If matters went differently, Jeffrey Hunter might have been involved with Season Three of Star Trek in 1968. As fans know, Hunter played Captain Pike in the series’ first pilot.

However, the network rejected that version and only picked up Trek after Gene Roddenberry produced a second pilot. Roddenberry wanted Hunter to continue as the lead, but he turned down this chance.

Thus William Shatner’s Captain Kirk took over the USS Enterprise and eventually became a pop culture icon. On the other hand, Hunter’s career declined, which was why he ended up as the star of a 1968 Spaghetti Western called Find a Place to Die.

Along the Texas/Mexico border, Paul Martin (Piero Lulli) owns a gold mine. A collapse leaves Paul wounded and trapped so Paul’s wife Lisa (Pascale Petit) seeks help.

Lisa locates disgraced former Confederate soldier Joe Collins (Hunter) and requests his assistance. Now essentially a gun for hire, he agrees for a cut of the gold and he assembles a team to go with him.

This comes with risk, as Joe must oppose bandits led by the vicious Chato (Mario Dardanelli). They want Paul’s gold and won’t hesitate to kill to get their way.

Did Clint Eastwood’s career give Hunter hope that a Spaghetti Western would restore his luster? After all, the Man With No Name launched Eastwood toward superstardom, so perhaps Hunter figured the same could happen to him.

Obviously it didn’t, and Hunter died at the age of 42 in spring 1969, apparently related to injuries he suffered on a November 1968 shoot in Spain. Thus we’ll never know if Hunter could’ve enjoyed a career resurgence down the road.

The Hunter of Place didn’t seem primed for a revival, unfortunately. Fit and trim when he shot that initial Trek pilot, Hunter appeared to age 15 years between 1965 and 1968, and he comes across as bloated and old here.

Hunter does manage some movie star charisma at times, and I guess his worn-down vibe makes sense for the role of the bitter, jaded war veteran. Nonetheless, Hunter gives off the impression that he took Place for the paycheck, so don’t expect much from his lackluster performance.

The film as a whole fails to find much of a pulse as well. Though a remake of 1954’s Garden of Evil, Place comes across as a a bargain-basement reworking of 1960’s Magnificent Seven, one that tends to feel long on exposition and light on thrills.

Even as a knockoff of Magnificent Seven, Place still musters potential thrills. Of course, Magnificent remade 1954’s Seven Samurai, so it’s not the 1960 film existed as an original property.

However, Magnificent Seven came with superior talent and production values. Place doesn’t seem like a chintzy affair, but it does feel barebones, and it clearly lacks the same quality of its participants.

Not that the actors flop, per se. They just fail to bring much to their cliché roles, and as noted, Hunter doesn’t pick up the slack via his phoned-in performance.

Place occasionally threatens to come to life via a few action scenes, and it delivers serious eye candy. Both Petit and co-star Daniela Giordano offer stunning beauty, and they show a little skin as well.

Beyond these sporadic moments, Place tends to stagnate. I certainly know of worse Westerns, but the movie lacks the drama and movement it needs to turn into anything better than mediocre.

Find a Place to Die appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Though a little iffy at times, this usually became a good presentation.

Sharpness fared well most of the time. Some softer elements appeared on occasion – particularly during some moderately fuzzy interiors - but the majority of the film offered appropriate delineation and accuracy.

No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects occurred, and I saw no edge haloes. In terms of print flaws, the image showed a handful of specks but usually remained clean, and grain felt natural, if a bit heavy.

As befit the setting, Place went with a sandy palette. These tones didn’t demand much of the Blu-ray, but the disc reproduced the arid hues with positive fidelity.

Blacks looked fairly dark, though they could crush a bit at times. Shadows showed decent to good clarity as well. Nothing about the image excelled, but given its age and origins, it seemed satisfactory.

Duel came with both Italian and English LPCM monaural soundtracks. Given that the film came as an Italian production, normally I’d view the Italian audio as the default.

However, a comparison made it clear that the movie used English dialogue during much of the shoot – which made sense with an American lead actor. Lip-synch usually lined up better during the English version, so I used that as the go-to edition.

In terms of quality, Place brought us dated but decent audio. Actually, the dialogue sounded better than expected, as the looped material seemed more natural than usual.

Typically, these dubbed Italian films come with genuinely artificial integration of speech, but Place did decently in that regard. No, the lines didn’t seem as natural as they would had the dialogue been taken from the set, but the lines seemed relatively natural and suffered from little edginess or other issues.

Music felt fairly peppy and full, while effects appeared more than adequate. Some louder elements like gunfire displayed a smidgen of distortion, but in general, the material seemed clean enough. This became a perfectly acceptable track for an older Italian production.

A few extras appear, and we get an audio commentary from film historian Howard Hughes. He provides a running, screen-specific discussion of cast and crew, sets and locations, genre domains and various production elements.

Of the four commentaries in this “Blood Money” set, Hughes delivers the most traditional of the bunch, by which I mean he mainly sticks with topics connected to the creation of Place. Of course, he gives us broader notes than that – usually about the careers of cast/crew – but Hughes digs into the movie’s making more than his peers.

I don’t intend that as a criticism of the other three, but I do find it a relief to finally get a track that really digs into the actual movie in question. Hughes provides an informative take on the subject matter.

Three featurettes follow, and Venus and the Cowboys goes for 11 minutes, 45 seconds. This offers an introduction to Vengeance from journalist/critic Fabio Melelli.

Here we get some background for the film as well as production elements and genre issues. Melelli gives us a mix of worthwhile notes, even if some of the material repeats from the commentary.

Sons of Leone spans 18 minutes, 10 seconds. It offers an archival interview with director Giuliano Carnimeo.

The filmmaker discusses his career and his work on Place. We find a satisfying overview here.

Finally, Traditional Figure lasts 31 minutes, 17 seconds. Here we get notes from musician/disc collector Lovely Jon.

This piece offers a look at Place composer Gianni Ferrio and the film’s score. We find an appealing chat here.

An Image Gallery includes 35 stills. These show publicity elements.

Essentially a riff on the Magnificent Seven concept, Find a Place to Die brings a fairly mediocre Western. While watchable, it tends to lack drive and excitement. The Blu-ray brings generally positive picture along with acceptable audio and a collection of bonus materials. Nothing about Place makes it a bad movie, but it also doesn’t turn into anything memorable.

Note that this release of Find a Place to Die comes only as part of a four-film package called “Blood Money Volume 2”. In addition to this movie, it brings three other Spaghetti Westerns: $10,000 Blood Money, Vengeance Is Mine and Matalo.