Greenes
Please don't spend money on this.
SpunkySelfTwitter
It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.
Stephanie
There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes
FightingWesterner
In A Minute To Pray, A Second To Die, Clay McCord (Alex Cord) is an unhappy outlaw with a ten thousand dollar bounty on his head and degenerative epilepsy.Realizing his days as an outlaw are numbered, he wants desperately (though somewhat reluctantly) to take advantage of an amnesty being granted by rough and tumble territorial governor Robert Ryan, (excellent performance) who badly wants McCord to renounce his ways and accept the amnesty as an example to others while in the bandit hub of Escondito, outlaw Mario Brega plans to kill McCord to stop that from happening.Also starring Arthur Kennedy, Aldo Sambrell and a slew of other familiar European faces, this is co-written and produced by (American) spaghetti western pioneer Albert Band, also responsible for the pre-Leone film Gunfight At Red Sands.Though the solution to the main character's "epilepsy" is lifted straight out of Howard Hawks' El Dorado, the script is solid, pretty fresh and unpretentious. This has a great balance of action and story and Alex Cord is great in it. He really should have been a bigger star.In defense of the shorter (well dubbed) English version: personally I'm past that age where the longer version is always the better version and the ending where McCord is ironically gunned down by grimy bounty hunters after his pardon, is needlessly nihilistic and completely destroys the film's message about hope and redemption.Call me old-fashioned, but I rooted for McCord and felt he earned that happy ending!
lastliberal
Why is it that Italian westerns get "R" ratings when they do the same thing that American westerns do? Does it really matter if you kill 10 or 12, or if you kill 50 or 60. Is it because the bad guy wins instead of John Wayne or Randolph Scott? Just wondering.The bad guy in this film, Alex Cord, did a lot more TV than movies, but he did a good job in this film as an outlaw who thought he had epilepsy. When ids the last time you heard that in a western? Another thing you probably won't hear in American westerns is references to the Catholic Church with words like excommunication and ordained.Yes, lot of people get killed, and the bad guy rides off into the sunset, but it was still worth the time.Also featured five-time Oscar nominee Authur Kennedy, Oscar nominee Robert Ryan, a hot Nicoletta Machiavelli, and lots of Italians.
Mike
Carcasses galore do not a better movie make. Some guy with an unnamed palsey like affliction in his hand goes around blowing people away by the dozen. For an example he rides into a camp, shoots about fifteen people and next is seen riding off on their wagon. He must have needed a wagon.
We get a flashback scene wherein the principal is seen as a boy of around nine kneeling over his father in the street while his dad is having an attack of the obviously genetic palsey. Ten or so men stand around and laugh at the boy's father in derision. The kid gets mad and grabs a gun and shoots them all dead. We are supposed to presume the kid goes on with the business of growing up without answering any repercussions from having committed this mass murder in the middle of town. Uhh...ok. Right. That could happen.This movie plays like a Sergio Leone copy done by an elementary school drama club. When in doubt, shoot some characters.The most unrealistic aspect of this film is that there is no way the main character would have been able to travel around on horseback carrying that amount of lead ammunition required to kill as many as he does. Hey, maybe thats why he needed the wagon.
tdk007
I saw this movie over 20 years ago and had rather fond memories of it. Catching again on Cinemax this month, I realized how little discernment I had about films back then. This is an utterly ordinary spaghetti western, with absolutely nothing noteworthy about it. Script, direction, acting, photography are all a big blah. Stick with the Sergio Leone westerns!
