Hot Spur

Plot synopsis:
The movie starts with a pair of cowboys drinking whiskey in a small
cantina as a guitar player/owner plays music. The cowboys flirt with
the the waitress, but she blows them off. She can smell their attitude
and doesn't want to be there, but she is forced by the owner to dance
for them as guitar player begins to play again, a much less relaxed
tune. As she dances, the cowboys get all hot and bothered, and they
start grabbing and pawing the girl, with a clear goal in mind. Watching
it all is the Mexican busboy/gopher/whatever. As they start to rape the
waitress, he has flashbacks to when he was much younger and the boy was
forced to watch three or four men rape his older sister. He tries to
stop them, but is no more successful than he was with his sister. As
they start to get down to it, their boss, the ranch owner, comes in
breaks it up, and forces them to leave with him, their business
unfinished. The Mexican sees a unique ring on the rancher's hand, and
follows them out. The ranch owner and his hired help ride off to his
ranch. A little bit later, the Mexican, who has followed them, rides up
and asks for work, which they give him as a stableboy.The next day, the rancher's wife (Virginia Gordon) rides up and, after
some discussion, she goes into the ranch house. Later on, in the
evening, there is a little party going on with a three of local
prostitutes in the ranch hand's bunkroom. Some softcore sex goes on,
with some nudity, etc.Meanwhile, the Mexican sees the rancher go back into the house, and
sneaks over to peek in the window. The rancher has a confrontation with
his wife over her inability to produce a son for him. There is a lot of
anger and resentment back and forth, as she spits and slaps at him as
he insults her. To vent his frustration, he rips open her night dress.
The Mexican leaves them to their argument, and returns to his loft in
the barn, while the cowboys settle down for the evening. The Mexican
falls asleep, and has a fairly graphic nightmare about his sister's
rape. There are, littered throughout the movie, a fair number of scenes
taking place at different points in the rape, her top getting torn off,
her wrists tied in front of her as she is dragged/pulled over to a
tree, and hung up by her wrists barely able to stand. She was pawed
some more at this point by the rapists, and they tear off the remainder
of her clothes for the most part, before letting her down to the ground
and finishing the job.The rancher's wife goes out for a ride, and the Mexican, who has
apparently ripped off some supplies and guns from the ranch, captures
her, she tries to escape but she gets caught again, her clothes getting
partly torn in the process. He ties her up and then takes her off to a
cabin in the woods. He settles in, depositing her with her hands and
legs tied loose behind her, then goes out and sets various traps and
makes preparations for the inevitable posse to come looking. When he
gets back, he finds her attempting to free herself, so he hogties her.About this time the rancher realizes she's been gone too long, and
sends out his hands to find her. Eventually, the Mexican, who is
haunted by the ordeal his sister went through, combined with her angry
haranguing, attacks, strips her naked, and rapes her. After he's done,
he ties her with her hands above her head as his sister's rapists did
to her, and goes off to set more traps. One by one, a couple of the
hands find her and try to rescue her, but he gets the drop on them and
kills them, one of them stabbed in the back with a thrown knife as he
was attempting to release the rancher's wife. The two remaining hands
start shooting at the cabin, assuming that the rancher's wife is dead.
The Mexican starts whipping the rancher's wife to make her scream, so
they'll realize she's still alive. The two remaining hands stop
shooting at the cabin, which allows the Mexican to run out and get to a
rifle he'd smartly stashed outside the cabin, and shoots one of the
remaining two hands.The last one, deciding discretion is the better part of valor, starts
to run back to the horses, presumably to come back with more help.
Unfortunately for him, in a narrow defile he encounters one of the
traps, a bear trap, left by the Mexican, and his gun falls right at the
edge of his reach. The Mexican comes along, chases off the horses, and
apparently is going to leave him for dead, as he pleads for his life.The Mexican decides to show mercy, and relaxes the trap. For his
consideration, the hand, now able to reach his gun, shoots him in the
back, but, as he falls, the Mexican shoots and kills him. He stumbles
back to the cabin, bleeding from a wound in his shoulder.The loose horses return to the ranch, and the rancher now comes out
looking. At the cabin, where the Mexican has released the by now
exhausted wife, tells her why this has all happened to her. One of the
ones who raped his sister years ago was the rancher, who he recognized
by the ring he wore, which the Mexican saw in the cantina.Hearing the rancher approach, and, figuring he was going to die from
the bullet wound anyway, he runs out and faces the rancher outside the
cabin. Meanwhile, the wife, struggles with, and gets loose, the knife
that was in the back of the hand who tried to rescue her, and then goes
over and lies back down, back towards the door, concealing the knife.Outside, she hears a shootout occurring, but just lays there, waiting.
As the rancher comes in, her back is to him, and he reaches out to her,
she whirls around and stabs him in the gut with the knife. He is
surprised, and calls her name. She looks right at him and makes it
clear that she intended to stab him, and not the Mexican, by stabbing
him again. He dies on the spot, as she weakly, stumbling, stands up and
leaves the cabin, the only survivor of the whole nightmare.

Tags: murder, flashback

Review:
Wasted potential. The movie opens with a group of cowboys drinking whiskey in a saloon as a guitar player strums a lazy tune.  The cowboys call over the saloon girl and tell her to dance as the guitar player begins to play again.  She does, and entices the cowboys, leading to a rape on the bar room floor.  Watching the whole thing is the girl's brother, who also is the stableboy for the ranch where the cowboys work but is unable to aid his sister.Back at the ranch, the ranchowner's wife (Virginia Gordon) rides up and has a confrontation with the owner over her inability to produce a son for him. To vent his frustration, he rips open her blouse (yeah, I don't see the logic either).  Later that night, the cowboys return and bunk down as the stableboy stirs in the barn, having a nightmare about a different rape that apparently occurred to his sister when he was much younger. In that rape, the cowboys had dragged her behind a horse and then tied her to a tree.The next morning the owner's wife goes out for a ride, where she is captured by the stableboy and taken to a shack in the woods and hog-tied.  After awhile, the stableboy rapes her, gags her, and ties her with her hands above her head, the same as the cowboys had done to his sister.  The cowboys come after them and make an assault on the cabin, with one cowboy successfully sneaking into the shack.  As he begins to untie Virginia, he gets a knife in the back from the stableboy.  The other cowboys stay outside and try to shoot the stable boy from a distance. The stableboy whips Virginia a few times (off camera) so that she'll cry out.  The other cowboys hear her and stop their assault.  After thinking for a bit, the cowboys assault the cabin again, killing the stableboy in a flurry of gunfire.Overall, the plot concept is decent and Virginia Gordon does a pretty good job with the limited role she's given.  She also looks good in her nude scenes, though the camerawork is pathetic - very grainy and poorly lit (near objects are too bright, far objects are too dark). Sound is terrible, as can be expected from a 1968 film shot on a low budget, and the acting is very weak.  No music worth mentioning, no sweeping panoramic scenes. There are better 'B' westerns out there.