Character Basis
Gianni Garko played a character named Sartana in the 1967 Spaghetti Western, Mille dollari sul nero (also known as Blood at Sundown). This "pre-Sartana" is the evil brother of the hero and wears a Union army jacket, not a suit. According to Garko this film was very successful in Germany using the title "Sartana" and the film producer Aldo Addobbati contracted him to play a hero with that name in a new film. Garko rejected some scripts with vengeance stories and instead suggested that a hero using cunning and motivated by money, not passion, would be more in line with the current audience taste. The trick weapons and other gadgets used by Sartana, and the mystery surrounding the character were contributions from the director Parolini, who was inspired by James Bond movies and also by the cartoon Mandrake the Magician.
The Sartana character has a certain affinity with the Man with No Name hero of Sergio Leone's first western A Fistful of Dollars in as far as he gives or sells (false) information that is designed to pit the other parties against each other and promote his own interests. However, he is still more close to Colonel Mortimer, the second protagonist in Leone's next Western, For a Few Dollars More. For example, Mortimer also has a set of special weapons, including a derringer which also is the choice weapon of Sartana. Furthermore, Mortimer carries a mystery, a secret vengeance motive. In terms of dress code, the Sartana hero also follows Col. Mortimer closely, except that the suite of Sartana is a bit more elegant in accordance with his more elegant social surroundings - establishments with lush interiors complete with saloon girls in long dresses and can-can dancing - compared to more mundane interiors in Leone's Westerns.
The story lines of the original Sartana films – with their frantic row of betrayals – owe a lot to Sergio Leone's third Western, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Besides the original Sartana cycle, this film inspired several other Spaghetti Westerns featuring multiple betrayals though none of them presented such a charismatic main character.
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