Director: Giorgio Gentili, Luciano Lelli               
Cast: Tom Bosley, Guy Madison, Riccardo Garrone

I think that most, if not all of us, have at one point or another dreamed of being involved in the world of filmmaking. There is the dream of making your own films, of course. But I think all of us have also dreamed at some point of being involved in films that have already been made. Specifically, we have dreamed of what we would have done differently had we been involved in the filmmaking process. For some time now, I have dreamed what I would have done if I had edited Star Wars. This is what I would have done at the climatic sequence: When Luke Skywalker is ready to fire at the target at the end of the trench, I would cut to the earlier footage when the target was fired on before, but it was a miss. Then I would cut to the even earlier footage when the Death Star's main weapon was activated, and fired on Princess Leia's home planet, destroying it. (Of course, it would seem at this point that the rebel base planet that the X-Wing fighters took off from had been destroyed.) Next, I would cut to the brief footage from earlier in the climatic battle that showed Luke's sad reaction when one of his fellow fighters had been killed in battle. Right after that, I would cut to earlier footage of Darth Vader's spacefighter swooping into the frame (obviously, he had just recovered from Han Solo's attack), then cockpit footage of Vader locking in his laser sights on an X-Wing fighter from earlier in the movie. I would then end the sequence with earlier footage of Darth Vader firing on, and blowing up an X-Wing fighter - though with the way the footage is put together, it would seem this time that Luke Skywalker was being killed. Cut to the closing credits.

Another movie that I wish I could have edited is the classic Frank Capra movie It's A Wonderful Life. I would have kept the movie just as it is until the part where the suicidal-thinking George Bailey gets to the bridge and looks to the waters below. Then right before Clarence the angel appears, I would cut to footage of Clarence falling into the water below. It's hard to make out who is falling in the footage, so it would look like George Bailey jumped into the water. The movie would end right there. I know that with today's home computer technology, I could edit these movies just like I described them and post them on YouTube, but I'm not technically knowledgeable to do so. (If you want to do these edits and post them, feel free to do so. All I ask is that you credit me and my web site in the clips.) Anyway, not only am I sure that like me, you have dreamed of changing movies, I am sure that you have dreamed of movie projects that would mix elements of several movies together in one film. I am sure I'm not the first person to suggest this, but I would like to propose a project that I call Star Trek Wars. It would begin with the Enterprise and its crew after those pesky Klingons. During their pursuit, the Enterprise accidentally gets into a time warp. As the crew picks themselves up after the warp, Captain Kirk asks Spock where they are. Spock responds, "Captain, it appears to be a long time ago... in a galaxy far away." In a short time, they join with the Star Wars rebels, who are battling the Imperial's new weapon, Death Star 1.5.  The climatic battle with it is easy - Kirk figures out if they move to the side of the Death Star without the planet-busting lasers, they can bombard it with ease and stay safe.

As awful (and blasphemous) as that idea may sound to you, even if you are not a die hard fan of Star Trek or Star Wars, I can say with full confidence that this is not the weirdest combination of radically different elements that there has been in the history of film projects, both proposed and projects that were actually filmed. There have been plenty of times when filmmakers have thought, "Hey, this works, and so does this. So putting them both together should make a movie twice as good!" In fact, I have actually reviewed at this site some movies that have combined radically different elements. The High Crusade combined medieval times with aliens from outer space, and so did Star Knight - and neither of those movies worked. I'm not saying that the combination of radically different elements never works. The classic spaghetti western Django had a character with a machine gun from several decades later, and that movie worked. So when I came across the western The Bang Bang Kid, I was willing to give it a chance, even though its combination was even stranger-sounding than the one in Django. The setting of The Bang Bang Kid is the year 1899 in the small town of Limerick, Montana.  For a long time now, the citizens of Limerick have been terrorized by "Bear" Bullock (Madison, Adventures Of Wild Bill Hickok), who has bought up the town and the surrounding area, and keeps his power thanks to his henchman "Killer" Kossock (Garrone), who kills anyone who challenges Bullock's law. Then one day, a fellow by the name of Merriweather (Bosley, Happy Days) rides into town and offers his help, having brought with him a useful gadget he's built... a gunslinging robot.

While Django filmed its combination of the old west and more modern machine guns with dead seriousness, The Bang Bang Kid on the other hand (as you've probably guessed) takes things more lightly, enough to be safely labeled as a comedy. That decision to make this movie humorous was probably a good thing, because I have a hard time picturing this premise done in a serious manner. As it turns out, this decision to not take things seriously is one of the few correct decisions the filmmakers made when shooting this movie. Let me start off by examining how "The Bang Bang Kid" (the name the robot is given) is treated throughout the movie. Some of you are probably thinking that much of the movie is focused on the robot and all the wacky shenanigans it causes, especially since this is an Italian movie, which can get pretty goofy at times whether they are intentional or unintentional comedies. But surprisingly, throughout the movie the filmmakers seem to be trying to avoid putting too much attention on the robot and what it can do. When it first goes into action (after a significant amount of time has passed), it's quickly revealed that there are still some bugs in its system and as a result it can't finish up cleaning the town. After the bad guys try unsuccessfully to string up the robot, it is then forgotten for some time so that the movie can focus on subplots such as a cave-in at a mine, and Bullock trying to sweet-talk the mayor's daughter. Then when the townspeople decide to lay siege on Bullock's castle (yes, a castle), the robot does almost nothing to assist the townspeople. And when the movie gets to its climax, the robot plays pretty much an insignificant part.