"Die Hölle von Manitoba" or "Glory City", and there are many more German-language and English-language titles for this film, is a West German 90-minute movie from 1965, so this one had its 50th anniversary last year already. The two stars in here are both familiar faces as this film came out when Pierre Brice and Lex Barker starred in the Winnetou / old Shatterhand franchise. This film here is also a western, but has nothing to do with Karl May. The writers who adapted the novel are Spanish and that's why it is also a Spanish co-production. The original writer as well as the director Sheldon Reynolds are American. As a whole, I would say that this was a pretty generic western film. Nothing about it stands really out, even if I must say that Barker is as charismatic as always and Brice is probably giving a better performance than in the Winnetou films. However, the story is just very stereotypical and offers little that is not entirely forgettable. A lot of the film has to do with friendship. The relationship between the two protagonists is one of the better aspects of the movie. On the downside though, the antagonist(s) and most of the plot are entirely forgettable. The ending also feels like style over substance. And just like the Winnetou films, this film here also lacks shade completely in terms of the characters. They are either all good or downright evil. I do not recommend the watch, except you are a real die-hard western fan. Thumbs down from me. Oh yeah, final note: It's a color movie, not to be taken for granted half a century ago, but Barker/Brice weren't doing black-and-white films, at least not at this point.
Review of Place Called Glory City
