For this Western Night, Kirk Ellis chose BLINDMAN (1971), a spaghetti Western featuring a blind anti-hero. Sergio Leone introduced probably the most well-known Western anti-hero to American audiences with his Man with No Name movies in the mid-Sixties starring Clint Eastwood. Other Italian filmmakers gave us more anti-heroes in Western films, like DJANGO (1966) with its coffin-dragging drifter, REQUIESCANT (1967) with a loner who prays over each man he kills, and THE GREAT SILENCE (1968) about a mute gunslinger. (Kirk brought all three of these to earlier Western Nights.) BLINDMAN is based on the Japanese film, ZATOICHI, about a blind samurai.

Absurd, violent, and bizarre, BLINDMAN kept me curious, but I can’t say it’s a favorite.

Though blind, an expert shot, and owning a very helpful horse, Blindman (Tony Anthony, who also co-produced and cowrote the script) has a contract to deliver 50 women to 50 Texas miners who have paid for them to become their wives. However, Blindman’s former partners sold the women to a sadistic Mexican bandit who has plans to force them into prostitution, and Blindman is determined to get the mail order brides back.

There’s also a Mexican Army officer who gets double-crossed, the evil bandit leader’s sister who is almost as brutal as he is, and former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr playing the bandit’s reprehensible brother, though the role is somewhat colorless.

Director Ferdinando Baldi offers a few intriguing moments, such as the opening scene with Blindman on his horse making his way around a dismal town searching for those turn-coat partners, and a suspenseful bit with Blindman served food in a bowl that he doesn’t know contains a deadly snake.

With a running time of 105 minutes, BLINDMAN is available on DVD and for rent or streaming on Amazon Prime.

Along with Kirk, Emmy winning screenwriter and producer, as well as author of the upcoming book THEY KILL PEOPLE about the making of BONNIE AND CLYDE due out in February, our group includes Johnny D. Boggs, record ten-time Spur Award-winning author and Owen Wister Award winner whose work includes his latest, BLOODY NEWTON, Kirk’s wife, Sheila, David Morrell, award-winning author and New York Times best-selling author of FIRST BLOOD, the novel that introduced the character Rambo, and Robert Nott, award-winning journalist and author of several books on Western films, including his most recent RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY that examines the production, themes and legacy of the film that launched Sam Peckinpah’s career.