Rating: **
Review Date: 1/24/21
Alternate Title: Giarrettiera Colt
Cast: Nicoletta Machiavelli, Claudio Camaso
A nameless French woman (Nicoletta Machiavelli) visits war-torn Mexico for reasons that aren't unexplained. She's a gambler and an excellent markswoman, although she cheats at cards with the aid of a midget that hides in her baby carriage. Who is he and what's his relationship with her? Who knows? He only shows up in two scenes and then he's gone and forgotten. The villain in the movie is a psychotic revolutionary bandit named Red (Claudio Camaso) whose ridiculous hair (wig?) makes him look like an extra on "Star Trek." He causes trouble for the Mexicans, the Americans, and the French, and even though our leading lady (nicknamed "Garter Colt") has at least a half dozen opportunities to kill him, she repeatedly just toys with him and lets him escape to unleash more mayhem. When he rides into town during the film's climactic gun battle, Garter Colt ignores him and decides to have sex with a French soldier while the sounds of gunfire and the screams of dying men surround her. There's also a sub-plot regarding a romance between another French soldier named Jean and a buxom redhead named Rosie, but it's completely baffling and utterly pointless. Rosie's fake freckles are also laughably awful. The film ends with Garter Colt somberly leaving town, looking for another place to gamble and more suckers to swindle.
I was excited to watch this movie, as it's rare to see a Spaghetti Western with a gun-toting female lead. Unfortunately, it's a complete illogical mess that looks like it was assembled from an unfinished script. Reportedly, there were numerous production problems and heated arguments between Nicoletta Machiavelli, her boyfriend producer, and the director, which probably resulted in the disappointing final product. The story is total nonsense and impossible to follow, and the humor is awkward and misplaced. Also, any movie with a talking parrot as a main character is headed for disaster. Sadly, the only good thing about the movie is Nicoletta Machiavelli, who is stunningly beautiful and offers up a satisfying amount of gratuitous cleavage. Unfortunately, she has very little to do, and only pulls out her gun a handful of times. The funniest moment is when someone tries to peek inside her baby carriage and she fires a warning shot at him, saying "don't wake the baby." Um... Ultimately, the film ends up being a pointless and confusing exercise in tedium, as you desperately try to figure out the director's intentions and why such a promising premise went so horribly astray.