La colina de los muertos

Terence Hill & Bud Spencer early pairing. Low budget western with a lot of stars in it. Not the usual by any means.. western-wise or hill/spencer-wise.. 3 years before Trinity, Hill portrays a character named Cat Stevens ( A name that was also his characters in both Dio perdona... Io no! & I Quattro dell'Ave Maria). It can be dull at times but it's a good movie given the chance. I originally wrote a more negative review of this film and after watching it a few more times since I have edited it to lean on the more positive side. Worth checking out & it is made on DVD now. Although the transfer is cassette quality. It does give the film that nostalgic quality & makes the dirt floors & dirty faces look even more filthy.

This Spaghetti Western oater starts when Cat Stevens (Terence Hill or Mario Girotti) trying to save himself from a pursuit by nasties . He's picked up and healed by a circus troupe (Lionel Stander , Woody Strode, among others). Later on , Stevens reunites with Hutch (Bud Spencer o Carlo Perdesoli) , joining forces and confronting baddies . The villain is Honey Fisher (Victor Buono) , a powerful magnate in a small town and supported by heinous henchmen . A government commissioner (Eduardo Ciannelli) comes to little town and the ruthless Fisher is worried but he's usually swindling gold prospectors and gaining exorbitant price leases .

The movie contains gunplay , Western action , circus spectacle and fist-fights . Terence Hill as a tough gunslinger and Spencer as a bouncing hunk are good but still not personified the Trinity heroes characters . In the picture appears usual Spaghetti Western secondaries as Lionel Stander , Woody Strode, furthermore, George Eastman (Luigi Montefiori) , Alberto DellÁcqua and Romano Puppo . The film belongs to the Giuseppe Colizzi trilogy starred by Hill and Spencer as Cat Stevens and Hutch Bessy . This one is the third and inferior installment , the first and the best is ¨God forgives¨ or ¨Blood river¨ with Frank Wolff and the second is ¨Four gunmen of Ave Maria¨ with the great Elli Wallach . The film was produced by Manolo Bolognini , a nice producer of classic Spaghetti (Djanjo , Goodbye Texas , Keoma) and accompanied by an atmospheric musical score by Carlo Rustichelli with an enjoyable leitmotif . The film will appeal to Hill and Spencer hardcore fans .

Boot Hill, the English title for this spaghetti western finds Terrence Hill confronting a the hired thugs of town boss Victor Buono and getting shot up for his efforts. A traveling circus takes him in and gives him shelter over the objections of owner Lionel Stander who reluctantly gives in. After that Hill teams up with Bud Spencer, a fellow gunfighter whom he brings out of retirement and Woody Strode who is with the circus, but has his own agenda with that town and its boss.

The film sadly enough tries to be a comedy, but the laughs don't quite come in the right places. For the life of me I could not understand the dubbing of Victor Buono who is playing a variation on the part he had in Four For Texas. Buono had one of the most cultured voices in the English language during his lifetime so that just seemed incredibly stupid to me.

Boot Hill marks the farewell performance of Eduardo Ciannelli who was all of 80 years old and looked it. He was dubbed, but his Italian accent would have been really out of place in this western. My guess is that Ciannelli was not in the best of health making this film. Not one I'd want to go out on.

For those who like the pasta westerns from Europe you might enjoy Boot Hill. But it just isn't my taste.

The U.S. TV print of this film is awful. There is no pan and scan so there are long sequences where nothing is in the center of the screen! I found myself almost hallucinatory after an hour of this film. None of the American actors dubbed their own voices with the possible exception of Lionel Stander. Terrence Hill plays it straight here.

I would be very interested to see this film in Italian, subtitled and letterboxed. If you get the Trinity box set here in the U.S., I recommend you throw Boot Hill out immediately, unwatched.

Third and rarest pairing of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer after God Forgives... I Don't (1966) and Ace High (1967), both by director Colizzi, before the Trinity films turned them into Italy's most dubious exports of the Seventies. Hill was given these cold-eyed roles before the more familiar slaparound antics; here he plays a grimy cheroot-huffin' hombre called `Trouble', who enlists a traveling circus (led by Woody Strode and Lionel Stander) to defeat a money-grubbing land baron (Batman's King Tut, Victor Buono). Like all good Spaghetti Westerns, Boot Hill combines claustrophobic visuals and a lumpen left wing philosophy, with the added novelty of the circus backdrop. Bud's almost a supporting player, but thankfully the dumb ox still gets to throw his weight around. Recommended, muchachos.