La collina degli stivali

Released in 1969 and directed/written by Giuseppe Colizzi, "Boot Hill" stars Terence Hill as Cat Stevens, a hunted and wounded man who hooks up with a circus troupe and the oppressed citizens of a small town in the Southwest to take on Honey Fisher (Victor Buono) and his murderous gang who corruptly gain leases on valuable gold-yielding land in the area. Woody Strode plays one of the trapeze artists.

"Boot Hill" is the last film in a trilogy that started with "God Forgives... I Don't!" (1967) and "Ace High" (1968), all starring Terrence Hill as Cat Stevens. It was then rereleased as "Trinity Rides Again" to cash in on the later success of "They Call Me Trinity" (1970) and "Trinity Is Still My Name" (1971) even though "Boot Hill" has nothing to do with those movies, except that Terrence and Bud Spencer star in them.

The main reason people complain about this movie is not due to the quality of the film itself, but rather the lousy fullscreen pan & scan 1:33:1 reduction print, transferred to VHS from 16mm and then transferred from VHS to DVD and typically sold for a buck or less. This crappy version often cuts out the speaker during a scene (!). The movie itself, however, was filmed on anamorphic 35mm in 2:35:1 Techniscope, and was meant to be seen in the widescreen format.

In regards to the film itself, it's a spaghetti Western in the tradition of Sergio Leone's "Dollars" trilogy. I like it better than the first two "Dollars" movies, but it's not technically as good as 1966's "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

There are several things I appreciate about "Boot Hill." For one, Terrence Hill is as good or better than Clint Eastwood and it's surprising that he didn't become more popular. Secondly, the traveling circus sets this movie apart from other Westerns. Thirdly, it's nice to see a black character in a Western as one of the protagonists. I can only think of two other Westerns off the top of my head that have done this (not including Mario Van Peebles' "Posse" from 1993): "Duel at Diablo" (1966), with Sidney Poitier, and "The Gatling Gun" (1971), also with Strode. Fourthly, there's a cool Ennio Morricone-like score by Carlo Rustichelli.

On the negative side, the story's kinda muddled and the circus girls aren't as prominent as they should be. In fact, the latter is made out to be a joke when the high wire act starts to perform and the audience boos because they're all male, lol. I also don't like the title "Boot Hill" because I can't figure out why it's the name of the movie; I'm assuming it's the name of the main town in the story, which they should've made clearer at some point.

The movie runs 97 minutes and was shot in Almería, Andalucía, Spain.

GRADE: B-

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.

I approached this film with little to no expectations, after reading a few fairly negative reviews here on IMDb. I was pleasantly surprised.

The film opens up with Stephens (Terence Hill) trying to evade a posse of killers chasing him through a small town, where a circus is performing. After taking a bullet, Stephens eludes his would-be killers and stows away in a circus cart. We soon learn that one of Stephens fellow gunslingers is working as a trapeze artist with the circus. Ultimately it is revealed that a local exploitative mine owner is in control of the posse and one of his henchmen eventually crosses the circus performers. So the gunslinger, trapeze artists and a local itinerant official join forces to fight against the corrupt mob lead by Honey Fisher (Victor Buono).

The film is well-paced, though not as hurried as many spaghetti westerns sometimes are. The camera work is just a touch above the standard spaghetti western, and a little different from the standard approach. There are a lot of close-ups and the camera is used effectively to create an unsettling and downright weird atmosphere throughout a good portion of the film - this puts an unexpectedly sinister spin on the seeming novelty gimmick of circus performers in battle.

Director Collizzi did a masterful job with a script and story which were - by genre standards - merely OK. Some of the characters remain somewhat weakly developed, but this doesn't really detract from the film's entertainment value. The actors perform generally well (though the charismatic Lionel Stander gets just a little irritating at times).

Recommended for fans of the western genre.

Boot Hill is such a different film to the popular ‘Trinity' films amongst which it was lumped, presumably by the American distributors keen to attract the same appreciative audience, that it often disappoints those who are expecting more of the same. In fact it stands well as a serious Western in own right, perhaps not at the very front rank of the genre, but an above average Spaghetti outing, both in direction and casting.

Director Colizzi conceived the film as the third in the loose trilogy which features Hill as Cat Stevens (the other two films being Dio perdona... Io no!/ God Forgives – I Don't! (1968) and I Quattro dell'Ave Maria, / Revenge at El Paso (1968). In this movie Hill, Spencer, and Stander are all excellent with none of the jokey humour which made the official Trinity films so distinctive and, for this viewer anyway, a little forced. Strode is outstanding and makes one wish that Hollywood had made more of his talents as muscular leading man. Too often one associates him with his mute, opening appearance in Once Upon a Time in the West, or in Ford's stagey Sargeant Rutledge, and forgets how easily he can carry the action for more than one scene. His later encounter with Stevens, while Hill hides out (‘I don't like to thank a man too many times') is one of the best scenes in the film. Although race is not an issue in the film, the American trailer makes play in that ‘two colours' are fighting against one threat, and the austere pairing of Hill and Strode – noticeably seen in single shot at the climax of the film – is electrifying.

The biggest weakness of writer-director Colizzi's film lays in the middle section, when the chronology is rather truncated, although even here the growing rapport between Stevens and Thomas is effectively conveyed by way of compensation. One would have appreciated seeing more of the dissolution of the circus, the debilitating effects of the murder of the acrobat on the troupe.. Meanwhile,the late introduction of Hutch (the essential other half to the expected Trinity pairing) gives plenty of time for an on-screen bond to form and, once the new group re-encounter the show, a real sense of mission has been formed. Such difficulties are partly the problem of a script which attempts too readily to combine showbusiness and showdowns in equal measure. The fault lines in Boot Hill are perhaps best described by the music, which ranges from Bullitt-like suspense riffs, through to a sentimental ‘circus' tune to a third, decidedly ‘epic' theme for the friendship of Stevens and his black comrade.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Boot Hill is Colizzi's inventive use of cross cutting between circus and gunfight, editing between ring and revolver as it were. The most notable example of this occurs at the beginning, when Stevens is stalked outside of the performance tent. By interweaving the dangers of the high wire with more immediate dangers faced outside, Collizi achieves a timing and balance which, in a sense, is as impressive as those inside the big top. Life - at least as shown in Boot Hill – thereby becomes kind of dangerous act of its own, and Colizzi heightens this sense through his shaping of his visual materials. Some critics have compared the acts in Boot Hill to the kind of medieval pageant served up for warlords centuries ago – especially when the troupe perform in front of head villain Honey (a surprisingly underwritten part for Victor Buono); I prefer to see it as a heightening of the tension inheirent in Western action, a different play on the skilful rituals involved.

Interesting comparisons might be made between this film and others where circus play intrudes into otherwise conservative genres (Vampire Circus springs to mind as a similar example) creating an interesting hybrid. Cukor's Heller in Pink Tights – highly rated by French Critics, less well liked at home - would make an interesting double bill with Colizzi's production, which is in need of some reassessment.

Misleadingly promoted as a "Trinity" film, "Boot Hill" can barely even be classified as a "Bud Spencer-Terence Hill" film, since it gives the two stars very few chances to exercise their teamwork (Spencer appears after the first half-hour). The story is confusing, and the direction is annoying: for one thing, many action scenes take place in the dark, and for another, the camera focuses a little too closely on the actors; too often half the action appears to have been chopped off the sides of the screen, even though the version I watched was letterboxed. Not recommended. (*1/2)