Just finished watching this movie and was very satisfied. I've been watching as many Spaghetti westerns as I can get my hands on and so far I've loved every one that I've seen. This film is no exception.
Basically it's about a Swedish arms dealer (Franco Nero) who comes to negotiate the sale of some guns to a revolutionary. Turns out that his payment is in a safe that only a Professor Xantos has the combination too. The problem is that the professor is in jail in America so The Arms Dealer and a Bandit (Tomas Milian) set out to break him loose but one of the Swedes former partners (Palance) has got other plans.
This movie doesn't quite reach the level of greatness achieved by Once Upon a Time in the West, The Great Silence or The Good the Bad and The Ugly but it's still a great western. I'd rate it along side The Big Gundown and higher than the likes of Django, Death Rides a horse or If you Live Shoot.
The movie uses humor to great effect and sometimes comes off as an early example of a buddy comedy; the two leads have great Chemistry. Milian whom you can't help but like in any movie he's in. This movie also has the best action scenes of any Spagstern I've seen so far. The final shootout ranks as one of my all times favorites (I just wish Tomas Milian had gotten more to do).
The performances are all fantastic. Franco Nero, who failed to impress me in Django, is great as the smug, badass Swede. Milian is wonderful as usual and Jack Palance plays a drugged up off his rocker bird loving lunatic with a wooden hand as only he could.
Of course you can't go without mentioning Morricones score which is, of course, Fantastic. Not as great as his work with Leone but even an average score by Morricone is better than 90% of the other stuff out there.
Check this flick out. It's funny, entertaining and you get to see Nero go nuts with a big ass machine gun.