Captivating movie !

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

I would cheerfully watch a barrel of manure if it had Lee Van Cleef in it. But I draw the line at this.By rights, films this bad should be hilarious. Yet this is anything but. Why? Partly because it is SUPPOSED to be a comedy (did they decide that before or after production - difficult to tell). But mostly because there is no conviction. The over-riding production value is to go through the motions and get the thing over with. Hence the appalling score is unhingingly irritating and the "action" is so badly put together with freeze frames and plot jumps that I assumed my DVD player was playing up and I took the disk out to clean it. Sadly it didn't help. An electric sander might have improved matters by making the thing impossible to play. This film is drivel. Avoid.

Lee Van Cleef is conned by Gina Lollobrigida TWICE...first into marrying her (she robs him), then into helping her come into a million dollars thanks to her involvement with Mexican revolutionary James Mason. The unlikely pairing of Van Cleef & Lollobrigida actually works well but Mason is miscast in his relatively small role. Director "Gene" Martin keeps the pace moving briskly. This is a spaghetti western with a real sense of humor. A fun comic western marred by some really insipid faux country rock ballads thrown into an otherwise fine incidental music score. Also featuring the great Jess Hahn as one of Van Cleef's cronies.

Heaven knows how a talent like Philip Yordan came to such a sorry pass as writing this mess. Heaven knows how badly James Mason must have needed money for him to take part. Lee Van Cleef, one of my great movie heroes, made some really awful films here and there, but this one takes the cake. The pop-rock/barbershop-quartet score, completely inappropriate to the time and place, is the first clue that the viewer is in for a melange of malarkey. Everyone is dubbed, of course--it's a spaghetti Western. But at least Van Cleef and Mason dub themselves. However, Mason, who despite being second-billed doesn't show up until 2/3 of the way through, makes the most embarrassing attempt at a southern American accent I can recall ever hearing. Gina Lollobrigida exposes her talent in her special way, and the rest of the parts are played in the broadest fashion by a cast of overacting hambones. The plot is virtually unintelligible, though it does involve a river for a moment or two (the good guys hope their engine-less riverboat can drift from Matamoros to Laredo before the bad guys catch up to them--despite the fact that Laredo is UPSTREAM from Matamoros.) It's obvious that much of what goes on here is intended as comedy, except, one presumes, for scenes of people being shot and burned to death. Let's just say that none of the stars ever made a worse movie and then just pretend this farago never happened.

Not really a spaghetti western; as well as Italy it was financed by Spain and France. It's meant to be a comedy western, MEANT to be; it has a handful of funny lines and a bizarre accent from James Mason. It's a complete mystery to me why he and Lee Van Cleef bothered to appear in this. Put simply, the film is boring - the characters are cardboard and the actors look like they'd be having more fun watching paint dry. The plot is clichéd and contrived, and difficult to follow. The freeze-frames at the beginning are just plain stupid. Beautiful as Gina Lollobrigida is, she just can't carry the film alone. Eugenio Martin really hasn't got an excuse for rearing such a turkey here, as the following year, he [the director] went on to make the far superior horror classic "Horror Express".And now, the plot: Roy King (Van Cleef) and his bank-robbing gang get caught up in a plan by his ex-wife and her new husband (James Mason) to steal $1 million from the Mexican government. But the group are captured and sent to a rebel stronghold. Besieged and under fire from the Mexican army, the rebel general is forced to offer King and his gang freedom if they can pull the rebel side through. And I only know that basic outline 'cause it's given in a slightly more in depth form on the packaging...Like I say, "Bad Man's River" is unquestionably awful. It's simply not even worth seeing as a curiosity piece. I bought it in a 2 for £10 sale and now consider that to have been a waste of money. Some people say that for the sake of top billing, Lee Van Cleef appeared in some real stinkers. This time, I'm inclined to agree.