Content: A coachload of dancers is forced to stop in Santa Anna, a lousy frontier village, because one of the girls (Dada Gallotti: whatta name, folx) is seriously sick. But Santa Anna has neither a doctor nor a warm welcome for the ladies. Fortunately saloon owner hunter has pity with the girls and lets them perform in his establishment for board and lodging. Furthermore there is nifty Rod (Pietro Martellanza), a former medical student, who has a closer look on the girls – initially solely medically. Things could work out fine, but unfortunately Santa Anna is bullied by El Diablo (German Cobos) and his mob, who raise as dubious as high “taxes”. If these can’t be paid, the bandidos take hostages, who they displace on a hidden ranch and who are killed, if the citizen resist Diablo’s orders. Lola (Lola Falana), head of the trippers, has a bunch of ideas to put a stop in the game of the goatish thug, but the inhabitants don’t have balls. As the mobsters kill a boy, Lola’s appeals however land on more fertile soil: Despite of her actual pacifistic tenor, she becomes the leader of a kind of militia to smoke out El Diablo and to liberate the hostages.
| The Gunslinger says: There’s only one aspect, which rises this joint above a weak SW-average: The main role is filled with a woman, the damn sweet Lola Falana. Apart from that this oeuvre hardly satisfy the standard. Whereas German Cobos is quite passable as the baddie and Tom Felleghy acquits himself well as lethargic Grande, the efforts of the rest are at most mediocre. Fortunuately Pietro Martellanza doesn’t do further damage, because he’s only supporting actor as Lola’s love interest, despite of being credited as second in the cast. Enzo Santaniello, playing poor little Paco, was bumped off one year later much more spectacular: In “Once upon the Time in the West” he was the son of Frank Wolff and killed by Henry Fonda in a remarkable scene.
With regard to the score, it’s to remark, that the main theme and its “branching offs” are a kind of funeral march, dominated by a trumpet, spiced up with electric and acoustic guitars. The rest … needs getting used to. We hear easy i.e. listening motives with organ, flute and guitar and of course the three songs, performed by Lola Falana, covering the band from groovy up-tempo soul to gospel. Highly unfitting, but quite amusing.
| Rating: $$+
| Bodycount: ca. 30
| Explicit Brutalities: - El Diablo’s men blow two crucified hostages up with dynamite
- Rod’s parents get a free lesson in advanced scrutinizing questioning by Diablo
| Luv': Rod flakes on the puritan spitfire Rose (Erna Schurer) in favour of hot-blooded Lola: 2/10
| Gore: 1/10
| Specials: Old Slim, gofer for the girls, is a passable archer
| Trailer (Lola's first Song): by donfardon70
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| OT:
Faccia a Faccia con El Diablo
Year: I 1967
D, S: Siro Marcellini
S: Luigi Angelo, Lamberto Antonelli
C: Giuseppe la Torre
M: Ubaldo Continiello
with: Lola Falana, Pietro Martellanza (“Peter Martell”), German Cobos, Tom Felleghy
 | Who leaves the field behind? Lola Falana ...
|  | ... or Erna Schurer?
|  | Pietro Martellanza groping Dada Gallotti
|  | Pietro Martellanza gets a good smoke by Tom Felleghy
|  | German Cobos, felling wuite comfortable as well
|  | Woe, if she is released: Lola Falana
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