ma-cortes Light as well as colorful mini-biopic about the mythical hero taking on Indians and Cheyenne chief Yellow Hand . This ¨Buffalo Bill¨ by Mario Costa boasts a nice Italian/German cast with Hans Von Borsody , Roldano Lupi , Mario Brega , Ingeborg Schöner , Mirko Ellis as Yellow Hand and Gordon Scott as Buffalo Bill . This is an entertaining chronicle of the noted frontier explorer , nowadays as an Army high officer . A simple story of William "Buffalo Bill" F. Cody (Gordon Scott) , legendary westerner , whose adventures made him a hero , this is a fictionalized account of the life and career from his days as an army Major . Buffalo confronts renegade Indians , and smugglers (Mario Brega) who are selling weapons . Bill must battle hostile Indians and some outlaws intent on gunrunning . As Buffalo Bill is sent to stop the arms trading and avert an Indian war led by Chief White Fox (Fiodor Chaliapin) . Along the way Bill delivers justice by confronting nasties and brawls at the Gold Dust saloon , whose owner is the suspicious Monroe (Jan Hendriks) . Later on on , there occurs his famous fight against ¨Yellow Hand¨ (Mirko Ellis). Average Pasta Western plenty of shots , go riding , assaults , up and downs pace , thrills and passable direction . However , it results to be a very mediocre Spaghetti-Schnizel Western mostly produced by Italy and German secondary participation ; it doesn't follow the Sergio Leone wake and being proceeded in American style . Being emotionally right on the mark and there's precious action . The film packs shootouts , noisy action , high body-count and overwhelming Indian attacks . It's a thrilling western with spectacular outdoors and breathtaking confrontation among badly-dressed Indians and soldiers . Acceptable action sequences with rousing Indian attacks against a Yankee fort and little realistic shootouts . The picture has a decent Mise-En-scene with bustling battles , so-so production design , spectacular outdoors and moving score by Carlo Rustichelli . Lousy cinematography filmed by Massimo Dallamano who also directed Westerns , being necessary a right remastering ; filmed on locations in Colmenar Viejo , La Pedriza, Manzanares el Real (Madrid) , as usual , and El Lacio , Rome , Italy . The motion picture was middlingly directed by Mario Costa , under pseudonym , J. W. Fordson . He was a craftsman who directed several adventure movies "Cavalier in Devil's Castle" , "Conqueror of Corinth" , ¨The son of the sheikh ¨, ¨The black pirate¨ ,"Gladiator of Rome" , "Karim, the Sheikh's Son" , "The Queen of the Pirates" , ¨The kings of France¨ and Westerns as ¨La Belba¨ and "Buffalo Bill, Hero of the West" ; many of them starred by Gordon Scott . Other films about ¨Buffalo Bill¨ are the followings : ¨Battling with Buffalo Bill¨ (1931) by Ray Taylor with Tom Tyler , ¨The Plainsman¨ (1936) by Cecil B. De Mille with Gary Cooper , James Ellison , Jean Arthur , and the best ¨Buffalo Bill¨ by William A. Wellman with Joel McCrea , Thomas Mitchell , Mauren O'Hara and Anthony Quinn as Yellow Hand . Furthermore , ¨Buffalo Bill in Tomahawk Territory¨ by Bernard Ray with Clayton Moore , Chief Thundercloud ; ¨Buffalo Bill rides again ¨ (1947) by Bernard Ray with Richard Arlen , "Seven Hours of Gunfire" (65) by Joaquin Romero Marchent with Rik Van Nutter as Buffalo Bill Cody , Adrian Hoven as Wild Bill Hickok and Gloria Milland as Calamity Jane and the historical pastiche as well as perennial underrated ¨Buffalo Bill and the Indians¨ (76) by Robert Altman with Paul Newman who appears as a charlatan and shameless exemplar of encroaching imperialism .

Leofwine_draca BUFFALO BILL, HERO OF THE FAR WEST is a typical western that has more in common with the Winnetou films coming out of West Germany than the new-fanged spaghetti westerns that followed in the wake of A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS. It stars former Tarzan and peplum actor Gordon Scott as the upstanding titular hero, who must tackle a sinister plot that involves renegade cowboys and ruthless Indians, and offers plenty of bang for your buck.This is a film which is neither particularly good nor particularly bad. It just sort of exists, and remains watchable thanks to an emphasis on action. The requisite shoot-outs are present and correct, but there's a greater focus on drawn-out and dragged-out slug-fests between Scott and the villains. Mario Brega makes for a great hulking brute and Scott's endless fist fight with him is a highlight, as is the climactic battle. Elsewhere there's time for a little romance and time for a little plotting, alongside the usual trappings of gorgeous scenery and bad dubbing (including that of Scott himself).

zardoz-13 Former "Tarzan" star Gordon Scott swapped his loin cloth for Levis and joined a short list of famous actors who have portrayed the legendary frontier scout and showman. "Buffalo Bill, Hero of the Far West" epitomizes the Italian western before Sergio Leone revolutionized the genre. Indeed, most of the pre-Leone westerns resembled conventional 1950s era Hollywood horse operas, and "Buffalo Bill" proves no exception. Mind you, Scott is more than rugged enough for the larger-than life role and his goatee imparts a roguish appearance. Our buckskin clad hero is investigating the illegal sales of Winchester repeating rifles to renegade redskins. For the record, this was "Gladiator of Rome" director Mario Costa's first and only cavalry versus the Native American epics. Costa doesn't let his actors stand around and chew the scenery. He stages quite a bit gunplay, and "A Fistful of Dollars" lenser Massimo Dallamano makes everything look spectacular. The big showdown at the end of the action takes place in a cavalry fort with the Indians scaling the walls and giving our heroes hell to pay. The chief suspect is an obnoxious hulk named Sam (Mario Brega of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly") and at one point, he trades blows with brawny Scott. Reportedly, Brega smashed Scott's nose and neither man got along with the other. Unlike later Spaghetti westerns, Scott is not working for himself to obtain vast sums of money like the bounty hunters who would come to dominate the genre. Instead, he is on a mission of mercy authorized by the President to root out injustice. The scenery, the dames, and the tough dudes all look exciting. This made-in-Spain shoot'em up boasts lots of action, but everything is formulaic with few narrative surprises. My chief complaint is the voice that they have used to dub Scott so that he sounds like an older man. Our hero has no romantic love interest, but he runs into several pretty ladies. Gordon Scott fans will savor this sagebrusher.

Steve Nyland (Squonkamatic) Handsome Euro western genre film here, kind of straddling two genres at once. Gordon Scott is well cast & appropriately larger than life as the Indian fighter turned US Army scout Buffalo Bill Cody, trading in his Samson tunic for a buckskin jacket + goatee. Not sure if the Italian, French & Spanish filmmakers who made this followed much of Buffalo Bill's actual history for their plot, but then again that isn't really the point of the film. Which was to find a wholesome heroic good guy for Gordon Scott to play in an early spaghetti western. And he plays Cody pretty much as he played the Son of Hercules: Strapping, brawny, beefy, but surprisingly intelligent, insightful, and considerate of even the guy whom he beats the stuffing out of in a bar room brawl. He is almost insufferably good, working for the native Indians to live side by side with his fellow Palefaces and keep the two sides from massacring each other.Once you get down to it the basic premise of the film has been lifted more from the Winnetou/Old Shatterhand films from Germany & Yugoslavia which precipitated the Italian/Spanish spaghetti western boom. Gordon Scott's appearance and mannerism is almost a dead ripoff of Lex Barker's Shatterhand, though there's no Winnetou analog. Instead the film seems to want to experiment with putting this Shatterhand surrogate into some of the trappings of what would become the spaghetti western approach.Which is one of the things that makes the film unique -- a genuine Hero, rather than an ambiguous Anti-Hero, and Scott was well prepared for the undertaking. Sure, it's silly and potentially offensive to see Spanish supporting actors dressed up like Injun braves and dubbed by voice actors with mid-Atlantic quasi British accents. What the film may lack in terms of authenticity it makes up for with wide-eyed innocence, and they even have Scott ride off waving to the crowd in the end to the applause & cheers of those he had saved, just like in his Maciste films. Not something you'd see Clint Eastwood do, that's for sure.The film was most likely made in 1964 as the Italian Peplum sword & sandal era was coming to an end, and from the looks of it the producing studio apparently figured that by bringing along one of their most popular Peplum matinée stars they'd be able to translate the medium into a western and be guaranteed a hit. The production standards of the film are respectfully robust and there's quite a large supporting cast; they spent some money on this one, and while voters on the IMDb may not have thought much of the results it's a shame that they didn't get a little film series out of the effort.One of the problems was Gordon Scott, who made one more Euro western for Albert Band, the tragic Spanish romantic range drama THE TRAMPLERS which isn't nearly half as much fun as this one. Rumor has it that while preparing to make a third western Scott's nose was broken by co-star Mario Brega (who plays a Bud Spencer-ish lummox rogue in this one) and found the disfigurement ruinous to his photogenic looks. Scott made two more action/adventure films of the spy genre ilk and abruptly retired from the industry in late 1965, the year this film was released.The spaghetti genre itself had also changed by the time this film was circulating, with the more stylish approaches of DJANGO and Sergio Leone's "Dollar" films making the more traditionalist approach seen here look a bit old fashioned by comparison. And that's exactly why I adore it: Here's a spaghetti western from the infancy of the genre when they were still making movies about good guys & bad guys, Injuns and the cavalry, and a do-gooder hero designed to be rooted for like he was Audie Murphy or something. The change of pace is quite refreshing.7/10: Something Weird Video apparently has a widescreen English version on VHS & DVD-R, which you can order directly from their website. Take a look.