An enigmatic loner (Franco Nero), traveling alone through the desert and dragging a coffin by his back, stumbles upon a woman being tortured by a gang of soldiers, saves her life, but finds himself the target of their barbarous leader. After being betrayed by a separate band Mexican rebels, he must devise a plan to pit the two factions against each other. Sergio Corbucci's Spaghetti Western, which inspired a series of successors, is cheeseball central and not even the fun variety. Django is an ultra violent, unabashed Sergio Leone ripoff, replete with a graveyard showdown finale and a "man with no name" lead character whose only difference is that he tells the audience everything that Clint Eastwood's iconic antihero was thinking. Seeking this out after watching Django Unchained, I can't see what inspired Quentin Tarantino to craft his considerable film (there's also other probable seeds of inspiration here, including a graphic ear severing sequence), but the best thing I can say about Corbucci's film is that it inspired at least one worthy incarnation.
