Black Killer
Tags: western

Plot synopsis:
James Webb arrives to town with a casket full of books. He discovers that the judge co-operates with the wanted O'Hara brothers, who make farmers sign over their land deeds and then kill them. The deeds are then deposited with the judge. Webb, who has presented himself to the judge as a lawyer, finds that since these deeds are not registered they will forfeit to the judge if the O'Haras are killed.
The O'Haras suspect Webb to be a government agent, but later they intercept and kill the real agent. They also raid town and kill the sheriff in anger when they don't get enough protection money.
Burt Collins arrives in town and asks for his brother Peter, who lives outside town with his Native American wife, Sarah. He kills two of O'Hara's men who cheat at gambling. He seems willing to follow the advice of Ramon O'Hara (who owns the saloon) to leave in the morning, but Webb visits his hotel room to suggest a plan.
In the morning Burt is challenged by three O'Hara men and kills them. Webb has earlier convinced the judge that according to the law he must become sheriff if none is appointed, and Burt is offered to become sheriff instead of standing trial. He accepts and the judge suggests that they share the land 50-50. The O'Haras are told that Burt is visiting his brother. They surround the house and capture the brothers when they come out. Burt is beaten unconscious and Peter is killed when he tries to stop them from raping Sarah. Then they set fire to the house.
Burt and Sarah now avenge themselves on the O’Hara gang. They get information from Consuela, a young woman who works at the saloon. In the morning after the gang’s celebration at the saloon one of the malefactors is killed by gunshots from Burt and by an arrow from Sarah. The O’Haras have Consuela taken to a mine to serve as bait to catch Burt. Burt and Sarah kill the guards with arrow and knife. They enter the cave and kill the gang member who is in the process of raping Consuela, but the girl is killed by a stray bullet.
Sarah and Burt kill the guards at the O'Hara ranch with arrow and snare. They hang one of the guards outside the window to make the men come out. Inside, Burt confronts Pedro O’Hara in the darkness of a closed room. When a man opens the door he exposes Pedro and is killed with him. Outside Sarah kills men with a rifle, until they run away, leaving Miguel O'Hara. She shoots an arrow with burning dynamite. After the explosion he cries that he is blind and then falls down.
Webb accuses the judge, who offers him 50%. When the offer is refused he takes a gun from his drawer but is killed by Webb with a gun concealed in a book. Webb picks the safe and takes papers and money. He is surprised by Sarah, who was sent by Burt to detain him, but he tricks her, takes her gun and ties her up.
Burt arrives into town with the bodies of the O'Haras and offers Ramon a choice between the gun and jail. He shoots The Mexican's rifle from his hand and shoots another man coming down the stairs. The two now fight and come out in the street, where O’Hara uses a hayfork. Webb appears and shoots down two O'Hara henchmen from the roof. Ramon goes for a rifle in a saddle holster but is shot by a gun that Webb throws to Burt.
Citizens gather around the corpses. Webb gives Burt the deeds taken from Wilson. Sarah has set herself free and arrives with a gun. Burt calms her, but still he arrests Webb for the murder of the judge, and cuffs him to take him to a judge in Canyon City. He gives back the star and answers vaguely to Sarah's question about when he will be back. At the junction to Canyon city he sets Webb free. The latter says, "You fooled me.” Burt replies that he wanted half of the money rather than the land. They separate.

Review: a fairly good spaghetti western.
This spaghetti western has a very good music score and a great performance by Klaus Kinski as a strange lawyer who kills with books that have guns inside of them.
His look and mannerisms fit the character perfectly.Not only does this western have Kinski, it also has a family of Mexican thugs named O'Hara!
There's definitely nothing like a good old Italian western.This is one of those movies that will have you scratching your head a lot if you try to make perfect sense of everything that happens.
It's got style, action, violence, weirdness, and an interesting though somewhat vague storyline.All in all, it's pretty good stuff for the spaghetti western fan..
So-so Spaghetti Western with a mysterious gunman confronting vicious brothers in the town of Tombstone.
It is an entertaining Pasta western with lots of action , gun-play and fun .
The town of Tombstone is at the mercy of the five feared O'Hara brothers : Ramon (Antonio Cantafora or Michael Coby) , Pedro ,Miguel , Ryan & Slide (played by unknown actors) who torture and kill several sheriffs .
An expert gunslinger , Burt Collins (Fred Robsham) arrives in Tombstone , when his brother is murdered , Burt is immediately persuaded to take on the duties of sheriff and he then accepts , but he is really seeking vengeance .
Meantime , the cunning Judge Wilson (Dante Maggio as Dan May) is assisted by a strange lawyer , James Webb (Klaus Kinski), watching mostly in the background and who always carries two large law books with him .
Burt helped by the beautiful Indian Sarah Collins (Marina Malfatti) chases the malicious killers and the ending settle disputes by shooting .This Italian production is a moving S.W. movie starred by Fred Robsham , Klaus Kinski and Marina Malfatti .
The film deals with a mysterious stranger , become a new sheriff , who vows to clean up the town of dreaded outlaws ; and it takes on a strange gunslinger against treacherous gang : the O'Hara brothers .
This Spaghetti movie gets the usual Western issues , such as greedy antiheroes , violent facing off , quick zooms , and exaggerated baddies .
It is an acceptable , passable Western with several titles as ¨Matador Nego¨ or ¨Pistoleiro Negro¨ , or ¨Assassino Negro¨ or ¨Black Killer¨ that contains an interesting and violent plot about a sheriff seeking vendetta .
It packs crosses and double crosses , thrills , shoot'em up , violence , and results to be quite entertaining , though drags at times , balancing in ups and downs .
There is plenty of action in the movie , guaranteeing some pursuits , crossfire or stunts every few minutes .
It's a thrilling western with breathtaking confrontation between the protagonist against the heartless enemies formed by a brutal gang of Mexican brothers led by Antonio Cantafora .
The main starring is the unknown Fred Robsahm and the popular Klaus Kinski who appears elegantly dressed and with a brilliant look , gaining a reputation for his ferocious talent and equally ferocious temper ; Kinski plays as a strange lawyer who occasionally joins in on the action with his deadly law books .
This Spaghetti is made during his Italian period when Klaus starred a lot of Westerns , later he collaborated with Werner Herzog with whom played several prestigious films .
As Kinski starred numerous Spaghetti such as : Pray to Kill and Return Alive , Black Killer , If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death , Bullet King , Shangai Joe , Clint the solitary , The Ruthless Four , Nevada Kid , The return of Clint , and specially famous resulted to be his acting in ¨For a fistful of dollars more¨ .
There is a very odd implementation of shots in the camera work during some particular scenes as well as a lot of twists and turns , as the film approaches its climax , as in the final and the customary conclusion .
Atmospheric Eastmancolor cinematography by Franco Villa in WideScreen , though being necessary a good remastering and filmed in De Paolis/INCIR Studios , Italy Elios studios Rome , as usual , and El Lacio .
Enjoyable and thrilling musical score by Daniele Patucchi , including catching leitmotif .The motion picture was middlingly directed by Carlo Croccolo , under pseudonym Lucky Moore , and it was filmed in parallel with another spaghetti western , "Gunman of One Hundred Crosses" , which also was directed and also starred by Marina Malfatti along with Tony Kendall , Jessica Dublín , Mimmo Palmara , Ray Saunders .
Carlo Croccolo is usually a secondary actor and occasionally filmmaker , as he has played several films as ¨After the Fox" , ¨In Love and War¨, ¨Three man and a leg¨, ¨Yesterday , Today and tomorrow¨, ¨El Avaro¨, Via Lattea La Prima a Destra , ¨Il Professor¨ , ¨O Re¨, ¨Perdono¨, ¨The Biggest Bundle of Them All" , among others ..
Cool Spaghetti Western!!!.
A dark, gritty and to the bone nihilistic western, that is really fun to watch.
But it's blessed with many cool scenes of violence, strange dialog and good old sleazzzzz.
He does a lot of the stunt work in this movie (not just he's own).
Kinski is cool as the weird lawyer that has a strange habit of transforming he's law books into deadly weapons.
Great soundtrack and some nice cinematography gives the film good atmosphere and it's well worth the watch.
A spaghetti western that's a mixed bag.
Much of the positive that is to be found in "Black Killer" can be found with Klaus Kinski and the character he plays.
There is also some novelty that Kinski is playing a lawyer (!), though one who is handy with a gun.
Other positive things in the movie include a good musical score, as well as some good shoot-outs.
And there is a significant amount of nudity, which you usually don't see in a spaghetti western.
This isn't a bad movie, but I would only recommend it to Kinski fans and/or spaghetti western fans..
Entertaining Kinski spaghetti western.
Many spaghetti westerns had absurd gimmicks that made them memorable while at the same time subverting the iconography of their traditional American counterparts.
Perhaps most famously there was Django and his coffin, in Black Killer we have Klaus Kinski's lawyer with his guns disguised as books!
Like a lot of the spaghetti western gimmicks it's simultaneously completely silly and very cool.
On the whole though, its business as usual spaghetti western style in this movie.
We have a lawless town called, perhaps unsurprisingly, Tombstone which is terrorised by a gang of Mexican bandits called somewhat improbably the O'Hara gang.
A mysterious drifter called Burt who is adept with a fire-arm comes into town and is made new sheriff by the fearful locals.
The bandits subsequently kill his brother and rape his sister-in-law, an Indian called Sarah.
Burt and Sarah band together, with the help of Kinski's lawyer to get revenge.To be honest, the story-telling is a little confused and messy in this one.
But it ultimately is a pretty straightforward violent western.
The sexual violence is fairly unpleasant, while one of the unfortunate early sheriffs is shot several times and then killed with a knife.
It was good to see the character of Sarah get in on the retribution though – a female Indian with deadly skills with a bow and arrow made for a pleasant contrast to the typical taciturn gunfighter anti-hero she teams up with.
Kinski is good as always as the lawyer who we can only assume the film is named after.
All-in-all though, this is a pretty entertaining spaghetti western..
Mediocre Spaghetti Western.
I'm a big fan of Spaghetti Westerns, but unfortunately; Black Killer really isn't one of the best.
The thing that I like best about this type of film is the entertainment value; and that is where Black Killer unfortunately falls down.
The film is likely to be a target for many because of the fact that it stars the great Klaus Kinski, and indeed the actor the helped to make The Great Silence such a pleasure puts in a decent performance amidst a somewhat tedious movie.
The plot is all over the place, but seems to have something to do with Kinski's lawyer character (complete with gun concealing books) and a band of Mexicans.
The atmosphere is gritty, and the film features a handful of fairly nasty scenes; although it's not nearly as action packed as some of the other Spaghetti Westerns released around the same time.
You cant really expect coherency from seventies Spaghetti Westerns, of course, and it really wouldn't be a problem if director Carlo Croccolo had managed to make the action entertaining and the characters interesting; but unfortunately this didn't happen.
The title refers to the fact that Kinski dresses in black and goes around killing people; but even this theme has been done better in other films (e.g. The Grand Dual).
Overall, someone may get some enjoyment out of this; but in a genre populated by entertaining films; I can't recommend seeing this one..
A bunch of Mexican bandidos are terrorizing a Western frontier town with the aid of a local banker.
A mysterious wonky-faced stranger (Klaus Kinski) turns up.
He's got loads of books with guns in them and seems to be some sort of lawyer.
Another more normal faced stranger turns up and after killing some bandidos, finds himself the new sheriff.
This in turn causes the bandidos to go and murder his brother and gang-rape his sister in law.
You know the drill.This one tries to bring the old tired plot in line with the increasing excesses of the seventies by including nudity (hilariously random when it happens and nothing to do with anything!) and more violence and bloodshed.
The rather bloody killing of the first sheriff aside, most of the first half of the film kind of wanders round in circles while they try and establish a reason for the gunslinger to get revenge on the bandits.That said, they do also have the sister-in-law go on the rampage too – which also makes this some kind of half-arsed rape revenge flick too, but this plot has been driven into the ground and in being more extreme Black Killer ignores the tongue-in-cheek elements that make Guiliano Carnimeo's films of the same year more enjoyable.I'm guessing though that Klaus Kinski fans would like it though.
He's quite substantial here instead of the usual cameo, and is dubbed with a rather strange voice.*Pulls up chair* You know, years ago, I said to the missus I said "I like Italian horror films, and the Mad Max rip offs, so I'm just gonna collect them" I said, saying in a speaking voice "I'll never collect Spaghetti Westernsthat way lies madness." I intoned in a sexy, breathy voice to the empty room I was addressing as the missus has already left by that point.And I never did.
Klaus Kinski is a book nut and that's why I had to book myself to see this movie!
This dark movie was surprising, pretty interesting..
There are so many spaghetti westerns that have some weird film concepts.
This movie is one of those films; that deserve one more glance.
After all, there isn't a lot of western movies that has a character, James Webb, (Klaus Kinski) a lawyer that disguise his guns with books!
It was a bit surprising to find out that Klaus Kinski isn't the main lead of this movie, but more like a supporting character.
I was hoping, he was, as it would make the movie, a little more memorable.
Since, the movie doesn't really focus much on him, the movie directed by Carlo Croccolo AKA Lucky Moore goes another route with the normal often cliché concept of a mysterious drifter rescuing a fearful lawless town from bandits or gangs.
In this movie, that drifter is named Burt Collins (Fred Robsahm) who become the new sheriff of the town call Tombstone when the previous one was killed by a Mexican gang known as the O'Hara Brothers: Ramon (Antonio Cantafora), Pedro (Enzo Pulcrano), Miguel (Calogero Caruana), Ryan (Antonio Danesi) & Slide (Mimmo Maggio).
The movie was surprising very grim & violent, compare to other Spaghetti Westerns at the time.
There were some really hard to watch, brutal moments like the rape scene that might turn off, some people.
The movie also has a lot more gratuitous nudity than I thought, coming in.
Both Tiziana Dini as Consuelo and Marina Malfatti as Sarah Collins are beautiful ladies, and seeing them in the buff is a guilty pleasure, even if it didn't make any sense and seem very unnecessary.
She had a very good back story, and purpose to take revenge on the O'Hara brothers.
She was badass, most of the film, shooting arrows and stabbing bad guys in the neck.
The lead, Fred Robsahm wasn't that bad, but his character was a bit confusing and dry.
There's a very pointless and totally implausible plot-twist near the end, which perfectly summarizes the overall clumsiness of this unconventional Spaghetti Western.
About the James Webb character, I was really hoping that he turned out to be a villain, because Klaus Kinski play it off, like he was.
There were a lot of things that he did that made you question, who side, he was really playing on.
Some of the film editing was bit awkward.
It was cuts so badly, that it make it seem like two characters were in the same room when they were in two different locations.
There were some serious plot hole due to the editing like the missing redhead that was to go warn the main character, but she just basically disappears and there's no mention of her anymore.
The music by Daniele Patucchi sounds more like Australia outback than American western, it's still very impressive.
The movie was often use as stock footage for later films such as 1972's Bounty Hunter in Trinity.
This ultra-low budget gem is often badly copy in DVDs with discoloring and dirty grain film footage.
It felt like it was watching a movie in the nonstop pouring rain.
Nevertheless, it's still was a tremendously fun and action-packed gunslinger movie.
Overall: A must watch for any Spaghetti Western fan..
He appeared in many Spaghetti Westerns, some of which are widely acclaimed masterpieces by now ("The Great Silence", "Bullet for the General"...) and others still are very obscure and nearly impossible to trace down, like "Black Killer".
This ultra-low budget gem can hardly be called a masterpiece, but it's nevertheless a tremendously fun and action-packed gunslinger adventure.
The title doesn't refer to a cowboy with a dark skin color, but to Mr. Kinski himself, and he doesn't even play the lead role.
That's how proud the creators must have been for being able to cast the Klaus Kinski, ha!
Klaus plays a mysterious and freaky lawyer, entirely dressed in black and always carrying around books that contain guns instead of knowledge, and he's temporarily hanging around in the little town of Tombstone.
The remote town is under the constant siege of terror of the five Mexican O'Hara brothers, who killed no less than NINE Sheriffs in only a couple of weeks time.
The local authorities assign lone traveler Burt Collins as the new Sheriff, but the murderous O'Hara clan immediately kill his brother and rape his Indian sister-in-law.
Collins teams up with the awkward lawyer to terminate the reign of the O'Hara's once and for all.
The plot of "Black Killer" is a little too confusing and convoluted for its own good sometimes, but director Croccolo easily forces you to look past the script's incoherence and focus on the outrageous sequences of explicit violence as well as the awesomely ingenious gimmicks.
The lawyer's method of killing people is original, to say the least, and the O'Hara brothers too come up with inventive ways to viciously entertain themselves.
The gunfights and executions are quite nasty, and particularly the rape-scene is unsettling to watch, as it seems to last for several whole minutes.
Tiziana Dini provides the film with an overload of gratuitous  but welcome  nudity, while the rest of the cast delivers more than adequate acting performances Daniele Patucchi's musical score is very enchanting and the filming locations are overall convincing.
There's a very pointless and totally implausible plot-twist near the end, which perfectly summarizes the overall awkwardness of this unconventional Spaghetti Western.
In conclusion, "Black Killer" certainly lacks the quality and competence to rank among Italy's best Westerns, but there's more than enough stuff to recommend if you're an open-minded admirer of the genre.
Predictable But Sadistic Spaghetti Western with Klaus Kinski.
Klaus Kinski plays a mysterious attorney named James Webb who dresses like a tenderfoot but conceals firearms in his law books.
He rides into Tombstone and finds himself caught in the middle of a war between trigger-happy Mexican brothers improbably named the O'Hara and two American brothers, Peter and Burt Collins, and Peter's pretty Indian wife Sarah.
Webb serves as a catalyst to see that the O'Hara brothers are wiped out by Burt Collins and the Indian girl after the O'Haras kill his younger brother Peter and rape Sarah.
Director Carlo Croccolo's Spaghetti western is sadistic, violent, and indulges in gratuitous nudity.
The Kinski character--James Webb--lurks on the periphery, implicating a corrupt town official, Judge Wilson who is in cahoots with the O'Hara clan.
The murder of the sheriff as the film unfolds is particularly brutal.
This low-budget Italian western contains heroes who don't catch on quickly enough, and many people have to die before they go into action in the final quarter-hour to clean out the villains.
Croccolo and co-scenarist Luigi Angelo of "Judge Roy Bean" (1971) spring a last minute surprise on Webb when Burt disarms him and takes him into custody for killing Wilson.