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Lola Colt
Lola Colt: Faccia a Faccia con El Diablo / Black Tigress / Lola Baby / Face to Face with El Diablo / Lola Colt ... Sie spuckt dem Teufel ins Gesicht
Italy 1967
produced by Aldo Pace for Cines Europea
directed by Siro Marcellini
starring Lola Falana, Peter Martell (= Piero Martellanza), Germán Cobos, Tom Felleghy, Evar Maran, Erna Schurer, Dada Gallotti, Marilena Possenti, Giovanni Petti, Bernard Berat, Alex Antonelli, Franco Daddi, Eva Inoka, Carlo Davini, Attilio Corsini, Lea Monaco, Giovanni Ivan Scratuglia, Enzo Santaniello, Franco Balducci, Andrea Scotti
written by Luigi Angelo, Lamberto Antonelli, Siro Marcellini, music by Ubaldo Continiello
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Because fellow showgirl Virginia (Dada Gallotti) has come down with
malaria, Lola (Lola Falana) and her troupe see themselves forced to make a
stop at a godforsaken little down out West, a town where they don't like
"their kind" - showgirls that is. Still, the girls find shelter
(and a place to work) at the local saloon. The town though is under the
evil rule of El Diablo (Germán Cobos), who has enslaved several of the
townsfolks and keeps them hostage at a secret location - which is of
course exactly why the locals don't rebel against him. Lola though will
have none of this, she intends to spearhead an uprising of upright
citizens, so she gets El Diablo interested in her, lets him take her to
her secret hideout, tries to lure him into a trap ... and fails. Rather
naively, El Diablo lets her get away with a warning though. Lola's
actions though have sparked the courage of one man, local doctor wannabe
Rod (Peter Martell), who can soon be seen fighting El Diablo's men one by
one - until El Diablo gets so enraged he mounts an expedition just to find
him and smoke him out ... which is exactly what Lola has been waiting for,
so she gathers the locals, attacks El Diablo's headquarters, frees the
slaves - and when El Diablo returns to his hideout, he finds himself
fighting a losing battle. And he finds Rod, the man who has been looking
for, being one of Lola's fiercest fighters. The two are battling it out of
course, and Rod blows up El Diablo in the end. Once El Diablo and gang
are defeated, Lola receives a heroine's welcome back in town - but now her
work is done and her friend's malaria is cured (thanks to Rod), she and
her troupe move on. But of course, she gets the man (Rod) in the end. A
spaghetti Western featuring a black heroine who also sings a few very
funky Italian language tunes in very skimpy outfits - now that sounds like
a surefire winner. The film though is anything but: In writing it might at
least seem like a precursor of the blaxploitation genre, but actually the
film is more reminiscent of Hollywood B-Westerns more than anything else,
also due to its very flat cardboard characters, it's too-obvious-to-miss
good vs evil dichotomy, and its rather indifferent directorial effort. But
worst of all, despite its rather entertaining synopsis, the film is no fun
at all - well, at least the funk-tunes are cool in a retro sort of way and
are refreshingly out of place in a Western, but that's not enough to save
the movie ...
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