My Name Is Pecos (1966)

[GlacierTuba]

I got the Arrow box set Vengeance Trails a while back (the peasant edition) and watched My Name Is Pecos from it. I've not seen the others in the set yet.

I posted a few words about it on my Letterboxd diary ages ago but thought to share here if anyone might be keen to see the film or buy the box set.






I have never in my life heard of the film My Name Is Pecos, I thought it was perhaps a documentary about the guy that invented Old El Paso dinner kits or something. Excuse my utter ignorance.

What we have here is a half decent spaghetti Western that, while not in the moody, ultra serious tone of Clint Eastwood's most famous turns and nowhere near the level of gung-ho, balls out utter lunacy of the brilliant Santana films, My Name Is Pecos lands somewhere between. Which is perhaps why it's been overlooked since it's release way back in 1966.

The film is fairly unforgiving and is presented in such a way that you don't ever feel like you bond with or care about the cast. From the very start the film doesn't mess about. It opens abruptly. It's an urgent, angry and unforgiving film. Pecos is one super pissed off bloke. He arrives in town to get revenge on the man who killed his family but ends up helping many others out too. There's no messing about here. No flim-flam. My Name Is Pecos has an objective and it gets there with the least fuss possible.

My Name Is Pecos is rather violent too. Not in a slick, outlandish way (and most definitely nowhere near Santana-level ultraviolence), it's more straightforward. More blunt. More cold and bleak. In this film if you happen to be stood in the way of a rifle or revolver and a trigger is pull then that's just too bad. In fact, I cannot remember the last time I watched a film where around 90% of the cast is killed. Rambo (2008) perhaps?

Oh actually no, the last film I saw that had this high a body count was Double Target (watched on April 21st, 2021). That said though Double Target had a cast of about 650 billion and every single one of them is wiped out in about 5 seconds of the film starting. My Name Is Pecos has a miniscule cast. For reference though (and because this took me bloody ages to make) here's a previous comparison (in deaths per minute) I made between the body counts of Rambo: First Blood and Double Target. Please look forward to it!



My Name Is Pecos opens really strong but I felt tended to lull a little in the mid-section and became almost processional as it depicted the tussle between Kleine (the villain) and Pecos. That said, the film finishes on a superb high with a fantastic climax scene to wrap things up. I had read somewhere that a segment of the film was edited from A Few Dollars More but I wasn't sure where (it's been a while since I've seen it).

I had a bit of a hard time rooting for Pecos though. I think the problem stems around the fact that he's dressed more like a junior minister on a fact-finding mission rather than a chiseled, bitter gunslinger. There were also a couple of moments of comedy that I felt were unnecessary and took the edge away during key scenes. One scene in particular in the saloon I felt was totally ruined by this. The jokes, although few, I felt were not warranted and the film would have been far better off without them.

With regards sound and image there is little to fault here. You get a choice of Italian and English audio tracks. I prefer to watch films in their native tongue and was not disappointed with the clear and nicely-eq'ed Italian mono track. No problems here at all. The English subtitles had a couple of spelling and grammar issues. I'm that pedantic that when I dump my discs to NAS I go through the subtitles with a spell check (yes, really). Picture quality it has to be said is absolutely astounding here. Considering the age of the film you get a razor sharp image here with fine natural grain that does not become problematic during darker scenes at all. You get proper aspect ratio too and some luscious colours to boot. As far as sound and image go I think this presentation is pretty much faultless.

My Name Is Pecos did spawn a sequel Pecos Cleans Up that was released the following year in 1967. I would be keen to see this film to round off the set. Jeff has them both on his subscription service if you are interested. You can also get My Name Is Pecos as part of the Arrow Vengeance Trails box set.

As far as spaghetti westerns go, I don't think this one ranks up there with the best of them. It does have it's moments though and for those alone I would say this is well worth a watch. Get it in the best quality possible though as the HD restoration is a treat.