The Return of Ringo

"The Return of Ringo" really hit the spot. Pretty much everything about it worked. The movie looks great. The cast is very likeable. The story is well told with very little, if any, downtime. I've been watching a bunch of spaghetti westerns lately. With the exception of the Sergio Leone films, "The Return of Ringo" is one of the best that I've seen. Honorable mentions: a dreamy Nieves Navoro and a wildly dreamy Lorella De Luca.

Better than the first Ringo film This one has more of a story and more complex characters. I really enjoyed the supporting character, Morning Glory, for some reason. It just seemed that there was some unspoken things going on with him. The Ringo character is certainly more interesting in this one! He actually cares about something and is driven in this film. Of note, he does the cowboy cheek twitch a lot. Like if you were to play a drinking game and drink every time his cheek twitches, you wouldn't make it passed the first half of the film... it's nearly every scene. Lol. Anyway, it's all good up until the end. So lackluster. The end kind of ruined it for me and knocked it down to 6 stars.

A fairly quiet film but involving and very colourful. 'Bloodstained Butterfly' director, Duccio Tessari seems to enjoy the genre and allows himself the luxury of seeing what he can bring that little bit different. Giuliano Gemma is effective as the laid back Ringo - he who in this is returning. Nobody seems to recognise him with his hair dyed blond so he is able to saunter through the film till the moment takes him to affect his revenge. Tessari, meanwhile has the film shot through an array of interesting objects and indeed just as I was wondering just how many interesting coloured drinking glasses he could come up with a chancier walks behind a stunning panel of stained glass. Arty but not at all farty, I enjoyed the pace, the audacity and the performances - Nieves Navarro establishes herself nicely - and the whole thing is very pleasant indeed.

This film was Italy's third highest grossing film in 1965 behind For a Few Dollars More and the original film, A Pistol for Ringo. Here, Captain Montgomery "Ringo" Brown (Giuliano Gemma) comes back to his homestead to find his family decimated, his property stolen by Mexican bandits and his fiancee about to marry Paco Fuentes, the villain behind all this. If you're like, hey, is this an Italian Western version of The Odyssey, you're right. While Nieves Navarro doesn't reprise her role from the first Ringo film, she does play the tarot card-reading saloon girl Rosita. Antonio Casas also comes back in a different role as a sheriff who has been dominated by the gang and hey - Lorella DeLuca is also in both movies. Actually, this movie is totally different from the original to the point that the more cynical of us could just believe that they threw the Ringo title on it after the original was such a success. That doesn't mean you shouldn't watch it. It's definitely a worthy Western packed with rich drama and plenty of satifying violence. When asked to pick his top twenty Italian Westerns, Quentin Taratino selected this as number ten.

Duccio Tessari's RETURN OF RINGO is one of the great unseen spaghetti westerns churned out by the Italians after the unexpected success of Sergio Leone's first two "Dollars" films. A sprawling, high-powered epic tale about a Union soldier returning after the war to find his wife & home usurped by a local pistolero and his band of gunmen. Giuliano Gemma is excellent as always in the role of the suave, cool-headed hero who works up a ruse to pose as a peasant worker to infiltrate the household and fight from the inside to reclaim that which was his. Ennio Morricone scored a magnificent musical pastiche of themes that is quite different from his usual Leone contributions. Non-fans of the genre will be pleased by the attention to detail in the lavish production, with a high profile supporting cast led by Fernando Sancho, sexy Nieves Navarro and Lorella De Luca as Gemma's former beloved. He looks odd during his scenes with his hair bleached blond and is unconvincing as a Mexican but Gemma really was one of the great Italian genre leads. His approach is somewhat different than Clint Eastwood, usually playing himself as a gentleman who simply happened to learn how to be an efficient killing machine under the stress of war. There's some genuinely amusing and tightly choreographed gunplay in the ending showdown, and the screenplay by Tessari, Fernando di Leo and Alfonso Balcázar is surprisingly humanistic for this kind of fare. Highly recommended, look for it in North America on a VHS with the title BLOOD AT SUNDOWN. 7/10

Director Duccio Tessari's follow up to his Spaghetti Western "A Pistol for Ringo" uses much of the same cast and crew, starting with the handsome and charismatic star Giuliano Gemma. Gemma plays Captain Montgomery Brown, a soldier during the Civil War who returns home to find his family has been eliminated, and now a bandit gang is reigning supreme. One of them, Paco Fuentes (George Martin) intends to marry Browns' wife Helen (Lorella De Luca), who, like much of the locals, believes Brown to be dead; Brown slips into town under the assumed identity of a Mexican named Ringo to seek revenge. This viewer admits that he prefers the more action packed predecessor "A Pistol for Ringo", but can see why some people would appreciate this movie more. It's not so much about action (although there are some fine set pieces) as it is about character. It's fairly slow, yet interesting, going for nuance any time that it can. Even the bad guys are not as flamboyant as one may expect. Fernando Sancho is actually fairly low key as Esteban Fuentes, one of the gang. Tessari gives "The Return of Ringo" some pretty effective atmosphere, especially in sequences in the streets. There's wind, debris flying around, and precipitation at appropriate moments. Ennio Morricone once again delivers the goods when it comes to the beautiful score. That theme song will sure stick in ones' head. Gemma does well as our hero, with enjoyable supporting performances by lovely ladies De Luca and Nieves Navarro, Antonio Casas as the sheriff, Manuel Muniz as "Morning Glory", and Victor Bayo. Suitably entertaining for fans of the genre. Seven out of 10.

"The Return of Ringo" definitely gets some of the ingredients right for a spaghetti western. It's very atmospheric, from the landscape to what appears to be a constant wind blowing dust through the city streets. It has a great musical score by the talented Ennio Morricone. The cast proves to be very capable (it's always fun to see Fernando Sancho as a bad guy in a spaghetti western.) Though I enjoyed this western, I had to admit that I found one flaw, a significant flaw. After the hero is brought up to speed as to what happened in his absence and what is happening now, for the next hour or so he does essentially NOTHING towards setting things right. He pines, gets drunk, and feels sorry for himself over and over again, which gets tedious after a while and has you wishing he would simply get around to doing something. After that slow-moving hour, the last half hour or so proves to be pretty entertaining, with some really good action and suspense. It was worth going through that first hour to get to the last half hour. Though I must point out that I was in a patient mood. Some viewers, especially those who are not spaghetti western fans, may get frustrated by that tedious first hour. Yes, I recommend the movie, but I emphasize that you should wait until you are in a patient mood before sitting down to watch it.

This western may be similar to other westerns in its revenge-plot. At the same time though, there is a romance to it, seldom found in westerns. Just like 'The thief of Bagdad' (Michael Powell) had a unique atmosphere of mysticism, so does this western, although it is less pronounced and may even seem involuntary. Nevertheless, deliberate or not, it conveys a feeling of times long gone by and may even resemble something quite different of its kind, such as the 30-page adventure story by Carl Barks (Donald Duck Four Color: 'In old California'). Because of all this a 10 out of 10.

Giuliano Gemma returns from fighting in the Civil War to find his father murdered, his wife stolen, and his hometown taken over by wealthy racist Fernando Sancho and his family, who reclaim it for Mexico, oppressing it's non-Mexican population, and even going so far as to nailing a "No Gringos" sign on the local saloon! Not really a sequel to A Pistol For Ringo, this reunites the cast and crew for a less humorous follow-up that's actually better than the previous film, knowing exactly what buttons to push to get the audience firmly on Ringo's side and cheering his eventual squaring off with the thoroughly nasty villains. Gemma and Sancho are truly Spaghetti western treasures, as is composer Ennio Morricone, who blesses this with one of his best non-Leone western scores. Recommended.

I'm an economist of 55 years old and I saw a lot of movies of all kinds. My favourite are westerns both traditional and spaghetti. The return of Ringo is a good picture by the time I saw it and it continues now. I'm asking my self why the great edition players do not edit it in DVD as well as some other movies like The Big Gundown. Backing to Ringo (Montgomery Wood) he has more to be edited and the cinema lovers deserve it.He broke the rules of presenting a western idyllic life with very well and cleaned dressed cowboys always looking for a very pretty women. He showed how hard and savage life can be and in this special movie e puts in a very high place the mains values of society.