One Damned Day at Dawn…Django Meets Sartana!

One Damned Day at Dawn…Django Meets Sartana! (1967) (AKA Django Meets Sartana, Django Defies Sartana)

Dir. Demofilo Fidani

Starring: Hunt Powers (Jack Betts), Fabio Testi

The town of Black City is being ransacked by a gang of thugs. New sheriff named Jack Ronson arrives to set things right, but the famed bounty hunter Django arrives with his own score to settle with the criminals.

So after a couple of years of various studios making unofficial sequels to Django and the Sartana films, someone had the great idea to make a movie that teamed up these two characters. Unfortunately, this movie is not very good, and the event promised by the title is disappointing and ends up feeling like an afterthought. After going through the entire film as Ronson, his last line of the film is “I’m known as Sartana in some parts”, which feels like they didn’t even try. They could of at least dressed him similar to Sartana. As Django “Hunt Powers” (actually Jack Betts) comes across as boring and lacking any charisma, but he does get to be part of the best action sequence in the film at the midway part, gunning down 6 of the bandits before they get a chance to fire one shot.

This biggest flaw with the film is that it is kind of boring. The move is only 82 minutes long, but the horrible pacing makes it feel like its three hours long. I’m having trouble deciding what I liked least about the film, but it is either the nonsensical fight scene between the heroes, or the overly long flashback sequence that explains who the villain and his two sidekicks are. This flashback goes on for far too long and kind of bogs down the pacing of the film. There are several scenes that could have been trimmed or removed to help the film flow better, like the aforementioned fight scene between the two leads or the ridiculous arm wrestling scene between Ronson and the leader of the bandits. Cutting the flashback down would of helped the film as well.

Overall I would not recommend the film. It’s not offensively bad and it isn’t the worst thing that I have ever seen, but there are a lot of better ways for you to spend your time. There are also better Django and Sartana films to check out rather than this one.