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STORY

A group of horsemen, led by an enigmatic chap dressed all in white, lay siege to a farm and kill everyone except a small boy, Tony (Marco Stefanelli). They seem to be
after a hidden box of jewels, which they are unable to find. Cut to a short time later: Tony has begun to develop into your archetypal Italian film brat, and spends most of his time hanging around the local circus. He particularly admires Gary Maguire (Anthony Steffen), one of the greatest trickshooters in the West. Gary, however, harbours a terrible secret - underneath all the bravado he happens to be a big scaredy pants!

Anthony Steffen and Ken Wood scrap it out in TWO PISTOLS FOR A COWARD

One day he happens to run across a gang of outlaws in the mountains. He looks on terrified as the leader, Roy (Ken Wood), murders the others to stop them claiming their share of the loot. When the assorted corpses are discovered it is assumed that Gary was the killer, and he is proclaimed a hero. Unfortunately, Roy seems to take umbrage at the fact that someone else is taking credit for his victims (even though this would seem to be disingenuous, to say the least). He challenges 'the hero' to a shooting contest and manipulates events so that Gary is (a) revealed as a coward and (b) loses his confidence and thus his aim.

Humiliated, Gary takes refuge in the bottle and loose women, so that the only one who still believes in him is little Tony. However, the brat has his own problems (not least a ridiculous piece of headgear that looks suspiciously like a chimney pot). Local bigwig Coleman (Richard Wyler) is revealed as the initial 'man in white', and is determined not to have his secret revealed.

CRITIQUE

Reuniting many of the cast members of Killer Kid (Steffen, Barret, Wood), this has a similar feel to both that film and Gentleman Killer. It is also similarly effective, despite the over reliance on bigtop tomfoolery and excessive screen time given over to the nauseating guttersnipe Marco Stefanelli (a relation of Benito's, perchance?), although they do take the opportunity to dunk him into a well once or twice.

The photography of Sandro Mancori is superb, and there's a lush score from Rustichelli (typically more romantically orchestral than is usually to be found within the genre). Steffen does the necessary, and gets to wear some extremely camp costumes. Ken Wood is always watchable, and more than makes up for Richard Wyler, who's a bit of a vacuum. It's also nice to see Nello Pazzafini in a rare non-bandito role.

Giorgio Ferroni is one of the better Italian exploitation directors, and here he seems to have a reasonable budget and keep a cool grip on things. That said, there is a certain old fashioned feel to proceedings that you wouldn't find in the better work of a Garrone or Cardone. The same could be said of his other Westerns: One Silver
Dollar (Un dollaro bucato, 65), Wanted (67) and Fort Yuma Gold (Per pochi dollari ancora, 66) - all of which star Giuliano Gemma. In some way his films away from the genre can be more fun – New York Calling Superdragon (New York chiama Superdrago, 66) is a sterling spy film and Night of the Devils (La notte dei diavoli, 72) an agreeably potty horror film with some completely irrelevant splatter scenes.

Pistolero is also a great example of the cowboys as schoolboys theme that runs through the Spaghetti Western. These ruthless killers spend more time teasing, scrapping and leching than actually doing any ruthless killing. Well, that's the boys for you, I guess.