Essaying the pop culture that matters since 1999 Because of the first Sartana film, Gianfranco Parolini’s If You Meet Sartana… Pray For Your Death (1968) I was both wary and excited going into I Am Sartana Your Angel of Death (1969) the second installment in the original cycle of Sartana films Parolini was replaced with the less experienced Giuliano Carnimeo I was concerned that many of the best aspects of the first film would be lost But with Gianni Garko again playing Sartana I was also hopeful that this iconic Spaghetti Western character would be further developed and enhanced with this second entry If You Meet Sartana… Pray For Your Death introduces Garko’s relaxed acting and mysterious aura as Sartana quick-witted gambler of an anti-hero who uses a four-barreled Derringer pocket pistol and an assortment of booby-traps to take down his foes with great style the first Sartana film had two things going for it: its stunt-heavy acrobatic-like action that added energy to the chases on horseback and the gunfights and its mind-blowing body-count that distracted from its mess of a plot Since Parolini puts both of these traits on show in his Lee Van Cleef-led Sabata trilogy (1969-1971) I assumed that they were unique to him rather than to the first Sartana film and that they would be absent from the second Sartana film If those redeeming aspects of the first film weren’t presented in the second Garko would surely be able to match his performance as Sartana a second time but what would Carnimeo offer as director that could make up for Parolini’s missing touch that helps make the first film so entertaining Before directing I Am Sartana Your Angel of Death Carnimeo had only two films to his name: his unbalanced but fun The Moment of Killing (1968) and the mediocre but nicely filmed Jeffrey Hunter vehicle Find a Place to Die (1968) While both films are impressive for an unexperienced director not as memorable as I was expecting the second installment in the Sartana cycle to be I Am Sartana Your Angel of Death opens up by showing Sartana lead a gang in a bank robbery that it is merely someone dressed as Sartana trying to set him up The rest of the film follows him as he tries to find out who was behind the bank robbery while fighting off an assortment of bounty hunters that are after his head With the help of an old friend named Buddy Ben (Fank Wolff) Sartana eventually finds out who set him up but along the way there are a lot of incredibly hard to follow little plot points that come off as completely nonsensical In the sense that the story development is a confusing mess Carnimeo’s I Am Sartana Your Angel of Death is very similar to If You Meet Sartana… Pray For Your Death But Carnimeo also does a fine job of emphasizing the easy-to-fall-for character traits of Sartana himself that Parolini and Garko originally brought to life: he’s a good-looking well-dressed charmer with a skill set somewhere between a master illusionist and an all-powerful mystic who doesn’t hesitate to draw his gun or drop a one-liner a role for the always brilliant Klaus Kinski an appearance from Kinski always takes a film up a notch or two But as was the case in the first Sartana film Kinski is not given nearly enough screen time in I Am Sartana Your Angel of Death His genius is once again more or less wasted the scenes that do feature Kinski are great as always He plays a dandy-like gambling addict who is just one of the many bounty hunters after Sartana he says the best line of the film: “You only won because I was persecuted by misfortune.” Kinski might very well be the brightest star in the entire spaghetti western genre and it’s always a shame to see his talent wasted The acting in his Sartana film is pretty damn good across the board mysterious performance in the first Sartana film he does an excellent job here of keeping us entertained in spite of the confusing plot that There’s also plenty of the action that is so necessary to the enjoyment of these films in addition to a solid score by Vasco & Mancuso But neither the action nor the score reaches the level of what was displayed in the first Sartana film If You Meet Sartana… Pray For Your Death — which itself was far from being a masterpiece — so although I Am Sartana Your Angel of Death is worth watching for fans of this character it’s definitely not a high point in the cycle Grab your magician’s cape and pepperbox pistol What unites the wildly unpredictable and unabashedly entertaining Sartana films—despite the disparate contributions of two directors and two very different leading men—are the iconographic elements of the eponymous character himself: his red-and-black magician’s cape the pepperbox pistol and other baroque gadgets that he has at the ready not to mention his ubiquitous smoke-billowing cigarillo are ingenious Rube Goldberg contraptions that deliver sudden reversals of fortune typically emphasizing the perils of deceptive appearances There’s loads of violence and gunplay throughout with occasionally astronomical body counts yet little in the way of graphic blood and guts which lends the films an aura of old-school charm Co-written and directed by Gianfranco Parolini (billed on screen as Frank Kramer) If You Meet Sartana…Pray for Your Death opens with Sartana (Gianni Garko) rescuing an elderly couple in a stagecoach from a gang led by Morgan (Klaus Kinski) a shipment of gold is hijacked by another gang that’s subsequently mowed down with a Gatling gun by Lasky (William Berger) discovers the strongbox to be full of rocks instead of gold bars The central mystery in the film will concern what happened to the gold where they play out various permutations of alliance and opposition While the general setup for the film may seem stereotypical the devil is in the details of the execution Parolini brings all the style—painterly compositions cleverly blocked action set pieces—we have come to expect from Italian westerns But he takes things just a bit further: Indeed the last reel of the film looks like it could have been shot by Mario Bava Your Angel of Death finds Sartana (Garko again) framed for a bank robbery he didn’t commit brings an even more outrageous eye to the proceedings: The camera tilts and flops over every time someone gets gunned down (which is often) like the bug-eye prismatic effect achieved by shooting through a beveled beer mug The storyline provides a more amusing (and larger) role for Kinski a gun forced to hire himself out due to an unending losing streak at gambling With Sartana’s Here…Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin George Hilton steps into the title role for a single outing The film also features a larger role for a female lead than earlier entries in the series which had been populated almost exclusively by men as Trixie (Erika Blanc) the saloon owner is your prototypical femme fatale Where the film does inject some novelty is in the person of Sabbath (Charles Southwood) a poetry-spouting bounty hunter dressed entirely in white to contrast Sartana’s black-based ensemble Garko returns for Have a Good Funeral My Friend…Sartana Will Pay which centers on a murdered prospector whose land is said to contain a motherlode of gold turns up in Indian Creek to secure her inheritance it seems like everyone in town has a plan to wrest the gold away from her In addition to Giordano’s appealing feminine presence there’s also genre film stalwart Helga Liné as a saloon girl the film trades in a good deal of racial stereotyping with regard to the presence of the Fu Manchu-like Lee Tse Tung (George Wang) whose den of iniquity features prominently in the storyline The opening has Sartana gunning down a corrupt sheriff and allowing himself to be sent to a brutal penitentiary for it is designed to look like a Vietnam War-era POW camp.) Turns out he’s there to meet up with Granville (Piero Lulli) who has information about two million in gold and counterfeit bills that went missing after a mysterious three-way gunfight replete with double- and triple-crosses and ever-escalating gun battles The last battle culminates in the series’ most surreal imagery: Sartana playing the organ in middle of Mansfield’s main street only to have the musical instrument morph into a fantastical instrument of death If You Meet Sartana…Pray for Your Death was sourced from a 35mm print and as a result looks the weakest by comparison with some distracting (and occasionally persistent) vertical scratches and other artefacts evident The remaining films were sourced from original camera negatives The transfers exhibit excellent depth and clarity Each film includes both Italian and English tracks in Master Audio mono mixes since they tend to be more quirkily idiomatic and many of the characters appear to be delivering their lines in English in the first place ambient effects have some depth (albeit at times a bit boxy) and the idiosyncratic scores from the likes of Piero Piccioni and Bruno Nicolai sound terrific Arrow Video includes a bumper crop of supplements for their Sartana box set and fourth films in the series come with commentary tracks the first from German documentary filmmaker Mike Siegel while the others feature film historians C After laying out his genre bona fides at some length describing the first appearance of the Sartana character as a black hat in a non-Sartana film then leaning heavily into the cast and crew members’ connections to many other Italian westerns Siegel provides an intriguing European appraisal of the films Joyner and Parke exhibit an amiable tag-team approach with Joyner more often than not taking point in the discussion and Parke putting in his take from time to time Scattered across all five discs are lengthy interviews (some archival some newly filmed) with various cast and crew members whose recollections range from a bit fuzzy to crystal clear The featurette “Light the Fuse: Sartana’s Casting” provides biographical snippets for a number of familiar genre players who turn up throughout the series Each disc comes with a gallery of colorful and strikingly designed promotional materials from the Mike Siegel Archives Arrow Video’s Complete Sartana box set just rode into town Budd Wilkins's writing has appeared in Film Journal International and Video Watchdog He is a member of the Online Film Critics Society document.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id" "a0f7ce4156d7b8a81ab5e22d2381d324" );document.getElementById("facec42938").setAttribute( "id" and website in this browser for the next time I comment The Ukrainian guerrilla movement, “Death to russian Occupiers and Collaborators,” claims to have identified the location of North Korean military personnel in the russian-occupied portion of the Donetsk region This announcement was made on the movement's Telegram channel on Sunday three training grounds in the Mariupol region are currently active particularly the one near the village of Sartana which has been established with the involvement of the North Korean contingent Intensive training with artillery is underway there The North Korean instructors are reportedly setting up the training ground and appear to feel confident and secure at this time Many residents of the Sartana community have begun cooperating actively with the occupying forces which primarily operates in the Azov region other sources have not confirmed the existence of the three alleged training grounds for DPR forces in the temporarily occupied territory including the claimed training ground in Sartana The guerrilla movement asserts that they will "do everything possible" to ensure that putin's military allies from North Korea “receive a ‘greeting’ from the Ukrainian Armed Forces as soon as possible.” This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page There had been westerns made in the American style in Europe since nearly the beginning of cinema but it wasn’t until the success of Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars that Italian filmmakers realized they could make westerns in their own But one you might not have heard of is Sartana and there’s a reason for that we’ll get to; the Sartana movies and now all five “official” films in the series are available in a snazzy Blu-ray set from Arrow Video there wasn’t such thing as “Intellectual Property,” meaning if they wanted to a distributor could call a movie whatever they wanted to mostly done to capitalize on another movie or franchise’s popularity both of whom were characters used in a million other movies even if they weren’t intended to be initially But Sartana was different: Sartana’s popularity remained singular thanks in no small part to the efforts of the lead actor a movie was made in Italy called Mille dollari sul nero (released over here as Blood at Sundown) which featured a bad guy named Sartana and Garko’s performance became so popular that the movie was even released in Germany as Sartana they decided to give Garko a starring role as the hero went to court to protect the character–his visage and overall demeanor–as being his sole property and persona only the five in this set are the canonical ones and Garko doesn’t even play Sartana in all of them Sartana as depicted in these movies is something like a western James Bond mixed with Batman or something He’s got gadgets and trick weapons but is also highly intelligent and is essentially a detective through most of the movies he comes into various towns to unravel dastardly plots and make himself a boatload of money in the process owing in no small part to the writers being giallo or mystery writers elsewhere in their career The first movie in the series was directed by Gianfranco Parolini going by the Anglicized name of Frank Kramer (who left this series to direct his own Sabata trilogy) and the latter four were directed by Giuliano Carnimeo Garko played Sartana in the first two and last two movies while the middle film featured a Sartana played–with the okay from Garko–by another western star And each of the movies has a phenomenally ridiculous title: and the reference to him as the Angel of Death is an apt one He always seems to swoop in at the beginning of the narrative in time to start setting the pieces up for the villains and watch them fall He doesn’t always save the good guys but he always leaves the baddies in utter shambles The first movie has Sartana insinuate himself in the plot of several corrupt members of a town and a couple of rival gang leaders as well played by spaghetti western staples Klaus Kinski and William Berger If You Meet Sartana is probably the weakest of the bunch The second film feels a little more self-assured a gang commits a bank robbery and one of them impersonates Sartana leading the corrupt authorities to put a bounty on the famous gunman’s head Bounty hunters from all over come to track down Sartana who has to uncover the real culprits and prove his innocence here playing the perpetually unlucky Hot Dead Both of the first two Sartana movies set up the iconic nature of the character while still being fairly by-the-numbers Italian westerns the stories would become much more complex and Sartana himself begins to appear more like an agent of retribution rather than a smiling Trade Your Guns for a Coffin is the lone Sartana outing for George Hilton who by his own admission wanted to play the character as more of a romantic if enigmatic figure Sartana is a bounty hunter who gets ambushed by a gang of banditos just as he’s about to catch his prey a man riding shotgun on a wagon full of gold the wagon contained only sand and the whole thing was a set up by a land owner who wanted the gold for himself And as he sets up the bandits to take down the landowner Sartana also has to contend with a greedy saloon owner (played by giallo staple Erika Blanc) and a rival bounty hunter named Sabbath (Charles Southwood but the plot is particularly naff and isn’t quite as successful and gave the series easily its two best entries Sartana witnesses a massacre and takes it upon himself to investigate He’s sure the massacre had to do with the daughter of a friend of his but he’s not sure who of the town’s many shady businessmen are behind it Sartana comes to the aid of a former associate wrongly imprisoned for his knowledge of a nearby gold mine Corrupt lawmen and gangs of bandits descend Also he plays a giant pipe organ in the middle of the town square that becomes a machine gun Garko is in incredible form with these two movies and Carnimeo’s direction was never better There’s something almost supernatural about Sartana in the films; he’s too good to just be a roving do-gooder and always seems to be exactly in the right place at the right time just exactly what you want from a mythic western hero the care and attention to detail for the Complete Sartana is second to none Arrow oversaw beautiful 2K restorations of each of the movies the first from existing film elements and the other four from the original camera negative I’d seen some of these movies years ago on a bargain basement spaghetti western DVD set There’s care here given to a genre that’s often mistreated by home media distributors This isn’t the kind of thing where one of the discs have a lot of extras and the others just have the movie Each of the movies contains a bevy of extras If You Meet Sartana contains a brand new commentary track by German filmmaker Mike Siegel which Your Angel of Death and Have a Good Funeral contain brand new commentaries by writers/authors C The latter two are featured on a number of spaghetti western commentaries and know a huge amount about the genre and Siegel’s is a fascinating commentary from the West German perspective We’ve also got interviews with directors Parolini and Carnimeo writers Ernesto Gastaldi and Fabbio Piccioni and a number of the film’s main actors The Complete Sartana is one of the best box sets Arrow have put out recently and showcase movies that wouldn’t otherwise get the royal treatment Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. He is the writer of 200 reviews of weird or obscure films in Schlock & Awe. Follow him on Twitter! We’re delighted you're perusing our site for all your nerdy news We'd wholeheartedly appreciate you enabling ads to keep this content free An enemy aircraft has been downed in Mariupol which was attacking the city and the village of Sartana The relevant statement was made by the Center for Strategic Communication and Information Security on its Facebook page According to Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Azov Detachment worked in a coordinated manner the city of Mariupol was Ukrainian controlled local residents were evacuated from the village of Sartana and Livoberezhnyi District’s peaceful quarter to a safe location Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated a full-scale invasion of Ukraine While citing and using any materials on the Internet links to the website ukrinform.net not lower than the first paragraph are mandatory citing the translated materials of foreign media outlets is possible only if there is a link to the website ukrinform.net and the website of a foreign media outlet Materials marked as "Advertisement" or with a disclaimer reading "The material has been posted in accordance with Part 3 of Article 9 of the Law of Ukraine "On Advertising" No 1996 and the Law of Ukraine "On the Media" No 2023 and on the basis of an agreement/invoice Online media entity; Media identifier - R40-01421 After the Man With No Name from Sergio Leone’s masterful Dollar trilogy (1964-66) and Sergio Corbucci’s Django who appeared in over 30 different Spaghetti Westerns before Quentin Tarantino resurrected and modified him in the 2012 American reboot Django Unchained the most notorious Spaghetti Western anti-hero goes by the name Sartana Although characters with the name appeared in dozens of films it is for the original cycle of five films beginning in 1968 and ending in 1972 that he is remembered Gianni Garko played him in four of these films including the first one If You Meet Sartana… Pray For Your Death (1968) in which he gave birth to the character under the direction of Gianfranco Parolini Sartana is a gambler who wears a silky long black coat with ruby red colored lining that matches his long tie His black hat is kept on with a draw-string He’s undoubtedly one of the best dressed protagonists in the genre and he’s almost as quick-witted as the Man With No Name He takes great pleasure in setting elaborate booby-traps His weapon of choice is a four-barreled Derringer pocket pistol the type that a prostitute working in a brothel would hide in her brassiere pulls it out of thin air like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat to blow his adversaries away you can’t imagine anyone but him using it Although If You Meet Sartana… Pray For Your Death is the first film to feature this memorable and incredibly cool spaghetti western anti-hero Most of the film’s problems are related to its screenplay and director Gianfranco Parolini from a story by Luigi De Santis With this many individuals contributing to the film’s plot it’s no wonder that it is complex to the point of incomprehension All I know is that there is some gold and everyone wants it I mean a bunch of Mexican bandits led by General Tampico (Fernando Sancho) a gang of American outlaws affiliated with a coke-head in a velvet suit named Lasky (William Berger) a knife thrower named Morgan (Klaus Kinski) who wears a bell on his boot and is said to be “like a cat” son of Charlie) who is blackmailed over and over his candy eating fat friend of a banker (Gianni Rizzo) a blond woman (Heidi Fischer) who moves from one man to the next who jumps in and out of the conflict between hang-out sessions with a laughing old man (Franco Pesce) I struggled to keep tabs on all these characters the statuses of their always changing allegiances Not only was I confused while watching If You Meet Sartana… Pray For Your Death I still wasn’t able to piece all the loose ends together but based off my initial viewing I can say with confidence that it makes absolutely no sense Getting introduced to the unforgettable character of Sartana who Garko seems born to play with his relaxed acting and mysterious aura made the confusion of the plot insignificant watching If You Meet Sartana… Pray For Your Death will make you hungry for more Sartana in spite of its messy plot could be viewed as the perfect warm-up for the four Sartana films that follow it: I Am Sartana Your Angel Of Death (1969); Have A Good Funeral My Friend… Sartana Will Pay (1970); Light The Fuse… Sartana Is Coming (1970); and even Sartana’s Here… Trade Your Pistol For A Coffin (1972) which stars George Hilton rather than Garko as Sartana Alongside the introduction of the legendary Sartana character are the relentless and inspired action sequences which fortunately help distract from the weak plot for two reasons these action scenes have a hint of the stunt-heavy acrobatic-like shooting jumps and running tumbles that the director would later put on fully display in his Sabata trilogy (1969-71) with at least 25 deaths taking place in the first ten minutes of the film these scenes result in one of the highest body-counts in the entire genre adds energy to the chases on horseback and the gunfights that take place among the sand dunes while this constantly growing body-count adds to the vaguely dreamlike feeling that the character of Sartana with his ability to suddenly vanish and reappear like a mystical magician Although the coolness of the Sartana character and the action sequences he takes part in successfully distracted me from the mess of a plot they didn’t distract me from all the Leone lifting that Parolini does Without even mentioning the similarities between Sartana and the Man With No Name since every spaghetti western protagonist that came after Clint Eastwood was expected to emulate at least some of his amoral anti-hero characteristics Parolini stole too much of If You Meet Sartana… Pray For Your Death from Leone’s far superior Dollar trilogy From A Fistful of Dollars (1964) he steals the laughing old man character who works as an undertaker and befriends the film’s protagonist From A Few Dollars More (1965) he steals the Man With No Name’s use of a musical pocket watch to strike fear in his enemies and announce his gun-wielding arrival and the Ugly (1966) he steals the general plot involving a hunt for gold and the constant double-crossing and changes in allegiances between those hunting it — though he and his writers failed miserably in flushing their version out Regardless of its flaws in plot and general lack of originality If You Meet Sartana… Pray For Your Death is a great introduction to the Sartana character with lots of entertaining action sequences Despite the name being featured in its title Sartana in the Valley of Death (1970) doesn’t have the classic spaghetti western character Sartana in it Sartana is most notably brought to life by Gianni Garko in If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death (1968) under the direction of Gianfranco Parolini Garko went on to make the character a spaghetti western legend in the Giuliano Carnimeo directed films I Am Sartana Your Angel of Death (1969) and Light the Fuse… Sartana Is Coming (1970) even though this Valley of Death tips its hat to the Sartana character he is nowhere to be found — the name never appears in the film Producer Enzo Boetani seems to have put the name in his movie’s title with hopes of fooling audiences into thinking it was part of the “Sartana” series But if one goes to Sartana in the Valley of Death expecting to see the iconic character of Sartana in another entertaining Sartana movie there is very little to like about Sartana in the Valley of Death The plot is interesting on paper but boring on film Lee Galloway (William Berger) is hired to free the three Craig brothers from jail: Jason (Wayde Preston) After a face-off that is so forgettable I don’t remember any of it the three brothers end up with all of the horses while Galloway ends up with all the guns Galloway follows them into the eponymous “Valley of Death” where a gun versus horse conflict plays out In spite of how promising this premise sounds it is a conflict so underdeveloped that it would be better suited for a kindergarten theatre production than a spaghetti western There is one somewhat entertaining scene where the three brothers ride their horses around in circles on a distant hilltop while laughing at Galloway’s frustrating attempts to shoot them that the characters were no more than paper-dolls in an impromptu puppet show It’s all in the name of fun and games but the fun is forced and the games uninventive The film requires the viewer to invest nothing in the paper puppets prancing before us Most of the problems with Sartana in the Valley of Death can be blamed on Roberto Mauri The movie’s pace is so off whack that one suspects that he started shooting with nothing but a premise and wrote the majority of the screenplay in between takes He starts the film off with a sense of haste by showing Galloway in a series of shootouts — most of which are uninspired with the exception of one where he makes the ground explode by shooting it These shooting matches are meant to prove to the audience that this protagonist is a force to be reckoned with Mauri then puts on the brakes without notice forcing us to endure the sight of Galloway sluggishly walking around a bad excuse for a desert This so-called “valley of death” is nothing more than piles of sand haphazardly poured into ten-foot mounds in an attempt to look like the Spanish deserts used in the genre’s better films If these aimless valley scenes aren’t boring enough Mauri also feeds us scene upon scene featuring clockwork dolls which would have been a very spaghetti western flavored topping if they had even a little significance to the events playing out before us when combined with the distractingly bad acting of nearly every supporting player only adds to the tediousness that marks the majority of the plot and nowhere near the worst the genre has to offer The problem is that the music doesn’t meld well with the feeling of the film which would have worked fine if Sartana in the Valley of Death had been in the vein of the genre’s comedic the film tries to be serious and it seriously fails I can’t think of a single member of the cast that produced any kind of emotion in me humorous or otherwise — unless you count the excitement I felt at the sight of the doll-maker’s daughter (Josiane Marie Tanzilli) and only has five minutes at most of screentime Martelli was a fool for not using her presence to distract us from all the bad acting who is usually a sure thing as a spaghetti western villain is soulless as Galloway; it’s as though he can’t handle the pressure of being a film’s lead protagonist This is definitely the least memorable role I’ve seen him in Sartana in the Valley of Death isn’t the worst spaghetti western ever made but there are some successes that are worth pointing out in addition to the doll-maker’s daughter representing a type that helps define the genre I also enjoyed some of director Mauri’s camera work such as when Galloway sneaks up on the three brothers and we both move and see from his perspective crouching behind bushes and zooming up on the guns there’s the matter of the death-by-scorpion in the final showdown: although incredibly unrealistic it’s hard to deny that it’s pretty cool If only one could say the same for the rest of Sartana in the Valley of Death Since the beginning of the Russian attack on Ukraine 12 Greek citizens have reportedly been killed Another two Greeks have reportedly been killed in Sartana village in Ukraine following the Russian invasion bringing the total death toll to 12 another four Greek expatriates have been injured while many remain unaccounted for where many Ukrainian citizens of Greek heritage reside The first 10 Greek casualties were recorded following Saturday’s shelling in Sartana and Bougas Ukrainian media outlets have reported that the number of dead from open fire and Russian bombing on apartment buildings is much higher ANA-MPA Journalist Sofia Prokopidi took to social media to share what Greek citizens of Sartana reported back to her: “I just received this in response to my question on whether Greeks have fled Mariupol,” she wrote A terrible genocide against Ukrainian people (is taking place) including Greek people the dead bodies are laying in the streets dragged by dogs.” “If only Greece did something… take in the Greeks with their families or at least the Greek women – the mothers with their children!” especially in Sartana and Mariupol have been around for 243 years is the home of 8,000 Greeks out of a population of 100,000 -150,000 Greeks residing in Mariupol and surrounding areas Ukraine Greeks speak the motherland language fluently and have always preserved and promoted Greek education and culture living in solidarity and unison with Ukrainian people Greeks in Ukraine have fallen victims to acts of war between Russia and Ukraine there are 23 Greek villages in the country science and industrial ventures since 1779 in the wider Crimea area such was the strength of the Greek community that it was recognised as independent The Greek population was heavily hit back in the 2014 attack as well; the memory is still vivid Greece received 50 Greek and Cypriot citizens yesterday who fled Ukraine via a specially chartered flight through Bucharest More missions to evacuate Greek and Cypriot citizens are underway via Odessa and Kyiv “Our Consulate Authorities in Odessa and Mariupol remain in the heart of the Greek population centres in Ukraine offering all necessary support,” Greece’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Andreas Katsaniotis said Looking to access paid articles across multiple policy topics Interested in policy insights for EU professional organisations Tensions between Athens and Moscow flared up after ten Greek expatriates were killed during a bombing by Russian forces in Sartana a village in the Donetsk oblast in eastern Ukraine “Orthodox bombs killed Orthodox expatriates Remember this,” told Skai TV Alexandros Papaioannou in a quite ironic tone [EPA-EFE/EVGENY ODINOKOV / SPUTNIK / KREMLIN] Your Ads Privacy ChoicesIMDb Get our news on your inbox! Suscribe x MercoPress, en Español Montevideo, May 6th 2025 - 13:15 UTC the Uruguayan stage actor who starred in Argentine movies in the 1950s and 1960s and in European productions later on in his career Born Jorge Hill Acosta y Lara in Montevideo on July 16 he soon realised that if he was to reach beyond his local stage appearances he needed to try his luck elsewhere “Montevideo was a little small because there was still no television or filming and I went to Buenos Aires,” he said on an Uruguay TV programme in 2016 In 1955 he became Jorge Hilton in Buenos Aires soap operas and in eight Argentine movies until in 1963 he emigrated again: “Fate took me to Italy I was escaping from a very heavy sentimental situation I said ‘I'm going to buy cigarettes’ and never came back I went to [Buenos Aires' international] Ezeiza [airport] I bought myself a ticket and there I went,” he said during an interview where he joined the burgeoning Italian film industry and with the stage name George Hilton In Europe he spent most of his career as a heartthrob in romantic dramas The one that launched him to fame was Time of Massacre (1966) and people loved that: in theatrers they would applaud So they started writing scripts for me.” Hilton became a B-class movie sensation in a genre that boomed in the 60s and 70s and Italy and Spain those low-budget productions - directed by aces such as Sergio Leone which boosted the careers of actors such as Clint Eastwood The Uruguayan performer became one of the spaghetti western stars thanks to a character like Sartana from Sartana.. Trade Your Guns for a Coffin (1970) or Hallelujah (1971) But he then changed roletypes and did some other kind of films in Spain In 1979 he returned to Uruguay to shoot “The Smoke Place” directed by Eva Landeck His last job was in 2009 in the Italian movie Un coccodrillo per amico Commenting for this story is now closed.If you have a Facebook account, become a fan and comment on our Facebook Page AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTSlide 1 of 7,A house destroyed in heavy fire between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists in the village of Sartana Share full articlePictures of the Day: Ukraine and ElsewherePhotos from Ukraine Ever since Sergio Corbucci took his cue from Sergio Leone and became the second most successful director of “spaghetti” Westerns with 1966's “Django,” the title character has followed a long and twisting trail through more than 30 unofficial sequels (and one official one “Django 2,” in 1987) with almost as many different actors playing the gunslinging drifter originally portrayed by Franco Nero (Sir Lancelot of Joshua Logan's “Camelot,” husband of Vanessa Redgrave) considered one of the most violent Westerns up to that time was also critically applauded in some quarters but many subsequent efforts bearing the Django brand were low-budget knock-offs helmed by Leone/Corbucci wannabes Timeless Media Group has released four of these films as double features on two separate DVDs One disc contains “A Man Called Django!” (1971 starring Anthony Steffen — real name Antonio Luis — in the title role It's also loaded with references to the “Dollar” trilogy As in the original “Django,” the anti-hero is tracking down the murderers of his wife The second feature is “Django and Sartana's Showdown in the West” (1970 original title “Arrivano Django E Sartana .. E La Fine,” aka “Django and Sartana Are Coming .. directed by — I kid you not — Dick Spitfire Django and the Lone Ranger-like Sartana are attempting to retrieve a kidnapped ranch woman from Mexican bandits It has a villain who plays cards with himself in front of a mirror a scene of course intending to telegraph that he's scary crazy starring 6'9” tall Italian B-movie actor and screenwriter George Eastman (birth name Luigi Montefiori) playing Django as a young cowboy who stumbles upon the massacre of a family saves a young woman and takes her to Santa Anna to avenge the murder of her husband Directed by Italian horror specialist Massimo Pupillo crediting himself as Max Hunter right down to the melodramatic way that everyone falls dead when they're shot there is “Django's Cut Price Corpses” (1971) with Jeff Cameron (born Goffredo Scarciofolo) a stuntman with little acting skill but a great talent for fighting and shooting realistically Unfortunately director Paolo Solvay is an amazingly inept filmmaker prone to shaky hand-held cinematography that resembles a very nervous person's home movies while his dubbed voices and audio effects sound like they were recorded inside a tin shack But this is the kind of accidentally uproarious stuff that inspires spaghetti-Western/martial-arts geek Quentin Tarantino and come Christmas we'll see how well he fares with his version of the character in “Django Unchained,” starring Jamie Foxx in the title role as an ex-slave turned bounty hunter He's bound to better these other bozos by a prairie mile this fistful of Djangos delivers as many belly laughs as it does bullets In this week's Sun DVD reviews, Alicia Vikander takes over Lara Croft's shorts in Tomb Raider; there's a more child-friendly archaeological adventure with Tad The Lost Explorer; a star-studded cartel thriller that's definitely not child-friendly in Gringo; and a battle against sex-trafficking in Traffik. Elsewhere there's gore aplenty with Sex And The City's Charlotte in Doom Asylum; spaghetti western heaven with The Complete Sartana; a vigilante splatfest in The Boondock Saints; and finally a look back at the unseen wrestling matches of Macho Man Randy Savage. Ooooh yeah! Alicia Vikander takes on the shorts once filled by Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, to give us Lara's origin story. Lara's off to a remote Japanese island to find her long-lost father (Dominic West), who has gone off to find a death-dealing demon empress sealed in a tomb to so that he can, er, stop anyone else from finding her. He has also left a trail of breadcrumbs for Lara to follow in the event of his death. Why he would do this, given she was just a teen when he left and he was actually quite insistent that she not follow him is one of the many barmy logical leaps the plot takes. Seriously, there are so many things that even if you stop for a second to think about them are incredibly dumb, even for a video game action movie. Nonetheless, Lara raids a tomb (clue's in the title) and some of the set pieces have a flavour of Indiana Jones, which is welcome. Vikander is not physically quite what you'd expect for an archetypal Lara Croft, but then again, everyone thought the same when Daniel Craig became Bond and that turned out all right. She grunt-squeals her way through her action scenes gamely and with gusto but the writers lumbered her with a character who's riddled with inconsistencies. One minute she's super-smart, the next thick as mince. One minute she's a tough, kick-ass adventurer, the next a squealing walkover. Just as with Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man, this is a film franchise reboot you wonder if anyone actually wanted or asked for. A by-turns entertaining, frustrating and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny crime romp that succeeds on the strength of its stellar cast more than the strength of its storytelling. David Oyelowo lights up the screen as Gringo’s beating heart, the put-upon Harold: a Nigerian immigrant to the United States, stuck in his dead-end job at the ominously named pharmaceutical company Promethium. The firm sends Harold on a business trip to Mexico, the details of which are as cloudy to him as they are to the viewer (which seems to be something of a running theme). His bosses (Joel Edgerton phoning it and an enjoyably campy Charlize Theron) have been selling their ‘revolutionary weed pill’ under the table to a Mexican drug cartel via a subsidiary. But when they're cut off, the frustratingly stereotypical cartel characters aren’t particularly pleased. In a clumsy pretend-to-be-kidnapped-but-then-actually-get-kidnapped series of events (briefly featuring a criminally underused Thandie Newton), the caper kicks off. The always delightful Sharlto Copley of District 9 acclaim appears as a mercenary with a heart of gold, while Amanda Seyfried also pops up briefly as the film attempts to overlap narratives in an homage to Pulp Fiction. The plot has quite a few of these threads that never really come together in a particularly satisfying way, which is disappointing as there are multiple moments where you can see a genuinely good film trying to escape. The action is mostly slapstick in a way that you’ll either love or loathe and upon multiple viewings (if you can stay engaged to the premise that long) you start to get the feeling that Gringo’s script was a draft or two away from being a solid film. Yet director Nash Edgerton (brother of Joel) circles around compelling themes without fully committing to them. A construction worker called Tad dreams of becoming an archaeologist, roaming the world and discovering lost treasures. His dream starts to come true when he is invited to attend renowned archaeologist Sara Lavrof’s presentation that proves the existence of King Midas. An evil billionaire kidnaps Sara and forces her to find an enchanted talisman, which leaves Tad, in predictable style, to travel the world to rescue the woman he loves and save the day, accompanied by a team of sidekicks that add an element of comedy to the film. Sadly this animation doesn’t quite have Midas’ golden touch, or even that of the animation heavyweights, but it will keep young explorers entertained if not quite finding the Holy Grail at the end of the film. Reprimanded by her editor, Sacramento newspaper reporter Brea (Paula Patton) and boyfriend John (Omar Epps) head to a secluded mountain retreat for a romantic escape. But during a fuel stop, an anxious-looking woman smuggles a satellite phone belonging to a biker gang into Brea’s bag. After reaching the weekend getaway, Brea discovers the phone contains encrypted foreign contact numbers and, chillingly, multiple photos of abused women. Moments later, the bikers, who run an international sex trafficking ring, arrive to reclaim their property. Traffik is an utterly forgettable thriller: ludicrous plot, mediocre acting, laden with clichés (including its antagonist, played by former Bros singer Luke Goss) and almost devoid of action. And the constant leering shots of Patton’s body rather undermine the film’s attempt to highlight the realities of female sexual exploitation. At the start, Brea’s editor asks despairingly: “Why couldn’t you just nail down a simple story?” They visit a supposedly abandoned asylum before getting on the wrong side of the resident deformed serial killer who lost the love of his life ten years ago and is taking his grief out on anybody who trespasses. One by one, the teenagers and a trio of industrial goth rock girls who are also there split up and get murdered in some rather gruesome ways. It’s not a subtle film, and a lot of the driving force behind the plot seems to be everyone holding a contest of who can make the dumbest decision at the time. This is compounded by the large number of horror clichés that abound within the film; all the female characters wander around in either swimsuits or clothing which doesn’t leave much to the imagination and the first of the protagonists to die is black. That being said, the film does seem to eschew the themes of abstinence saving the day to some extent that appear in other films of the genre such as Friday The 13th. The special effects, while cutting-edge at the time, now seem dated and show off the cheap budget that the film was shot on, although many of the scenes do still manage to carry a distinct sense of tension, even if it is occasionally broken by random bits of filler content such as the antagonist watching old movies in his basement. The Blu-Ray release contains several interviews with cast members, the director of photography and the special effects creator as well as new audio commentaries by the screenwriter. Doom Asylum is enjoyable enough if you’re looking for a blast of 80s nostalgia, but it does come across as dated when viewed without rose-tinted spectacles. Sartana is one of the Italian spaghetti western heroes who came in the wake of Sergio Leone’s iconic Dollars Trilogy. Though there are many films that carry his name (not unlike Django and Sabata), these five, now released on Blu-ray, are the only ones considered canonical. For the most part, they’re great fun, all involving the antihero’s attempts to find a large sum of gold by playing off the various parties who vie for it against each other. Sartana himself is an extremely enjoyable character whether portrayed by Gianni Garko or George Hilton (the latter for just one outing). Like a frontier James Bond, he’s smartly dressed, and comes equipped with gadgets and the coolest head in the room at all times. He strolls through ludicrously convoluted plots with a grin and as many quips as bullets. There’s never a drop of tension as he rarely appears in mortal danger, sometimes seeming supernaturally advantaged over his numerous foes, who almost all end up at the wrong end of his signature four-barrel pistol. The films are gorgeously presented on Blu-ray and come rammed with extras. The spaghetti western purist can enjoy hours of extra content beyond the films with commentaries from western experts as well as the films’ stars, directors and writers, not to mention the options of English and Italian audio with amusingly incongruous subtitles. When Irish brothers Connor and Murphy MacManus (Sean Patrick Flanery and The Walking Dead's Norman Reedus) unintentionally kill a pair of Russian mobsters, they are hailed as heroes. United by their faith, they become vigilantes on a bloody crusade, acting as judge, jury and executioner to Boston’s criminal underworld. Investigating the crimes is the strangely unique FBI agent Paul Smecker (Willem Dafoe) who starts to wonder if the MacManuses may be justified. Now rereleased on Blu-ray, this 1999 film is entertaining and almost Tarantino-esque in its overload of twisted, gratuitous violence and satirical humour, but it's short on ingenuity plot-wise, so may disappoint those looking for substance. On the other hand, it's (almost) harmless fun that may tap into your sadistic side. a baddie who became a goodie Wrestling fans of a certain age will remember Macho Man Randy Savage as one of the more flamboyant stars of the 1980s and 1990s seven years after his death at the age of 58 several of his match-ups that were never screened have been released interspersed with interviews with fellow stars of WWF What comes over most from the likes of Corey Graves Sean Mooney and Bayley is their admiration for the Macho Man's impact and intensity both initially as a 'heel' (baddie) and later as a 'face' (good guy) Fans can gain an insight into how the ring legend's image was honed into the special unpredictable wrestler who was so good on the mic and who started off the trend for top-rope high-flyers the collection also sheds light on his real-life relationship with Miss Elizabeth Our journalists strive for accuracy but on occasion we make mistakes. 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