Triskaidekaphilia: '13 Was a Judas' (1971)

On the 13th of each month, I write about a movie whose title contains the number 13.

A spaghetti Western with a plot that resembles an Agatha Christie murder mystery, 13 Was a Judas (also known as The Last Traitor) is an odd hybrid that doesn't really work, although it has some scuzzy B-movie charm. The title comes from the apparent superstition that 13 people at a table is bad luck, and that's exactly what Confederate army veteran Ned Carter (Donald O'Brien) has at his wedding banquet in Sonora, Mexico, where he's gathered a group of outlaws and miscreants to celebrate his impending betrothal to Maribel (Adriana Giuffrè). But before the wedding can even begin, the stagecoach carrying Maribel arrives with all of its passengers dead, slaughtered by some unknown assailants.

Thus begins a series of investigations and accusations among the 13 men, along with some of the residents of the small Mexican town where they've been taking refuge. There are the requisite twists and double-crosses, although most of the characters aren't particularly well-defined, so it's tough to figure out whom to root for, or even how some of the men are connected to each other. The plotting relies on flashbacks and exposition-heavy dialogue to eventually explain the motivations behind each killing, as the members of the group also start getting picked off one by one. (Not surprisingly, there's a hidden cache of gold that everyone is after.) Despite all the talk, though, the eventual explanations aren't exactly satisfying, or even entirely clear.

As is customary with spaghetti Westerns, the dialogue from the mostly Italian actors (O'Brien aside) is dubbed into English, which is always awkward but is notably poor here, with too many voices that sound similar to each other. It's hard enough to tell some of the characters apart, but it becomes even more difficult in crowded scenes when the dubbing obscures who is talking to whom at any given moment. The voice acting is stiff, which is especially detrimental to a story that features more talk than action.

There are some evocative moments, though, including the semi-impressionistic flashbacks, and while it's frustrating not to have a real protagonist to focus on, it's also impressive how committed the movie is to making all of its characters reprehensible outlaws, even the one who emerges as a sort of hero at the end. Unlike a typical Agatha Christie story, which would end with the genius detective wrapping things up neatly, Judas ends on a hollow victory, the mystery not so much solved as obliterated. It's an admirably bleak conclusion, but the journey to get there is far too clumsy and uneven to be satisfying.