Though only a handful of spaghetti Westerns are now familiar to American audiences, they were in distribution all over the U.S. during the late sixties. In barely a decade there were about 300 made, ranging from such classics as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) to bottom-of-the-barrel concoctions like Grandsons of Zorro (1975). One of the better examples, though, is The Hills Run Red (1966) which shows the genre in full gallop, complete with a musical score by the composer most associated with spaghetti Westerns, Ennio Morricone. Incidentally, the Italian title Un Fiume di dollari actually translates as "River of Dollars," obviously attempting to play off Sergio Leone's similarly titled films.

In The Hills Run Red, Thomas Hunter and Nando Gazzolo play two friends on their way home from the Civil War with a stolen payroll. Unfortunately they run into trouble when Hunter gets caught by the authorities while Gazzolo manages to escape. Several years later when Hunter is released from prison he finds that not only has Gazzolo taken all the loot and created his own mini-empire, he's managed to kill Hunter's wife. Can you spell "revenge"?

Though the lead roles went to Hunter and Gazzolo, their careers were brief and almost entirely in little-known European exploitation films. Better known are two of the supporting actors. Dan Duryea (as Getz) was in dozens of Hollywood films including Criss Cross (1949) and Winchester '73 (1950). Henry Silva's name may not be too familiar but you'll instantly recognize his pinched, skeletal look from such films as The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Ghost Dog (1999) and Sharky's Machine (1981) among the almost 100 films he's made. Nicoletta Machiavelli appeared in several other spaghetti Westerns like 1966's Navajo Joe (airing on TCM on June 23 at 8 pm ET) and A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die (1968). Machiavelli also worked with such high-profile directors as Hans-Jurgen Syberberg and Liliana Cavani.

Director Carlo Lizzani was in his mid-40s at the time, a former critic who worked his way through Italy's apprentice system while co-writing such classics as Germany Year Zero (1947) and Bitter Rice (1948), earning an Oscar nomination for the latter. As a director he contributed one segment to Love in the City (1953) alongside Antonioni and Fellini and though his Chronicle of Poor Lovers (1954) won a special award at Cannes it was banned by the Italian government. He did numerous films throughout Italy's busy sixties and seventies and is in fact still working today, having done a documentary about Visconti in 1999.

Producer: Luigi Carpentieri, Ermanno Donati
Director: Carlo Lizzani (as Lee W. Beaver)
Screenplay: Piero Regnoli (as Mario Pierotti)
Art Direction: Aurelio Crugnola
Cinematography: Antonio Secchi
Film Editing: Ornella Micheli
Original Music: Ennio Morricone
Cast: Thomas Hunter (Jerry Brewster), Henry Silva (Mendez), Dan Duryea (Getz), Nando Gazzolo (Ken Seagull), Nicoletta Machiavelli (Mary Ann).
C-89m. Letterboxed.

by Lang Thompson