Cult film-maker Corbucci's rarest of his thirteen Spaghetti Westerns (of which I'm only left with WHAT AM I DOING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE REVOLUTION [1972] to catch) is one I only became aware of fairly recently via Marco Giusti's "Stracult" guide; it's an atypically bleak genre gem in the style of the director's own masterpiece, THE GREAT SILENCE (1968),complete with desolate snowy landscapes.

Johnny Hallyday, the French Elvis Presley, whom I first saw in Jean-Luc Godard's DETECTIVE (1985) is a curious but highly effective choice to play the loner anti-hero Hud (who, like Clint Eastwood's The Man With No Name from Sergio Leone's celebrated "Dollars Trilogy", is fitted with a steel-plate armor for protection); incidentally, I had 'met' Hallyday's stunning daughter Laura Smet at the 2004 Venice Film Festival but was distracted by the presence of her esteemed director, Claude Chabrol! Gastone Moschin is another curious addition to the fold (serving pretty much the same function that Frank Wolff did in THE GREAT SILENCE) but acquits himself well and is amusingly clumsy in the presence of a bathing Francoise Fabian; the latter, then, plays a greedy nymphomaniac of a banker's widow who seduces all and sundry in the pursuit of her goals. Sylvie Fennec has the other major female role as a farm girl looked after by Hallyday and who, at one point, is entreated into Free Love by 'hippie' Apache Gabriella Tavernese (with this is mind, it's worth noting that the movie features surprising but welcome bouts of nudity from both Fabian and Tavernese)! Incidentally, the anachronistic addition of a bunch of long-haired youths (who also engage in dope-smoking and revolutionary talk) is a somewhat half-baked attempt at contemporary relevance – but it all eventually adds to the fun (besides, even the black barmaid sports an Afro hairdo!).

Mario Adorf, too, enjoys himself tremendously with the smallish role of a larger-than-life Mexican bandit nicknamed "El Diablo" – who keeps a youthful biographer constantly by his side (an element which may have influenced Clint Eastwood's UNFORGIVEN [1992]) and, at one point, challenges the captive Moschin to a head-butting duel! Having mentioned this, the film also contains one very unusual 'weapon of death' – as Hallyday disposes of an adversary by kicking the cash-register of the saloon into his face! As always, the enjoyably fake fistfights are accompanied by over-emphatic sound effects; equally typically for the genre, however, the wistful score by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino emerges a most significant asset. Actually, the ambiguous ending is entirely in keeping with the film's generally somber tone – after Fabian's comeuppance at the hands of the locals, the hippies (who had previously idolized Hud) suddenly turn against him when wounded and terrorize the town (forcing everyone on the street and unclothed)…but the unflappable gunman manages to lift himself up to meet their challenge (they, however, scurry away at the prospect of facing him!) and then rides out of town, leaving Fennec behind.

In conclusion, I acquired this via a good-quality Widescreen print in Italian albeit with French credits and the occasional lapse – about one minute of screen-time in all – into the French language (where, apparently, the original soundtrack wasn't available).

I do not know why this film is called the specialists, does anyone know? There are no specialists in the film, not even one! The film is clearly inspired by Sergio Leone's creation but it's not at the height of the absolute master of Western, actually it's far from that. Gastone Moschin and Francoise Fabian are very good actors, though they have nothing in common with the Western genre, they are very good in Comedy and Drama. Mario Adorf, the best actor of all in this film, is here in his worst role. Finally, Johnny Halliday is a very good singer, but, exactly like Mick Jagger, he didn't had anything in common with the movies. One star each, just for their great performances in other films, for Fabian, Moschin and Adorf.

The whole town of Blackstone is afraid, because they lynched Bret Dixon's brother - and he is coming back for revenge! At least that's what they think.

A great Johnny Hallyday and a very interesting, early Mario Adorf star in this Italo-Western, obviously filmed in the Alps.

Bret Dixon is coming back to Blackstone to investigate why his brother was lynched. He is a loner and gunslinger par excellance, everybody is afraid of him - the Mexican bandits (fighting the Gringos that took their land!) as well as the "decent" citizens that lynched Bret's brother. They lynched him, because they thought he stole their money instead of bringing it to Dallas to the safety of the bank there. But this is is only half the truth, as we find out in the course of this psychologically interesting western.

But beware, it's kind of a depressing movie as everybody turns out to be guilty somehow and definitely everybody is bad to the bone...

Still, I enjoyed it very much and gave it an 8/10. Strange, that only less than 5 people voted for this movie as of January 12th 2002....