The Unseen #1: A Minute To Pray A Second To Die

The Unseen #1: A Minute To Pray A Second To Die

Reason Bought: Are you kidding me it’s an Italian Western entitled A Minute To Pray A Second To Die. No way I could pass that up. Plus it’s RZA approved. And also under five dollars. Plus did you take a look at that poster? Did you?

Why Haven’t I Watched It Yet: I only picked it up fairly recently. Infact it was kind of the inspiration for this column.

How Was It?: Not very good. Which isn’t to say it was bad. Just mediocre. And no where near as fun as it’s lurid trashy title suggests it to be. A Programmer in the worst sense of the word. It’s as standard as a Spaghetti Western can be, without even a particularly developed sense of sadism to set it apart from the maddening crowd.

It’s a standard story of an Outlaw trying to go straight before a corrupt marshal or his epilepsy can kill him. Along the way he romances a senorita and kills an awful lot of men in hats. But it all feels perfunctory.

Robert Ryan comes in to pinch hit at the end, and he livens things up with his always welcome "weathered bad ass mother fucker"presence. But it’s a case of too little too late and his roll is little more then a cameo. Arthur Kennedy comes in to chew the scenery as the villain, and he’s always fun too, but Alex Cord makes for a frankly boring hero and the director, Franco Giruldi doesn’t bring anything special to the film.

There are a few nice moments of badassery, a scene where Cord makes a man whose son he’s just killed give him a shave is particularly nice touch. But I have yet to see a Spaghetti Western that doesn’t and in the end there’s just not enough here to let me recommend anyone seeking this film out.