The Silent Stranger

The Silent Stranger
The Silent Stranger
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Vance Lewis
Screenplay by	Vincenzo Cerami; Giancarlo Ferrando
Story by	Tony Anthony
Produced by	Tony Anthony; Allen Klein
Starring	Tony Anthony; Lloyd Battista
Cinematography	Mario Capriotti
Edited by	Renzo Lucidi
Music by	Stelvio Cipriani
Production; companies	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; ABKCO Industries
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	20 June 1975;
Running time	92 minutes
Countries	Italy; United States; Japan
Languages	Italian; English; Japanese

The Silent Stranger (Italian: Lo straniero di silenzio), also known as The Horseman and the Samurai and The Stranger in Japan, is a 1968 Spaghetti Western jidaigeki film directed by Luigi Vanzi. It is the second sequel to A Stranger in Town, with twenty minutes excised for its 1975 release. The film is the third in a series of four western films starring Tony Anthony as "The Stranger". Despite being produced in 1968 for MGM, the film was never given an official release until 1975, nearly a decade after the previous film in the series.^[1] Tony Anthony stated that he believed the film became the victim of a power struggle at MGM,^[2] and the film was re-edited when it was later released by a different studio.^[2]

Plot

The protagonist, a likeable American cowboy (Antony) in Edo-period 19th-Century Japan, becomes trapped in the middle of the strife between two feuding aristocratic Japanese families. The cowboy possesses a priceless scroll, acquired by chance while he was in Alaska, which both warring families want. Violent fighting ensues, involving Samuri swords, a Gatling gun, and a makeshift single-shot blunderbuss. In the end the cowboy returns the scroll (worth "one million dollars") to The Princess, a member of the family who are the rightful owners.

Cast

Tony Anthony as The Stranger
Lloyd Battista as The American
Kin Ōmae as Lord Motori
Kanji Ohara as Koeta
Kita Maura as Princess Otaka
Kyōichi Satō as Koeta's Henchman
Yoshio Nukano as Motori Samurai
Raf Baldassarre as White-Eye (uncredited)
Gaetano Scala as Thief in Klondike (uncredited)
William Conroy as Thief in Klondike (uncredited)

Reception

Paul Mavis, of DVDTalk, reviewing the 2015 Warner Archive Collection DVD release of The Stranger Collection, wrote, "While they're not in the league of Leone (what is?), Anthony's grimy, sneaky little punk killer is an intriguing addition to the genre. Tony Anthony did some very interesting things with the spaghetti Western genre, including, perhaps, presaging the Trinity movies, while certainly "inventing" the West-meets-East subgenre".^[3]