Sartana - The Sartana Series

The Sartana Series

The original Sartana movies are:

• If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death (Italian: Se incontri Sartana prega per la tua morte) (1968) – played by Gianni Garko and directed by Parolini.
• I Am Sartana Your Angel of Death (Italian: Sono Sartana, il vostro becchino) (1969) – played by Gianni Garko and directed by Carnimeo.
• Have a Good Funeral, My Friend... Sartana Will Pay (Italian: Buon funerale, amigos!... paga * Sartana) (1970) – played by Gianni Garko and directed by Carnimeo.
• Light the Fuse... Sartana Is Coming (Italian: Una nuvola di polvere... un grido di morte... arriva Sartana) (1971) – played by Gianni Garko and directed by Carnimeo.
• Sartana's Here... Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin (Italian: C'è Sartana... vendi la pistola e comprati la bara) (1972) – played by George Hilton and directed by Carnimeo.

The Sartana character is consistent throughout the original series. He is dressed in a black suit with a vest, white shirt and tie and a long black coat and likes to frequent gambling houses. He is surrounded by mystery, and he also uses this mystery as a weapon to unnerve his opponents – a melody from the musical watch of a dead man coming from nowhere, and answering the door one finds a corpse or a coffin. One pursues Sartana and finds only his clothes. He suddenly appears where it is improbable, or even physically impossible.

He uses trick weapons, like a derringer with double chambers, smoke bombs, throwing knives and even a robot (named Alfie). He swings a watch of lead or shoots cannon balls and bullets from the pipes of an organ or uses playing cards as throwing weapons. He also employs elaborated set piece traps.

In If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death, where people are killing each other over an elusive shipment of gold, we never know for sure whether he is an insurance agent or he will keep the gold for himself. In I Am Sartana Your Angel of Death he is framed for a bank robbery and hunted by bounty killers but after exposing the real guilty party (the banker himself) Sartana (and his partner) leave with the loot. Similarly, in the other original Sartana films the characters are motivated by money and it always ends up in the hands of Sartana - who might share it with someone else.

The original Sartana films have a high body count and much action. For example, during the 90 minutes of If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death, at least 80 persons are killed, including all the named characters except Sartana and his sidekick, the town undertaker! In this and the other Parolini/Carnimeo films, Sartana is confronted by one or several town bosses (male or female) and also a leader of a (most often Mexican) gang, as well as gunmen arriving to challenge him. There is also a gunfighter (most often blond and blue-eyed) that is almost the equal of Sartana. The latter may have a friend that assists him, but otherwise all parties successively ally with and betray each other in order to obtain some monetary object.