I'm sure the answer to your first question is that Tampico is being paid half of the contents of the "gold " in the casket(he's not aware of the insurance scam at this point!).Lasky who is aware of the robbery and insurance fiddle from sleeping with Holmans wife (as we find out later )has already bribed the bankers (for which he's paid off in his first scene with them) but decides to also to foil the robbery to get his own hands on the gold.Roy is Laskys man! The reason there's rocks in the casket is because the bankers don't trust Tampico(or his right hand man Moreno as well as suspecting Laskys men of trying to snatch it because they say in a later scene that they didn't like to see the casket in Tampicos or Laskys hands)not to keep it all to himself but they need someone to do the robbery! Lasky must've had a former partner before Morgan because in the barbershop scene Sartana relates the story of this "other man" who was on a 50/50 agreement of the takings with Lasky and ended up being "dragged away by a gravedigger".This other man who "got too greedy and wanted it all "was obviously killed by Lasky before he brought in Morgan.Its spelt rendezvous!!
Roy is Laskys man working undercover with Tampico's men,and he indicates this by saying "well done Lasky" as he steps out of the stagecoach showing no signs of surprise at whats happened.As we see during the rest of the movie Lasky shows no scruples in eliminating any of his men at any time which would presumably mean a bigger share of the takings for himself!I'm not sure about your "other man" theory.Can you tell me exactly which references you are refering to?
Lasky rides into to town and collects the 5,000 dollars from bank owner stoole for killing tampico's men and stowing away the "gold". He does not tell them the casket is full of rocks though. I shall write more. Banjo see how Iam doing so far...tell me if I am missing something.
Still the whole killing Roy buissness makes little sense to me. True Lasky kills his own men left and right but he never does it with an audience. One sequence has Sartana being chased after Lasky's men, Sartana leads lasky's gang to the gulch where Lasky killed a handful of his own gang at. As a resutl the gang chasing sartana go after Lasky to kill him.with that scene the film makes it pretty clear that lasky's men dont take kindly to lasky treating them as target practice.which begs the question, why did he kill roy in front of his gang? And why did the gang have no scruples about it? To me, Roy was Tampico's man. When he got out of the stagecoach he realized he was now in the custody of lasky's group, so he thought to himself "if you cant beat em, join em". He says "good job lasky" because he had no other choice but to promote lasky's behavoir, he was hoping it would work too, but it didnt(that is my take anyway).As for my "Sartana being the other man" theory...it just makes sense!here is an example...just before sartana kills lasky at the end Lasky spouts out..."I WAS RIGHT! YOU ARE THE..."That is all he can get out before Sartana finishes him off. This statement brings up a few questions...what was lasky right about?what did he suspect about sartana(that apparently he was proved correct)?The statment also hints of a relationship between the two before the movie started.another example to back my theory up is when Sartana tells the "story" of the stolen casket full of rocks to Dusty the coffin maker. Sartana tells the whole story to dusty, dusty asks "who told you that story?" and Sartana tells him a man told him, a man that wanted 50% of the gold lasky stole(when he says the man wanted 50% he looks straight at lasky).again, What other man? Nobody told him anything. My guess is he was talking about himself in the story. After all was he not there to witness the "story" himself? Nobody told him about it.The "other man" he refers too is himself. I wrote more on the first post Banjo...see how I am doing.
Your "other man" being Sartana theory maybe correct but it could still be just a man who tipped off Sartana about the business with the gold.Again i don't think plotwise we need to worry about this little "story" too much!
yes I see now. it is blackmail.
The sleevenote on the Wildeast disc about Lasky and Morgan being in the bankers employ is totally wrong!
It is an interesting theory though and worth debating about. I think the film leaves it up for grabs.