Seven Guns for the MacGregors

Seven Guns for the MacGregors is a Technicolor 1966 Spaghetti Western. It is the directorial debut film of Franco Giraldi, who was Sergio Leone's assistant in A Fistful of Dollars. The film gained a great commercial success and generated an immediate sequel, Up the MacGregors!, again directed by Giraldi,

Plot

The MacGregors, horse ranchers of Scottish descent, are underway to the market when they are robbed of their horses by a gang under the helm of a corrupt sheriff. One of the brothers infiltrates the gang but his first attempt tries to play them backfires.

Cast

Robert Woods as Gregor MacGregor
Fernando Sancho as Miguel
Agata Flori as Rosita Carson
Nazzareno Zamperla as Peter MacGregor
Paolo Magalotti as Kenneth MacGregor
Leo Anchóriz as Santillana
Perla Cristal as Perla
George Rigaud as Alastair MacGregor
Manuel Zarzo as David MacGregor
Alberto Dell'Acqua as Dick MacGregor
Julio Pérez Tabernero as Mark MacGregor
Cris Huerta as Crawford
Rafael Bardem as Justice Garland
Víctor Israel as Trevor

Release

Seven Guns for the MacGregors was released ins 1966. It was distributed by U.N.I.D.I.S. in Italy. The film was followed by the sequel Up the MacGregors! featuring overlapping plot and character similarities.

Reception

In contemporary reviews, from "Japa." of Variety found the film to have a "predictable but fast moving plotline" noting that the "offbeat flavor of having the Scottish MacGregor clan living in the rough in 19th century Texas gives this Italian western an added zing., helping overcome simplistic scripting and pedestrian direction." and that the film "avoids pitfalls of many overblown Italo-made westerns which tend to become over philosophical and dramatic in their approach to violence and love in the old west." A review in the Monthly Film Bulletin noted that the films "colour is so variable and that the script plays it straight around the middle, where the blood-letting makes an uneasy contrast with the tongue-incheek bravado of the earlier scenes."