A Noose for Django

A Noose for Django (1969) AKA A Hanging for Django, No Room to Die, and Una Lunga Fila di Croci (A Long Row of Crosses)
Dir: Sergio Garrone
Staring Anthony Steffen, William Berger, Riccardo Garrone

A pair of bounty hunters (Steffen and Berger) team up to stop a businessman (Riccardo Garrone) smuggling Mexicans across the border as a slaves.


This is a film, like Django the Bastard, that is directed by Sergio Garrone and staring frequent Django Anthony Steffen that is more towards the just slap the Django name on it try piggyback on Django's success. Which is odd, cause the alternate title, No Room to Die, is better, but the translation of the original Italian title, A Long Row of Crosses, is far superior. The strangest thing is that Steffen plays the role of Johnny Brandon, so he's not playing Django. Also at no point in the movie is there a noose or does any hanging or any attempt take place, which caused me to have a similar reaction to the title that Nelson Muntz did after viewing David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch:

As it stand, the movie is kind of a odd beast. The movie is off pacing wise, and the title A Long Row of Crosses is a much more apt title for the film since no scene ends without several people being killed. While that sounds exciting, it actually gets kind of boring. Steffen's alright as Brandon, and Berger is good as the other bounty hunter Murdock, who dresses as a preacher and carries around a 7 barreled shotgun. As the story progresses they form an alliance, but there's friction between the two since Murdock is only in there for the money and once Brandon learns of Fargo's (Riccardo Garrone, the director's brother) plan to make slaves out the impoverished Mexicans, he becomes more concerned with standing up for the people and fighting for them, leading to distrust and double crosses.

This film is pretty much a standard boilerplate spaghetti western. While it's not bad, there's nothing really great about it. It's pretty average. The best part actually is the ending duel, where Brandon and Murdock  face off against each other. It's pretty well shot and suspenseful, and it's the one part of the movie that I'd recommend.

If you really just wanted to watch a Steffen/Garrone collaboration, then I'd recommend checking out Django the Bastard, which I enjoyed quite a bit. But overall I'd say that this one while isn't bad it's not something that is something that's essential and needs to be seen by everyone. It's a thumbs in the middle movie.