[Inspector Abberline]

Although it has all the hallmarks of a spaghetti western, guitar twanging soundtrack, an assortment of ugly extra's and a Sherriff called Nigel....eh?? (not to mention an old nag of a donkey called Sartana).The film has the look and feels of your more traditional American western, especially in its tale of a lowly street cleaner who looks up to a new arrival in town played by squinty-eyed gun for hire Lee Van Cleef as Frank Talby. The street cleaner in question is Giuliano Gemma as Scott Mary the towns idiot and general dogsbody and doormat to everybody in Clifton, Arizona that is not Bristol...Of course the cast of nedry wells and villains are played by the usual assortment of Italian actors,and are instantly recognisable from the Leone films,in fact its pretty much a reunion in one scene where Van Cleef confronts an old ally in the shape of Al Mulock as Wild Jack ( the guy Tuco shoots in the bathtub in The Good, the Bad And The Ugly). Again it should be of no surprise that the director Tonino Valerii was an assistant director on Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars,and he obviously learnt from Leone well because Day of Anger is full of great set pieces, most notably when Van Cleef shots a man between Gemma's legs and is later dragged by horses by WildJacks gang until Giuliano Gemma throws Van Cleef a gun and puts an end to the gangs fun and games. Day of Anger is a tale of loyalty, trust and eventually betrayal as the two allies are pitted against each other, which for an Italian western is pretty much par for the course, enemies become allies, then become friends then become enemies again and vice versa. While Day of Anger has many of the traits of your traditional spag western it does feel fresh and different to many of its conterparts of the time.