Halleluja... Amigo

Released in 1972 (but not in the USA until 1974), "It Can be Done… Amigo" is an Italian oater starring Ben Spencer as a gentle giant, Coburn, saved from unjust hanging. He becomes the caretaker of a little boy who's the heir of a remote ranch that many people are interested in obtaining for some reason. Jack Palance plays a comical gunfighter/pimp who insists that Coburn marries his nagging sister (Dany Saval) because he was previously intimate with her.

In spirit, but not plot, this is basically an early 70's Euro version of 1963's "McLintock!" Unfortunately it was lost in translation for me. Obviously a lot of effort was put into it, but it failed to engage. It's also marred by the limitations of most Spaghetti Westerns, like dubious dubbing. Plus there should've been more prominent women (Saval is likable, but she just grates on the nerves after a while). Still, the movie's likable; it's just very eccentric, which limits its appeal, but I'll give it another try in a few years.

The film runs 109 minutes and was shot in Almería, Andalucía, Spain.

GRADE: C- (4.5/10 Stars)

For a Spaghetti Western It Can Be Done...Amigo is neither among the best or worst. While less than perfect, it was entertaining if in a strange way.

While it does deserve a much better DVD with a more expansive widescreen and sharper picture quality, It Can Be Done...Amigo is not a bad-looking film at all. In fact, the scenery is very evocatively beautiful and the camera work is well-placed and doesn't try to be too ambitious or simplistic. The energetic, rousing, haunting, stylish and beautifully and cleverly orchestrated music score is the best thing about the film, plus it fits very well, while the songs are a good memorable fit. It Can Be Done...Amigo is well-directed and the acting is also not bad although the child actor is a little annoying and the dubbing is unnecessary and poorly utilised. Bud Spencer is a charismatic and imposing lead with a good flair for comic timing and Jack Palance is lots of sinister yet hammy fun despite his accent rarely staying the same. Dany Saval brings charm to her role as well.

Regarding the script and story, both are a mixed bag. A good deal of the humour is very entertaining, a couple of the running gags like with the cans and the reading glasses do really work and give off a fun vibe. but some of it does fall flat when it does get a bit too silly and bizarre. The dialogue has its moments and is appropriately good natured, but also gets too silly and awkward-sounding. The story is problematic, credit is due for it trying to do something different for a Spaghetti Western, the interaction between Spencer and the child mostly engages and the final fight is oddball but amusing and tense. Also despite how it sounds reading a synopsis it is thankfully easier to follow than you think. However the film does start very sluggishly and feels like you're riding on the shell of a snail for a lot of the first half of the film, and it ends on an abrupt note.

Overall, flawed but strangely entertaining. 6/10 Bethany Cox

One of Bud Spencer's star vehicles without his partner Terence Hill takes him back to familiar Spaghetti Western territory. Despite a good cast (Jack Palance, Francisco Rabal, Luciano Pigozzi) and crew (screenwriters Rafael Azcona and Ernesto Gastaldi, cinematographer Aldo Tonti and composer Luis Enriquez Bacalov), the film rambles amiably along without ever becoming sufficiently memorable.

Spencer seduces Palance's virginal sister (having mistook her in the dark for another dance-hall girl) and flees from her pursuing pistolero/showman brother until he meets an abandoned child in the desert whom he takes under his wing (shades of two films Bud would later make with CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND [1977]'s Cary Guffey); as it turns out, the boy is the proprietor of a dilapidated wellspring which turns out to be rich in oil but they soon fall foul of outwardly harmless sheriff/judge/preacher Rabal. Spencer indulges himself in several of his typical fist-fights and even "Paco" Rabal gets to taste his trademark hammer-blow to the head; amusingly, he puts on his glasses before a fight so that he can think more clearly! Palance scores best as Spencer's laid-back, black-clad, pursuer-cum-partner and brother-in-law to-be. The title song is an agreeable one although it's only played during the opening and closing credits sequences.

I have missed out on this one several times on Italian TV over the years but I did catch the free-for-all finale once; since the quality of the DVD I watched was quite terrible – not just pan-and-scanned but extremely washed out as to lapse into practically black and white at various points!; although it was nice to hear Palance and Rabal's own voices in English, I'll make it a point to tape this one when it's shown again on one of the major Italian TV channels.

Bud Spencer wanders the west, finds time to help a young orphan/landowner targeted by greedy villains, and keeps having his bacon saved by Jack Palance. However, Jack's motives are anything but altruistic, as he blames poor Bud for allegedly deflowering his sister and plans on marrying her off to him before making her a respectable widow!

Lots of Rowdy fights and amusing gags, including the hilarious oil-soaked climax, keep this breezy, lightweight spaghetti western moving along quite nicely.

It Can Be Done... Amigo features what is probably Spencer's best solo performance, apart from his films with frequent on screen partner Terrance Hill, though A Reason To Live, A Reason To Die, which featured him as part of an ensemble cast, was a better film.

Meanwhile, Palance portrays the same black clad, chuckling, chain-smoking weirdo you've come to know and love from a lifetime of similar western roles. Needless to say, fans of these two won't be disappointed.

One thing that I found odd though, was Palance's changing accents. Sometimes he talked using his own voice, other times he spoke with a southern accent, and still others with a Spanish accent!

Coming too late in the Italian Western cycle to get a significant American release, this tiresome Bud Spencer vehicle tries to be picaresque, as the big lug wanders around having borin on-adventures. A cute young boy is thrown in for sentimental value.

In a parallel world where Hollywood big-screen Westerns had not gone out of style, it could have been perhaps a homegrown vehicle for Dan Blocker to provide old-0fashioned family entertainment following his meteoric success starring on tv in "Bonanza". But as ersatz cornball entertainment it comes up as zero.

Despite having a great cameraman Aldo Tonti, who shot epics like "Barabbas" and classics like Fellini's "Nights of Cabiria", it's a mess, with annoying, inappropriate music and even some dubbed dialog that echoes.