Cain's Cut-Throats (Kent Osborne, 1970)

Also known as Cain's Way, Cain's Cut-Throats is a raw, violent, complicated, slightly sleazy grindhouse western that's not entirely successful but has an unusual plot, moments of wildness and excitement, and a likable performance from John Carradine as an unordained preacher/bounty hunter.

The movie begins shortly after the Civil War with a gang of stupid, violent ex-Confederate soldiers, led by the one-eyed Amison (Robert Dix), who can't get over their loss and want to resume the war, engaging in robbery and murder to fund their travels in the meantime. This initial stretch of the movie is rough-going, with a couple actors in the gang giving such insanely hammy performances that I wanted to reach inside my television set and smack them.

After making an incredible score from the ambush, robbery, and murder of a caravan of Union soldiers transporting a large sum of money to the North, the gang of thieves ride their horses to the nearby home of their old commander, the ridiculously named Justice Cain (Scott Brady). Their plan is to use the loot to fund Civil War Part 2, with Cain as their general.

Cain is not pleased to see his former unit. He's a changed man, living a quiet life in the country with his son from a previous marriage and his current wife, a light-skinned black woman passing as white who used to be a slave on his father's plantation. When he politely refuses the gang's offer, they get salty with him. He gets saltier back and unwisely calls gang member Billy Joe (Darwin Joston of Assault on Precinct 13 and Eraserhead fame) a bastard. Billy Joe is a psycho mama's boy who absolutely loses his shit whenever anyone calls him a bastard. When Cain's wife runs outside to see what the commotion is about and a few of the men recognize her as a black woman, Billy Joe initiates an all-out attack on the Cain family from the entire gang. They rape and murder Cain's wife (though not as graphic as most grindhouse rape scenes, the filmmakers still linger on it way too long), murder his son, set the home on fire, and think they've murdered him. Unfortunately for these Confederates, Cain shall rise again, and the movie gets a lot more fun.

The aforementioned preacher/bounty hunter Preacher Simms (Carradine) is passing by in a wagon when he sees smoke billowing from the Cain property. He checks it out, gives Cain's wife and son a Christian burial, and nurses Cain back to health. When he finds out Cain is looking for a few of the same outlaws Simms has been trailing, that these outlaws are armed and dangerous and number six, that Cain used to be their commanding officer and knows how they think, and that he's not interested in the bounty, just revenge, Simms lets Cain join him on the hunt, with a warning not to mutilate their heads. Simms only has to bring the heads in to collect the bounty as long as the faces are recognizable, and he's got a barrel full of salt brine strapped to his wagon to carry these decapitated outlaw heads. This is much wilder shit than you normally see in your average 1970 western.

The rest of the movie is a rowdy and entertaining chase of the Confederate gang, with Simms and Cain joined by a streetwise prostitute with a heart of gold named Rita (Adair Jameson). The movie develops a relatively nuanced argument against revenge that is a bit unexpected in a violent western, especially considering the movie's sexism and confused explorations of race.

Director Osborne is not much of a visual stylist, but Cain's Cut-Throats does have a visceral rawness and propulsive pace that serve the material well. It's also one of those rare b-movies that's better in the second half, with a hammy, unpleasant first third gradually giving way to excitement and eccentricity. I can't enthusiastically recommend it, but it's a fascinating oddity.