Crew
Director – Albert Zugsmith, Screenplay – Blair Robertson & Albert Zugsmith, Producer – Armando Le Molle, Photography – Gabriel Figueroa, Music – Gustavo C. Carrion. Production Company – Famous Players International Corporation/Sagitario Films S.A..
Cast
Troy Donahue (Philip Phillips), Carlos Rivas (Big Sam), German Robles (Cold Steele), Sabrina (Margie), Pedro Armendariz (Brains Brawn), Tun Tun (Oscar the Mooch), Elizabeth Campbell (Cookie)
Plot
The tiny town of Yucca Flats is invaded and taken over by the gang of bandits known as The Terrible Seven. The sheriff flees town and places his badge in the hands of naïve divinity student Philip Phillips. Philip bumbles his way through trying to drive the gang out of town. During the course of this, he is shot and sent to Heaven only to insist on being sent back so that he can save the town.
Albert Zugsmith (1910-1993) was a director who emerged as a producer in the 1950s. Before becoming a director, Zugsmith produced films such as Captive Women (1952), Invasion USA (1952), Port Sinister (1953), The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), High School Confidential (1958), The Beat Generation (1959) and Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (1958). Zugsmith made his directorial debut as co-director of College Confidential (1960) and then as solo director of the Mamie Van Doren starring Sex Kittens Go to College (1960), which does contain sf elements, followed by the likes of The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960) and assorted other works, often with a risqué focus, plus a couple of obscure horror films with The Cult (1971) and Violated! (1975).
The Phantom Gunslinger was shot in 1967, but the film itself was not released until 1970. Zugsmith appears to have gone on location to Mexico, shooting at the famous Churubusco Studio and including a number of well-known Mexican actors of the day. Watching The Phantom Gunslinger, it is immediately apparent as to why it sat on the shelf for three years – it is such a mad slapstick film that any studio exec in the screening room must have wondered if they had accidentally imbibed hallucinogens. This starts from the opening narration, which sounds as though it is voiced by a lisping imbecile who is saying everything in a high voice, to the exploits as we tour the town where people are tripping over themselves and bumbling about, all accompanied by cartoon whee and whistling sound effects.
The Phantom Gunslinger then heads straight for slapstick and maintains itself there for the next 99 minutes at a frenetic level that is exhausting to watch. There are a mind-boggling array of sequences that go on for minutes at a time with bandit Carlos Rivas drinking and eating everything in the saloon, ending with him laying back as a jet of beer shoots across the room from a puncture in the barrel and the serving girls bring him and the dwarf bandit Tun Tun platters and entire tables of food, all amid a great deal of wild revelry. There is an all-out fight in the streets that involves much madcap slapstick, including two people fighting during which they shred a feather bed, someone throwing frying pans that fly around a corner to clonk others on the head, and Troy Donahue placing springs on his shoes and bouncing about (where there are several shots in which you can clearly see the wires lifting him up).
The latter third of the show introduces some wacky fantastical elements. This includes repeated scenes where Troy Donahue is shot and then arrives in Heaven to encounter St Peter (who for some reason speaks with an Irish accent and spouts numerous anachronisms) and pleads to be sent back down to Earth to finish the job. The final scenes of the film have assorted characters end up in Hell. Here we find that German Robles, who plays the bandit Cold Steele, is in fact The Devil.
Full film available here