Django Kills Softly (1967) User Reviews

Average Django movie starred by Luigi Montefiori ; filled with thrills , brawls and crossfire

[ma-cortes · 5/10 · 19 July 2013]

Ravioli¨ Western with ordinary ¨Macaroni¨ players as George Eastman , Luciano Rossi , Rick Boyd and Spartaco Conversi . Italian production full of action , exaggerated characters , shootouts and lots of violence . A good example of Latino western genre from Italy . For money , for pleasure , for revenge , he doesn't care why he kills or how . This moving Spaghetti contains noisy action , thrills , gun-play with exciting final . Django (George Eastman or Luigi Montefiori) is a stranger who arrives in a Mexican-border town of Santa Anna at the behest of a man named Sanders who'd been attempting to buy safe passage for his cargo from a Mexican bandit named El Santo . Django finds that Sanders has been murdered and that his nemesis is a gunfighter named Thompson (Luciano Rossi) , a powerful bandit who threatens and coerces townsfolk and is now attempting to deal with El Santo (Mimmo) about weapons smuggling . Django befriends a veteran cowboy named Miguel (Spartaco Conversi) and a young Mexican called Pedro . There Django settles a dispute between two bands of cutthroats . Django, after a brief involvement with a gorgeous young widow named Linda (Liana Orfei , sister of Moira Orfei , both of whom starred a lot of Peplum) who has information on a lost gold mine becomes entangled in this event by agreeing to escort a shipment through El Santo's territory . Django goes out to avenge Sanders and his new friend Miguel , embarking on a line of crime , battling murderous and executes a single-handedly revenge , as he shoots , ravages and kills each person involved in the killing . Then Django is imprisoned by Thompson but is freed by his friend the Mexican boy .

Spaghetti Western with usual amount of frantic action , go riding , plot twists , shootouts and violence . This average Django Western contains a customary and well known script about vengeance , plenty of turns , intrigue , shoot'em up and results to be quite entertaining , though drags at times , balancing up and down . It packs a similar plot to original ¨Django¨ including two confronted bands though without machine gun . Ordinary Spaghetti Western follows the Sergio Leone wake and it is proceeded in violent style . It's a thrilling western with breathtaking confrontation between the protagonist George Eastman against the heartless Luciano Rossi and his hoodlum as Rick Boyd . Tall George Eastman as Django is passable , George or Luigi Montefiori starred several Spaghetti such as "Django the Last Killer" ¨Un poker di pistole¨, ¨The Belle Starr Story¨ , "Django, Prepare a Coffin" and even wrote several Western as "Chuck Moll" , "Amigo, Stay Away" and including the classic ¨Keoma¨ .

This violent Spaghetti belongs to ¨Django¨series , after successful original ¨Django¨ by Sergio Corbucci with Franco Nero , it was followed by several imitations , rip offs and cheesy copies , such as : ¨Pochi dollar per Django¨ or ¨Alambradas De Violencia¨ (1966) by Leon Klimowsky starred by Anthony Steffen , Gloria Osuna , Frank Wolff ; ¨Django Shoots First" (1966) by Alberto Martino with Glenn Saxon , Fernando Sancho and Erika Blanc ; ¨El Mio Nome e Django¨ (1969) by Ferdinando Baldi with Terence Hill , Horst Frank , George Eastman ; ¨Django Le Bastard¨(1969) by Sergio Garrone with Anthony Steffen , Paolo Gozlino , Rada Rassimov ; ¨¨Django defies Sartana¨(1969) by Pasquale Squitieri with George Ardisson and Tony Kendall ; ¨Ein Pressen Fur Django¨ or ¨Barro en Ojos¨(1971) by Edoardo Mulargia with Anthony Steffen ; and the official sequel titled ¨Il Grande Ritorno¨(1987) by Nello Rossati or Ted Archer with Franco Nero , Christopher Connolly and Donald Pleasence .

A predictable collection of the usual ingredients

[dinky-4 · 5/10 · 27 April 2005]

Once again we have the taciturn stranger who comes into an isolated frontier town and quickly becomes involved in various feuds which, apparently, can only be resolved through violence. There's a villain, of course -- actually several villains -- and then there's a pretty girl with whom the stranger dallies. There's nothing wrong with these ingredients but this "Django" movie strings them together so routinely and with so little regard for logical plot progression that the result can best be summarized as "forgettable." George Eastman, one of the better "spaghetti western" stars, makes an adequate leading man and though, as you might expect, he has two scenes in which he's subjected to savage beatings, he has no scene in which he takes off his shirt. (Eastman's bare-chested torture scene in "Belle Starr" is a classic!) The English-dubbed tape which is the basis for this review ran about 94 minutes but some jerky editing and a few gaps in the plot indicate that the original work may have been longer.

Django Eastman, Tallest Gun In The Italian West

[Witchfinder-General-666 · 4/10 · 31 July 2008]

"Bill Il Taciturno" aka. "Django Kills Softly" of 1967 is a cheap, extremely unoriginal and cheesy film, and yet there are some reasons for my fellow Spaghetti Western fans to watch it. This is one of many films that were given a "Django"-title in order to cash in on the success of Sergio Crobucci's 1966 masterpiece "Django" starring Franco Nero. What makes this one somewhat worthwhile for my fellow fans of Italian genre-cinema is the casting of George Eastman in the lead. Eastman, who started his career with roles in Westerns like "Viva Django" or this one, is mainly known for his later roles in mean-spirited and ultra-violent Exploitation highlights of the 70s and 80s, most memorably as a sadistic thug in Mario Bava's "Rabid Dogs" (1974) and as an ogreish flesh-hungry fiend in Joe D'Amato's "Antropophagus" (1980). It is fun to see a young Eastman in his 20s who had not yet specialized in playing the psychos and monsters we love to see him play.

The storyline resembles that of the original "Django", only without the imagination and style, and with a lot less cynicism. A drifter (Eastman) comes to a small western town in an area which is controlled by two hostile gangs which are hostile towards each other. He decides to take both of them on... Apart from the typical 'clever drifter vs. two hostile gangs' story the film also includes a thin romantic subplot. Eastman is quite good in his role, even though Westerns are certainly not the genre that fits him best and I will always prefer him in Horror/Exploitation cinema. The supporting cast includes Spartaco Conversi, who is best known for his role in Corbucci's masterpiece "The Great Silence", the ugly Luciano Rossi, who often played ugly villains and thugs in Italian cinema, and Frederico Buido ("Faccia A Faccia"). Lina Orfei makes a nice female lead. Furthermore, there is one pretty hot Mexican woman in the film (I don't know which actress), but Django turns her down for no apparent reason. Overall, "Bill Il Taciturno" is a pretty boring, predictable and unoriginal film, but it is still an acceptable time-waster. My fellow Spaghetti Western buffs can give it a try.

Serviceable spaghetti western

[Wizard-8 · 11 January 2013]

"Django Kills Silently" (a.k.a. "Django Kills Softly") is overall a serviceable spaghetti western for people who have an interest in the genre. Some of its positive attributes include a good musical score, some good action sequences, and a pretty good performance by George Eastman, a hulking actor who you might think is better suited for bad guy roles. Also, the plot of the movie is not standard or predictable - it keeps jumping from place to place and to new characters on a regular schedule. Although one problem of this is you may be wondering just when the movie is going to settle on some key elements! Another problem is that the movie doesn't explore the lead character's motivations or character that deeply. If his name is indeed "Django", we learn this from the title, since his name is never mentioned once in the movie! Still, apart from a few quibbles like those, the movie passes the time adequately enough.

Yet another disappointingly routine Django western

[Red-Barracuda · 5/10 · 13 October 2017]

Sergio Corbucci's original classic spaghetti western Django (1966) sure has a lot to answer for. In fairness, it's hardly Corbucci's movie's fault that countless Italian westerns that followed in its wake decided to simply name the lead loner/drifter after the main man and pretend that it was somehow a sort of follow-up. I've seen a few of them now and the one thing I have noticed is that there is nothing that sets them apart from other spaghetti westerns whatsoever! For what it's worth, this one went out under the name Django Kills Softly, which aside from being a somewhat strange name, seems to have been an English language title – in the original the lead character seems to have been called Bill. So it appears that Italian producers must have quickly noticed that if they stuck 'Django' or 'Sartana' in their film's title then they would increase admissions by a few percentage points.

Needless to say, this is another very pedestrian and not memorable at all Italian western. In it Django's seeks vengeance after his friend is murdered by a bandit leader who controls a town through violence. To be honest, with a lot of these ultra-generic spaghetti westerns, you almost feel the writers simply randomly selected staple elements from a special 'spaghetti-western-generator' (a cardboard box with a hole in the side full of bits of paper with Italian western clichés written on them) and wrote bits of exposition to join the pieces together. Even the titles sound like they have been randomly created by this high-tech machine! Whatever the case, this particular example of the genre is deeply unremarkable, yet professional enough to never fall below the level of mediocre. The one thing that does set it apart from others is in it having Django played by George Eastman (aka Luigi Montefiori), who is an actor who became known for playing very threatening villains in later 70's and 80's crime films, horrors and exploitation fare in general. He was quite well suited to these types of movie roles, so it was strange seeing him playing a western hero when he was a young guy. It's not really that much of a distinctive angle for this film to boast in fairness but it is at least something.

George Eastman!

[BandSAboutMovies · 5/10 · 26 August 2023]

Bill il taciturn (Silent Bill) was directed by Max Hunter AKA Massimo Pupillo (Lady Morgan's Vengeance, Bloody Pit of Horror, Terror-Creatures from the Grave) and had the traditional big team of Italian writers, including Lina Caterini (the editor of The Girl Who Knew Too Much and Blood and Black Lace), Paul Farjon, Marcello Malvestito (the editor of The Last Blood and Assassination In Rome), none of whom had much writing experience before or after this movie. They were joined by the person who came up with the story for this film, Leonide Preston, who is really Renato Polselli.

Yes, the same lunatic who made Delirio caldo and La verità secondo Satana.

It was retitled to Django Kills Silently or Django Kills Softly, as the original script had Bill (or Django for Americans) be the strong and silent type. He's played by future baby eater George Eastman, who decided. To rewrite the script. This isn't his first Western or even his first Django, as he was also in Django Shoots First (and he's also in Django, Prepare a Coffin and W Django!).

According to the invaluable Spaghetti Western Database, "Eastman declared that director Pupillo had asked him to play the hero in the taciturn style of Clint Eastwood, but Eastman, who had studied the classics and was a screenwriter himself, thought this was a bad idea and made up his own lines, for the most part improvising them on the set. While the character was turned into a more talkative version of the taciturn Bill, the title wasn't changed, causing a lot of confusion and leading to some oddly inadequate titles in other languages."

This feels like a totally made up comment, as this movie was obviously made without live sound, so no one would have known what Bill or Django was saying anyway and it would need to be dubbed! In fact, he was dubbed by Tony La Penna.

Regardless, let's discuss the film.

The movie starts with a massacre of an entire family. It's brutal and seems like the kind of action that often happens in the Italian West. Bill/Django is visiting the border town of Santa Ana but the person he was to meet is already dead. He learns that the town is caught between Thompson (Luciano Rossi) and a bandit named El Santo (which yes, is a bit disconcerting seeing how many lucha movies I watch; he's played by Domenico Maggio). That means that our hero is ready to pull a little A Fistful of Dollars/Yojimbo/Last Man Standing on the two and get ahead for himself.

He also teams up with a gunfighter named Miguel (Spartaco Conversi) and a mute man named Pedro (Antonio Toma). There's also a woman to save, Linda (Liana Orfei, Mill of the Stone Women) and the normal torture that the Italian Western hero must endure.

It's not the most Italian of Italian Westerns, feeling trapped in the pre-Leone days, but it's fun seeing the gigantic Eastman try and play a hero.

Killing me softly...with his gun

[Bezenby · 6/10 · 20 May 2017]

The director of Terror Creatures From The Grave gives us a Western…but kind of forgets to inject it with much to differentiate this from seven hundred other films that involve a lone stranger (quite a few of them called Django) getting themselves all up in to warring faction's faces.

  Or in this case I should say getting all down in their faces, as Django this time is played by Six foot, nine inch tall George Eastman. Eastman is great when playing half-ape men that ruin mankind's future or huge cannibal zombies that eat the entire populations of Greek islands  or the leader of a homosexual post-apocalyptic death-cult tribe, but here he just kind of grins a lot and shoots things.  

Django starts off by witnessing local Mexican thug El Santo wasting a travelling caravan (including a kid of course!) and then stops a showgirl who has escaped the local white tyrant from being raped. She of course falls in love with him but Django puts that to the side in order to play everyone off each other. I nearly forgot to mention that there's a third gang to get shot at too in the shape of gunrunners who make the mistake (as they all do) of giving Django a kicking instead of just shooting him in the head for Christ's Sake!  

The white tyrant is played by Italian bad guy Luciano Rossi (seemingly doing an impression of Richard Nixon?) Luciano loves his hooker and his guns and pays El Santo to do his dirty work, but now wants El Santo out of the way. Once Django shoots one of Luciano's men, he offers Django a job! Just shoot Django man! Or get one of your men to do it!  Rather than do that, they set fire to a house while Django is inside fighting a gun runner he left alive. What's wrong with you people?.  

It's an average Western, but an average one is still a good one. There's the odd bit that stands out, like Django's discovery that his mate and his entire family have been killed, or the musical number a hooker belts out in Italian because the dubbing crew couldn't  be bothered translating that bit I guess.

Nifty spaghetti Western

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 23 January 2013]

Clever and noble drifter gunslinger Django (a solid and engaging performance by George Eastman) arrives in a small town that's being terrorized by two hostile groups. Django decides to clean the place up by taking on both gangs. Director Massimo Pupillo, working from a compact script by Lina Caterina, Paul Farjon, and Masrcello Malvestito, relates the enjoyable story at a brisk pace, maintains a suitably gritty tone throughout (the antagonists are a pretty heinous bunch who go as far as to kill a mother and her son in the opening robbery set piece), makes excellent use of the rocky desert locations, and stages the plentiful thrilling shoot-outs with crackling verve (besides said shoot-outs, a lively barroom brawl provides another exciting highlight). It's nice to see Eastman, a hulking actor who's usually cast as scary psychos and leering heavies, play an appealing heroic lead for once. The colorful rogues' gallery of lethal bad guys adds considerably to the picture's entertainment value: Luciano Rossi as the shifty Dr. Thompson, Mimmo Maggio as ruthless Mexican bandito leader El Santo, and, most memorable of all, Frederico Boido as twitchy henchman The Nervous One. The fetching Liani Orfei fares well as sweet damsel in distress Linda, Spartaco likewise registers favorably as the helpful Miguel, and Antonio Toma contributes a sympathetic turn as browbeaten mute Pedro. Mario Parapetti's crisp cinematography boasts lots of cool shots of the sprawling landscape. Berto Pisano's robust'n'rousing score hits the stirring spirited spot. A fun flick.