Western hero Sartana joins Django and "The Man with No Name" in claiming American and UK recognition with THE COMPLETE SARTANA five-disc Blu-ray set from Arrow Video.

While attempting to foil the robbery of a wealthy couple travelling across the desert – killing all the bandits but ringleader Morgan (Klaus Kinski, CRAWLSPACE) in the process, Sartana (Gianni Garko, THE PSYCHIC) lights upon an opportunity in IF YOU MEET SARTANA PRAY FOR YOUR DEATH. He subsequently witnesses Mexican bandidos robbing a stagecoach and then double-crossed by Morgan's gatling gun-toting partner Lasky (William Berger, DIAL: HELP) who has been collaborating on an insurance fraud scam with bankers Stewal (Sydney Chaplin, SATAN'S CHEERLEADERS) and Alman (Gianni Rizzo, THE NAME OF THE ROSE) to not only collect on the stolen loot but also to fool General Tampico (Fernando Sancho, RETURN OF THE BLIND DEAD) into thinking the bandidos double-crossed him when stealing money as arranged by the bankers. When Lasky discovers that a strongbox of rocks in the place of the money, he starts blackmailing the bankers who are also threatened by the Tampico even before scrounging "hyena" Sartana makes himself known and his intentions for a cut of the missing money; setting the stage for a series of double- and triple-crossings as each side attempts to use someone else to get rid of one enemy or another.

Combining the Grim Reaper-ish aspect of Django and the moral ambiguity of The Man with No Name, Spaghetti Western hero Sartana distinguished himself as a character acknowledged by the characters as being "a gringo who thinks with his brain," employing psychological tricks against his enemies. What at first appears to be a steal from FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE with Sartana carrying around musical pocket watch turns out to be a knowing ploy as he uses the tune to unnerve those who recognize its significance. An attempt to spin-off a new western series character based on the success of a prior film featuring a like-named character also essayed by Garko, IF YOU MEET SARTANA PRAY FOR YOUR DEATH is a bit of a messy grab bag of spaghetti western elements from innovative ways to cheat at poker, impossible shooting feats, several against one ambushes in which Sartana comes out the victor, to particulars like Lasky's Gatling Gun and Morgan's preference for knives to guns. Perhaps the least effective element is Sartana's proclamations like "I am your undertaker" when asked who he is; however, the finale amps up the gothic elements with a strikingly-lit confrontation in a barn full of coffins in which the shooting skills of the hero cause one villain to topple into a coffin and a wreath to drop onto his head. The two female characters – Alman's wife (Maria Pia Conte, THE HANGING WOMAN) and the mayor's widow (Sabine Sun, COLD SWEAT) – are opportunistic and duplicitous, and the rest of the series offers few females not of the "love 'em and leave 'em" type. Professional "old timer" Franco Pesce – who would appear throughout the series – plays the gravedigger Dusty who knows to stick close to Sartana who ensures him regular business. The loungy scoring of Piero Piccioni (CAMILLE 2000) at first seems inappropriate until the audience lights upon the playfulness of the plot and character machinations, and director Gianfranco Parolini (KISS KISS, KILL KILL) keeps things moving in a rough and tumble fashion aided by the photography of Sandro Mancori (ARK OF THE SUN GOD).

In I AM SARTANA, YOUR ANGEL OF DEATH, Sartana (Garko) is a wanted man after the robbery of $300,000 dollars from the North Western Bank. Although he was positively identified by the bank manager, Sartana himself makes an appearance and ascertains that the man only saw his trademark getup and the supposedly one-of-a-kind cylinder from his gun left behind at the scene. Dogged by various bounty hunters eager to collect the $10,000 reward on his head – among them "Southern gentleman" Deguejo (Gordon Mitchell, BLOOD DELIRIUM), Indian Shadow (José Torres, FACE TO FACE), inveterate gambler Hot Dead (Kinski again), and a host of amateurs – Sartana seeks leads from Buddy Ben (Frank Wolff, THE LICKERISH QUARTET) but discovers that someone is one step ahead of him and eliminating anyone who might know who was really behind the bank robbery. Eventually, Sartana finds himself in the gambling town of Poker Falls where the sheriff (Sal Borgese, THE BLACK CORSAIR) presides over duels in the church whenever anyone accuses big casino owner Baxter Red (Ettore Manni, RABID DOGS) of cheating them, and soon someone is out to silence Sartana before he discovers the whereabouts of the missing money.

The considerably slicker I AM SARTANA finds Giuliano Carnimeo (THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS) taking over for the rest of the series – which would be shot in standard Techniscope – working from a more cohesive script by Tito Carpi (TENTACLES) and Ernesto Gastaldi (THE CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL) along with more rhythmic editing to the standoffs by Ornella Micheli (DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING), a Riz Ortolani-esque score by Elsio Mancuso (BURIAL GROUND) and Vasili Kojucharov (THE DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT), and the use of disorienting canted angles throughout the rest of the series and not confined to this film's cinematographer Giovanni Bergamini (THE FOX WITH THE VELVET TAIL). The tone is more playful but not comic, and the climax in a darkened church in which an organ plays by itself to unsettle the villains blatantly reveals such theatrics to be just that as part of Sartana's puts across as the human embodiment of death (the film's alternate English title is SARTANA THE GRAVEDIGGER).

In SARTANA'S HERE... TRADE YOUR PISTOL FOR A COFFIN!, Sartana (George Hilton, ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK) is bounty-hunter-as-scrounger, coming across the body of a wanted man as part of a gang killed by Mexican bandidos while trying to rob a shipment of gold dust which turned out to have been replaced by sand. Following the bandidos back to their village, Sartana does a good deed by freeing a woman and her child held by the men for their leader Mantas (Nello Pazzafini, BEAST WITH A GUN) and discovers that the gold dust is being mined in the town of Appaloosa. Upon arrival, he discovers from the mine's owner Spencer (Piero Lulli, KILL BABY KILL) that three shipments have failed to reach Dodge City, and he has been unable to pay the miners as a result. Sartana offers to ride with the next shipment despite the objections of Spencer's second Baxter (Carlo Gaddi, VIOLENT NAPLES) who is planning to double cross his boss with Mantas. After men sent by Mantas to kill Sartana fatally fail, he puts it on Baxter to get rid of Sartana. Saloon keeper Trixie (Erika Blanc, THE DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE) approaches Sartana with the desire to keep the gold dust in Appaloosa so that the locals will have the money to spend in her establishment. While the professional killers he hires (DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT's Luciano Rossi and SPIRITS OF THE DEAD's Federico Boido) are sent packing by dandy Sabbath (Charles Southwood, ROY COLT & WINCHESTER JACK), the man's professional rivalry with Sartana seems like the perfect setup to eliminate all the other players and keep the gold dust which never left Appaloosa.

Hilton makes for a more playful Sartana but SARTANA'S HERE... becomes rather monotonous in its latter half once the novelty of Sartana shooting people through bread loaves, his hat, and even his boot wears off. Indeed, it almost seems as if the introduction at the forty-five minute mark of Sabbath – presumably a joking reference to Parolini's Sabata series – was intended to lighten things up, but his sleight of hand tricks seem like an imitation of Sartana's and we are still certain that things are going to go our hero's way no matter how much more formidable the script tries to make its foes. The supporting cast also includes Aldo Barberito (SEVEN BLOOD-STAINED ORCHIDS) as the local bartender, and John Bartha (CANNIBAL FEROX) as the town sheriff. Scoring responsibilities this time around go to Francesco de Masi (NEW YORK RIPPER), and the results are in keeping with the lighthearted tone, while the cinematography is the work of Stelvio Massi, who also photographed Carnimeo's THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS (which also starred Hilton).

Garko is back for HAVE A GOOD FUNERAL, MY FRIEND... SARTANA WILL PAY, the best of the series, in which he comes too late upon the homestead of prospector Joe Benson (Attilio Dottesio, DEATH SMILES ON THE MURDERER) who was deemed crazy by the locals for trying to unload his worthless land for $10,000 only to be murdered at the order of someone who realized that the man was hiding a goldmine on his property. Sartana kills the hired guns and arranges for their funerals as a message to those he suspects of being responsible. As expected, he then sets about playing parties against one another: banker Hoffman (Antonio Vilar) who is willing to pay twice the price to Benson's pretty niece and beneficiary Abigail (Daniela Giordano, INQUISITION), the town sheriff (Luis Induni, NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST), snooping innkeeper Mary (Helga Liné, HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB), and Confucius-misquoting gambling house owner Lee Tse Tung (George Wang, THE 10TH VICTIM) who is also willing to pay more than the land is worth. Attempts on his life by the likes of sheriff's deputy Blackie (Ivano Staccioli, DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT), a dealer (Franco Ressel, BLOOD AND BLACK LACE) whose cheating Sartana exposed – along with his vengeful quartet of brothers (Federico Boido again, THE PERFECT KILLER's Jean-Pierre Clarain, STREET LAW's Rocco Lerro, and THE BIG RACKET's Roberto Dell'Acqua) after he is murdered – and Colorado Joe (Aldo Berti, AN ANGEL FOR SATAN), and Sartana creates plenty of business for returning undertaker Pesce.

There is nothing new in the plot of HAVE A GOOD FUNERAL, but the recycling and reordering of familiar elements – and the novel introduction of some retrograde Asian stereotypes – is more pleasing and entertaining than in the prior entry. Looking a bit more grizzled, Garko's returning Sartana seems to have atypically taken up the task of avenging a friend; however, the promise of goldmine makes the easy hookup between Sartana and Abigail suspect. The supporting cast of suspects do more than mark time, with Line given more opportunities than Blanc in the previous film for dramatics, and the stage is set for finale full of pyrotechnics and Sartana actually caught off guard for once before turning over the final card and revealing a twist that actually makes sense in keeping with the character of Sartana. Giordano's heiress is also the series only principal female with some depth. Once again, the Techniscope photography of Massi is expertly employed with handheld photography invigorating the action and objects in the foreground or background keeping the compositions busy. The score for HAVE A GOOD FUNERAL is also the series' most Morricone-esque, which should be no surprise since it was by Morricone's arranger Bruno Nicolai (DE SADE '70) and the main theme appears to riff on the instrumentation of THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

The final film in the series is LIGHT THE FUSE... SARTANA IS COMING in which Sartana executives three "lawmen" – who have just murdered the town judge and his daughter – and takes them to the nearby penitentiary as a means of infiltrating it as an inmate to bust out Granville (Piero Lulli, DJANGO KILL... IF YOU LIVE, SHOOT!) who claims that he has been set up or the murder of Joe Manassas, the brother of Mansfield sheriff Jim Manassas (Massimo Serato, BLOODSTAINED SHADOW), in order to discover the location of half-a-million in gold and two million in perfect counterfeit notes that disappeared during a trade gone bad bartered by Granville's casino partner Johnson between Joe and a representative of Monk (José Jaspe, HORROR EXPRESS), a dealer in men and munitions who keeps a militia in a desert camp outside the town. Granville only reveals after they have busted out that he does not know where the gold is, so they separate and Sartana rides into Mansfield with a pipe organ and a price on his head to play each of the greedy parties against one another, from the sheriff and Monk to duplicitous deputy One Eye (Frank Brana, RETURN OF THE EVIL DEAD), new casino owner O'Brady (Clay Slegger) who makes the unfortunate boast that he is a faster gun than Sartana one too many times, and "The Polack" (Bruno Corazzari, THE PSYCHIC) who is bedding Johnson's widow Belle (Susan Scott, EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS) who also wants to recover the gold and the notes, and a vengeful Granville himself when Sartana sends the sheriff and Monk his way. Local village undertaker Plon Plon (Pesce again) is murdered as soon as he figure out the whereabouts of the gold; however, he leaves behind his clockwork wonder Alfie to give Sartana a hand.

LIGHT THE FUSE… is a typically busy Sartana entry but one can see why it was the last of the official series – like Django and Ringo, Sartana's name found itself in Italian westerns with like characters as well as into German retitlings of unrelated westerns – as it feels more and more like a series of scenes of Sartana sending others on wild goose chases before a climax which anticipates some of the sillier turns of the Roger Moore era bond films. More screen time for the gorgeous Scott and more to do for character actor Lulli are things to savor, as is the film's more overt anti-authoritarian take with the sadism at the penitentiary and the sheriff as a principal villain rather than a sniveling underling to a banker (and Serato is oh so good at playing slimy characters even if one does not entirely buy him as a western tough guy). With Luciano Martino (MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD) in the producer's chair, the film has a more rustic look with Spanish location work and somewhat more workmanlike Techniscope photography credited to Julio Ortas (TERROR IN THE CRYPT) that is not quite as striking as Massi's entries. Nicolai once again contributes a Morricone-esque score, this time aptly seeming to ape "The Ecstasy of Gold" from THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.

Largely unavailable stateside apart from some dubious DVD releases – including Wild East's disc which anamorphically enhanced a non-anamorphic master – IF YOU MEET SARTANA comes to Blu-ray in a 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen transfer from a 2K scan of "original film materials" which are not being free from myriad damage including some minor and one major emulsion scratch along with the in-camera scratches that are generally indicative of a low budget and somewhat careless production. The damage is fleeting and generally not distracting, and the image underneath is a bit more contrasty than negative-sourced sequels but perfectly watchable. The Carnimeo films in the series are 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen encodes from 2K scans of the original Techniscope camera negatives and look more consistent in appearance, retaining grain but free of distracting damage or the scanner noise. All of the presentations have Italian-language credits, while SARTANA'S HERE is the only one of the set to utilize branching for English credits when the English track is chosen (viewers can toggle back and forth with their player's angle button). All five films feature both English and Italian dubs in LPCM 1.0 along with English subtitles for the Italian tracks and English SDH subtitles for the English ones. The tracks do reveal differences between the dubs (Giordano's character in HAVE A NICE FUNERAL is Jasmine on the Italian track and Abigail on the English).

IF YOU MEET SARTANA PRAY FOR YOUR DEATH is accompanied by an audio commentary by filmmaker and Cinema Retro writer Mike Siegel who traces the Sartana character's origins to the Italian/German western $1,000 ON THE BLACK – released in the UK as BLOOD AT SUNDOWN but not to be confused with the Spanish/Italian western of the same title that also starred Anthony Steffen (THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE) – in which Garko played a villainous character named Sartana who was Cain to Steffen's Abel. The film was released as SARTANA in Germany and was popular enough that Italian producer Aldo Addobbati (AFRIKA) signed Garko to a contract and teamed up with German producer Theo Maria Werner to do a Sartana series with Garko as the hero. Werner's involvement lead to Parolini behind the camera since he had already lensed the Komissar X films for Werner. Siegel also notes that, despite the associations of Sartana's character with death and the devil in the film, Garko patterned his character along the lines of Clint Eastwood's "Man with No Name." Siegel also discusses Parolini's directorial touches and voices his opinion about how the film suffers from being shot entirely in Italy at Elios Studios' backlot with none of the Almeria vistas from other spaghetti westerns. I AM SARTANA, YOUR ANGEL OF DEATH is accompanied by an audio commentary by Spaghetti Western experts C. Courtney Joyner and Henry Parke in which they note that Garko registered his Sartana look to prevent imitations, and notes the influence of Mandrake the Magician on his character, while also contrasting the film's somber yet playful tone with the grimmer likes of THE GREAT SILENCE on the one hand, and the comical Trinity series. Joyner and Parke are back on HAVE A GOOD FUNERAL, MY FRIEND... SARTANA WILL PAY who rightfully claim this to be the highpoint of the series and suggest that it was a more expensive production than the others – although their primary example of well-lit night-for-night scenes seems like reaching, the day-for-night scenes in the other films are less visually striking – and they are generally knowledgeable about the crew and the cast apart from confuses Boido for Ressel.

IF YOU MEET SARTANA is accompanied by the video interview "If You Meet Frank Kramer..." (22:25) with Parolini who discusses his beginnings as an assistant director, his beginnings as a director in sword and sandal films – as well as his hope to mount another film in that genre that he believed would be a worldwide success – that the success of the Sartana film lead to his collaboration with producer Alberto Grimaldi (SALO) on the Sabata series. Parolini died shortly after this interview in April at age ninety-three. "Light the Fuse, Saranta's Casting" (16:43) is a visual essay by Jonathan Bygraves on the many familiar faces in the Sartana series, including leads Garko and Hilton, regulars Pesce, Borgese, Lulli, and Federico Boido (PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES), the series villains, and the starlets. I AM SARTANA includes "From the Life of a Stuntman" (24:18), an interview with actor and stuntman Borgese who discusses the difficulty of working as both an actor and a stuntman – making it clear that he does not regard a speaking part as a perk of coordinating and performing stunts (and that his insistence on being paid at an actor's rate sometimes had repercussions on subsequent projects) – and notes some of the high points of his career (including other work with Parolini, Antonio Margheriti, and French stunt driver Remy Julienne who coordinated stock shot car chases the would be incorporated into many a Eurocrime film). "Violent Tales for Kids" (19:10) is an interview with screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi (LIBIDO) focusing solely on his westerns starting with ARIZONA COLT which was mounted in the wake of the Sergio Leone westerns, and also including the aforementioned $1,000 ON THE BLACK where Sartana originated. It is a loose discussion, with Gastaldi rattling off opinions on his other westerns and charging Damiano Damiani (AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION) with "destroying" A GENIUS, TWO PARTNERS, AND A DUPE by not getting the humor.

SARTANA'S HERE... includes "Sartana Shoots First" (20:12) an interview with actor Hilton who recalls not wanting to do the film initially because Garko was a friend of his. He distinguishes his interpretation of the character from Garko's, placing his more in line with Terence Hill's Trinity as a way of generally looking for the humor in his parts regardless of genre. He also speaks of his friendships with Blanc and Lulli while the language barrier kept him from getting to know Southwood. In "Lady Colt" (29:21), actress Blanc recalls starring in photo-novels directed by Hilton before she was an actress, working on $1,000 ON THE BLACK with Steffen and Garko, and discusses her approach to acting on film and the stage. "A Very Good Job" (15:16) is an interview with interview with agent and actor Tony Askin who was a designer before he was laid off, which lead to his working as an actor – he plays one of Mantas' henchmen in the film – and deciding to become a talent agent with Rossi as one of his first clients. He also discusses getting work for other clients in films in which he usually had roles, including DEATH SMILES ON THE MURDERER where he played cadaver reanimated by Kinski.