Above Average Spaghetti Western

'Find a Place to Die' is a movie producted at the top most times of spaghetti western. The movie was made in 1968, the same year of other great success of the genre, as, for example, the gloommy and almost gothic 'Grande Silenzio, Il', directed by Sergio Corbucci and starred by two unlikely actors: the german Klaus Kinsky and Jean Louis Trintignant.

'Find a Place to Die' is a spaghetti western much more inspired by the westerns made in USA than others movies of the same genre. It's a good point and a bad point, at the same time.

A good point because the story is a bit more plausible, more serious, with well balanced scenes and situations. A bad point because 'Find a Place to Die' has not the same virulence, odd touches and weird background of movies like 'Django' and 'Once Upon a Time in West'.

'Find a Place to Die' is starred by Jeffrey Hunter, an american born actor, who has made 'Searchers, The' with John Wayne. He is Joe Collins, an outcast confederated soldier living a dirty life after the war. When a young and beautiful woman named Lisa (played by French actress Pascale Petit) ask him to help her wounded husband who has discovered a gold mine, Joe recruited some men and goes to the mission and - like always in spaghetti western - after the gold, too.

But the movie is not just a hunt for gold. It tells the story of redemption of Joe Collins who, along the way, falls in love with Lisa and, at the end, he became her protector and first class hero.

In this way it's not difficult to make a link between 'Find a Place to Die' with some american western like, for instance, the classic 'Yellow Sky' directed in the forties by William A. Wellman, in which a bandit (played by Gregory Peck) redeem himself for the love of a girl (played by Anne Baxter) and turns against his old bad boys, now leaded by cruel and sardonic Dude (great performance by Richard Widmark).

Another point to be made concerning 'Find a Place to Die' is that it's not a movie in which one will find any concession to comedy. In fact, comedy was a strong element in many spaghetti western, like 'Alive or Preferably Dead' and 'They Call me Trinity' with Terence Hill and Bud Spencer.

'Find a Place to Die' is directed by Guiliano Carmineo under the name of Anthony Ascott. Carmineo was a very active director in spaghetti western times and made some classic movies of the genre, as 'Angel of Death: Sartana' the first movie of gunman Sartana, here played by Gianni Garko (Sartana was played after this first movie for many other actors, including George Hilton and Jeff Cameron) and 'Bullet for a Stranger' in which we are presented to a gunman named Cemetery!.

'Find a Place to Die' is a above average western and if one really like this genre of movies is extremely worthwhile. I really like spaghetti western and I must say that I have 'Find a Place to Die' in my private collection.