Fantasma en el Oeste (1978) Poster

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4/10
Silly and disconcerting Paella/Spaghetti Western coproduced by Spain/Italy and regularly directed by Antonio Margheriti
ma-cortes4 June 2022
Tongue-in-cheek spaghetti western in Terence Hill and Bud Spencer style with a lot of entertainment and amusement. It deals with a roguish young called Napoleone B. Higgins : Alberto Terracina who's protected by the spirits of Davey Crockett, Pecos Bill and Johnny Appleseed. While escaping from some bandits he meets at a cave the ghost of Davey Crockett: big , burly Fernando Bilbao and both of whom forming an outandish couple of good guys fending off the bad guys . Along the way, a gang led by a Mexican bandit : Ricardo Palacios attempting to take a gold shipment and attacking a train. Meanwhile, other notorious Western historic personages are appearing, such as Pecos Bill and Johnny Appleseed .

A idiotic and mindless Spanish/Italian Western with hilarious moments, surrealist scenes, toilet humor, train assaults, fights and shootouts. The flick bears remarkable resemblance to Trinidad and Bambino films , including crossfire with no blood , explosion, slapping , kick-ass , punches and anything else . Stars Alberto Terracina as Tom Scott and Fernando Bilbao as Fred Harris, and both of them giving sympathetic interpretations as two utterly inept and hopeless roles : on the one hand a rogue snake-oil salesman and the other hand his drunk , lunkhead sidekick . In fact this film is in similar style to "Mr Hercules against Karate" that both protagonists starred in 1973 directed by Antonio Margheriti himself . Here the main diversion results to be to look for the large number of secondaries appearing here and there, most of them usual in Spaghetti Western and the Spanish/Italian sub-genres in the 60s and 70s , such as : Maribel Martin as the damsel in distress saved by the unfortunate antihero , Ricardo Palacios, George Rigaud , Rafael Albaicín, Barta Barri, Manuel de Blas, Frank Braña, Fabian Conde , Maribel Hidalgo, and Luis Barboo.

It displays a colorful cinematography by expert Alejandro Ulloa who previously photographed the clasic Horror Express . This dumb slapstick produced in medium budget by prestigious Carlo Ponti and Miguel Echarri was middlingly directed by Antonio Margheriti . This Italian writer-producer-director of horror , Peplum , Spaghetti and exploitation films, a former university engineering student who began in films in 1956. He was also an expert in special optical effects and model-making. Often used the pseudonym 'Anthony M. Dawson'. Antonio was a good craftsman who made all kinds of genres , such as Wartime : The Last Hunter , Tornado , The Commander , Code Name Wild Geese . Adventures : The Golden Arrow , Ark of the sun...temple of hall , Jungle Raiders, Treasure Island , Mister Invisible . Spaghetti Western : And god David to Cain, Dakota Joe, Vengeance , Joe the Implacable , The Stranger and the Gunfighter, Take a hard ride . Terror : Virgin of Nuremberg ,Web of Spider , Seven dead in the cat's eye , The long hair of death , Castle of blood , Horror Castle , Cannibal in the streets . Science Fiction : Yor the Hunter from the future , War of the planets , Wild Wild Planets . Peplum : Hercules prisoner of evil, Giants of Rome , The Slave merchants ,The Fall of Rome. Thriller : Operation Goldman, , Killers are challenged, The Squeeze , Death Rage. Rating : 4/10. Below average.
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3/10
Interesting Premise Warning: Spoilers
Interesting premise and you need to update the title in your database. I just watched this on ScreenPix and it's titled "Whiskey and Ghosts" and apparently dubbed from Spanish into English although still lots of Spanish is spoken. Tolerable I'm thinking... if you know what to expect.
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A ridiculously bad, yet somewhat surreal farce!
BusbyNZ7 January 2001
Known as Whiskey and Ghosts, and dubbed appallingly into English this is one of those rare films that is so bad it is funny. The story of the drunk ghost of Davy Crockett trying to coax an young man into going after some treasure is full of laughable invisible gags, some abysmal jokes that are far funnier than anything one could have planned and some of the shoddiest and just plain weird action scenes ever committed to film. However there is more here than just cheap laughs, there is also some rather bizarre and surreal scenes. These focus mainly on Davy Crockett's ghost as the other famous western icons (Pecos Bill, Johnny Appleseed etc.) attempt to convince him to join them as the Horse Riders In The Sky - which I guess is the wild west afterlife.

Fantasmas en el Oeste is film you have to see to believe, and surely the only whiskey/supernatural/western/comedy film out there - truly bizarre.
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