Texas (1969) (aka: The Price of Power) Giuliano Gemma, Warren Vanders, María Cuadra, Fernando Rey Movie Review

Texas (1969)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Giuliano Gemma in Texas (1969) (aka: The Price of Power)

A Spaghetti Assassination

It's been 16 years since the end of the Civil War and whilst things progress some people are still living in the past, longing to reinstall the Confederacy. President James Garfield is a man in favour of progression and is looking to abolish slavery, not something which sits comfortably with some in Dallas, Texas which is why when he decides to visit he knows he is putting his life in danger. With a plot afoot to assassinate the President, Bill Willer (Giuliano Gemma) and his friends, Jack Donovan (Ray Saunders) and Nick (Manuel Zarzo) set about preventing it from going ahead.

The truth is that when I come across a Spaghetti western I watch because my expectations are not much, a typical grizzled lone gunman who takes down the bad guys whilst staring out from beneath the rim of his hat. Whilst of course visually you have the actors mouths never quite matching up with dialogue. So when I started to watch "Texas", which also goes by the name of "The Price of Power" I was a bit thrown by the surprising amount of exposition going on as the audience is thrown it at the deep end when it comes to the storyline, quite simply if you haven't read a synopsis before hand you will be a bit at a loss for around half an hour. The thing is that once you have dealt with what feels like a lot of waffle "Texas" becomes a lot simpler as we have some bad guys plotting to assassinate the President and then a trio of friends trying to prevent it. And that is when if you have read that this movie is an allegory about the President Kennedy assassination that it all becomes clear and even quite tense at one point.

Now in fairness "Texas" has a superior storyline than you usually get from a spaghetti western but as I said it is not what I tend to want from these types of movie and once you look past its creative set up and what feels like far too much waffle what you have left is a solid but not great movie. In fact there is little you will remember about this movie after you have watched other than maybe some creative camera work as we have overlays to make someone standing in the rear of a shot as well in the front looking wrong by both being in focus. Okay so may you also remember a not so great musical number involving a woman draped in the stars performing in front of the stripes but this isn't a visually memorable western.

What this all boils down to is that if what you want from a spaghetti western is depth then "Texas" probably will have you enthralled. But if you watch spaghetti westerns for the bad bits, the poor dubbing and bad humour then the talkative nature of "Texas" may end up putting you off.


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