIEW First class Western which although isn’t a spaghetti western is obviously influenced by them. It’s got a really interesting premise - Van Cleef plays Travis who has built his own barge which he pulls across the river by hand while a small town has grown up on the one side to cater for the passing trade. Meanwhile further inland a gang of murderous bandits led by Remy (Oates) have attacked a town to steal crates of repeating rifles from the US army for use in the Mexican Civil war. While they are there they massacre the entire town and head off to sequester Travis’ barge to take them over the river. He gets wind of this and evacuates his small town and pulls his barge over to the other side living Remy stranded. A stand off then ensures - Remy has no way of transporting his wagons over while all Travis has to do is sit tight and wait for the US Army to catch up. A real psychological game ensues…… Both leads are excellent with Oates who sees his plans all ruined and begins to fragment- not helped by the copious amount of dope he is smoking while Van Cleef has to keep the nervous towns people on board. Add in a great laconic turn from Forrest Tucker as a trapper and you have a really terrific movie - 4/5

Who pays the ferryman? - Barquero review by Count Otto Black

Spaghetti westerns mostly don't work if they aren't made by Italians. However, in this case, the incredibly eclectic director of everything from giant ant classic "Them!" to the shagtastic "In Like Flint" by way of Bela Lugosi comedy "Zombies On Broadway" and a film starring Oliver Hardy and an elephant almost pulls it off. The trick is to play it absolutely straight, no matter how insanely stupid and ultra-violent the subject matter may be, and this is a good example of such an approach. It's not the only western in which the hero becomes the reluctant savior of a small town, but it's one of the very few indeed in which the "hero" really, truly doesn't give a shit.

A word of warning: any militant feminists out there may want to throw furniture through all available walls at certain moments in this film. Though to be fair, I cannot off-hand think of any other movie in which Lee Van Cleef is seriously supposed to be the sexiest man on the planet. I think you all get the general idea. This is a spaghetti western spoof, but it's a pretty good one, if you don't mind a wee bit of political incorrectness. I certainly don't, therefore I object not at all to the nods to such films as "For a Few Dollars More", or indeed the less famous but well worth seeking out Budd Boetticher westerns, many of which involved Randolph Scott, that built a bridge between these two genres.

Bad stuff happens, and bad yet reluctantly good people reluctantly sort it all out. As post-spaghetti westerns go, it's not at all bad. Certainly it does exactly what it says on the tin.