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Spaghetti west­erns often appeal to cult-film types who don’t nor­mally go for west­erns because they sub­vert the tra­di­tion­al­ist vibe that is usu­ally asso­ci­ated with the genre.  Spaghetti west­erns aren’t beholden to a “white hats vs. black hats” iconog­ra­phy and they fre­quently incor­po­rate left­ist polit­i­cal themes, a gothic atmos­phere or a bleak com­men­tary on human moral­ity.  A Bullet For Sandoval comes from the lat­ter cat­e­gory, offer­ing a exis­ten­tially doom-laden story that feels like a mur­der bal­lad brought to life.

The plot is essen­tially a dance of death between two mutu­ally obsessed oppo­nents.  John Warner (George Hilton) is a Confederate sol­dier strug­gling through the Civil War, hop­ing to be reunited with his love when it is all over.  However, he is forced to go a.w.o.l. when he dis­cov­ers she is preg­nant with his child and ter­mi­nally ill.  He rushes to the home of her father, Don Pedro Sandoval (Ernest Borgnine), only to dis­cover that she has died after child­birth.  Sandoval was against his daughter’s romance with Warner so he kicks Warner and the baby out into the streets.

Warner tries to find help but is turned away at all places because the baby has cholera.  The child soon dies and this pushes Warner over the edge.  With the help of a few fel­low out­casts, he forms a band of crim­i­nals and plots revenge on Sandoval and his sons.  The two men snipe at each other as Warner and his men evade cap­ture and close in.  People on both sides of the dis­pute die as the two men inch their way towards a final show­down in an arena.

As the above syn­op­sis hints, A Bullet For Sandoval is a grim piece of work.  It focuses on the dark and mor­bid from its first moment, a haunt­ing titles sequence where a crazed Union sol­dier pil­lages the corpses of Confederate sol­diers by cut­ting off fin­gers to get at rings and pry­ing golden teeth out of their mouths.  The story presents a world where any­thing good or noble is snuffed out by pride and revenge — and once some­one is over­taken by either feel­ing, it’s a dis­ease that can’t be shaken.

Even when these char­ac­ters achieve their venge­ful goals, the end result is more heart­break­ing than cathar­tic — a scene where Warner drowns a man who denied his child milk while his wail­ing wife watches in hor­ror is truly unnerv­ing stuff.  Director Julio Buchs presents the story in an unflinch­ing style that refuses to judge either Warner or Sandoval.  Instead, their acts are pre­sented in a dis­pas­sion­ate man­ner that makes the con­tent all the more disturbing.

As for the per­for­mances, Ernest Borgnine doesn’t look very Mexican despite a lit­tle black dye in his hair and he doesn’t try for an accent in the dub­bing.  However, he com­mu­ni­cates the rage and carefully-hidden inner tur­moil of his char­ac­ter nicely and the result is a com­pelling per­for­mance.  Borgnine could be a highly effec­tive antag­o­nist when he wanted to be (see Emperor Of The North Pole for proof) and he acquits him­self nicely here.  Hilton is not as con­vinc­ing as Warner: the role demands oper­atic depths of rage and anguish in a few key moments that he can’t quite con­jure up.  That said, he is solid oth­er­wise oth­er­wise and makes a decent gunslinger.

In short, A Bullet For Sandoval weaves a sin­is­ter mood despite a few rough edges.  It’s a solid pick for those who like their spaghetti west­erns dark and despairing.