Ammazzali tutti e torna solo

Chuck Connors stars in KILL THEM ALL AND COME BACK ALONE!, not to be confused with GO KILL AND COME BACK by the same director. He's assigned, along with his hand-picked team, to make off with a huge sum of Yankee dollars from an impregnable fort, to thwart the Union buying weapons to defeat the south, Connors' employers. Among his team, the usual: a knife thrower, dynamite expert, the Kid, the strongman. Along for the ride is the Captain (Frank Wolff) who dreamed up the whole scheme. The expected treachery occurs and when the dust settles not too many of the characters are still around to divvy up the loot. Connors is very good in this, although he's not, as one of the prints in the poster gallery boast THE SUPREME American ACTION STAR! Most of the team is played by stuntmen like Ken Wood and Alberto Dell'Acqua and seeing them leap and tumble is part of the fun. Nicely produced, with sweeping panoramas of the Spanish countryside, and with a great score by Francesco de Masi, this one is a lot of fun. The Wild East version is widescreen and in English for the first time, and has an interview with Ken Wood that reveals many interesting facts about the Italian cinema of the 60s and 70s.

In 1864, mercenary Clyde McKay leads a squad of determined daredevils tasked with a dangerous mission by Captain Lynch of the Confederate high command: to infiltrate and raid a Unionist army fortress where a million dollars in gold has been hidden in boxes of dynamite.

A single Colt bullet could send the whole treasure sky high but for these scoundrels - Lynch the killer, Deker the dynamite specialist, Hoagy the hit man, Blade the knife expert, the vicious Kid and Bogard with his brute strength - nothing is impossible. Only madmen could pull off such a job, piercing the enemy lines at the only river crossing and creating a diversion for the garrison where the arsenal is situated.

But before long the betrayals begin as the men attempt to double cross each other in order to take the money for themselves in this bloodthirsty Civil War tale of revenge.

The plot and characters are straightforward and simple to the point of being cartoonish - which it is meant to be. A hard-boiled collection of scoundrels, each with their own lethal skill, plan a daring heist of a hoard of gold from a desert fortress during the Civil War. And as expected, Double crosses crop up, well they captured and learn that the mastermind backing the heist is playing both ends against the middle. There's not much depth in the story nor has it any subtlety or suspense - it's just non-stop action, stunts, gunplay, combat, heroic last stands and betrayal. The stunt work is amazing, the action set pieces are well thought out and the terrain of Almeria in Spain are as cruel as the double crosses. Chuck Connors fits the SW mould really well - pity he didn't do much more. The rest of the cast is good. Having said that, the morally bankrupt and greedy characters can be shallow, nihilistic, and there's no one to root for, unlike in traditional westerns of the 40's and 50's.

Confederate secret-agent Chuck Conners assembles a group of master thieves and cutthroats in order to steal a large shipment of Union gold. His orders are then to kill them all and come back alone with the gold, a task that isn't so easy for him to do.

Typical of director Enzo G. Castellari, Kill Them All And Come Back Alone is pretty light-hearted, with tons of humorous moments and wall-to-wall action, staying true to the winning formula he's perfected over his career and across genres. (Watch the real Inglorious Bastards.)

The ever smooth Chuck Conners is also in fine form here, his first of only a few spaghetti western appearances. He should have stuck around a little longer and made a few more!

Helping Chuck out is a great cast of familiar European faces, including Spanish actor Leo Anchóriz, who was also quite memorable opposite George Hilton in A Bullet For Sandoval.

More people should definitely check this out!

This is a Testosterone driven movie, if I ever saw one. Normally in westerns, the hero would have a love interest or at least a few saloon dancers will appear to provide a bit of eye candy. "Ammazzali tutti e torna solo", though, has absolutely no female person in the cast. It is just a bunch of rogues fighting for a few boxes of gold, and that's all there is of a story. Constant action and violence keeps you on the edge of your seat, it's a tremendous roller-coaster ride. Tall Chuck Connors walks through this happy massacre with a broad smile to show white teeth, while Frank Wolff plays his most dangerous opponent and a bunch of familiar genre actors like Ken Wood, Leo Anchoriz and Alberto dell'Acqua take care of guns, dynamite, knives and anything else that makes holes in people. Kind of fun, but on the other hand not all movies need to be like this for my taste.

If you like cheese the chance is great that you watched one of the movies of Enzo G. Castellari without knowing or remembering his name - like every good Italian director in the 60s up to the 80s he directed a lot of different movies in different genres - be it war, horror, adventure, sci-fi, or some Spaghetti western. A broader audience outside of Italy may know such "gems" like Striker or The New Barbarians among a few others. Ammazzali tutti e torna solo (Kill Them All and Come Back Alone) is one of this contributions to the Western genre and a fun one: a solid production, some well known faces of B-movies of that era and a lot of shooting and killing. The story is a kind of commando movie set in the time of the Civil War in the USA spiced up with some humor and cool guys on the loose and we witness maybe the first panzerfaust ever in action. For sure not to be taken seriously, this one is a fun and entertaining piece for the right kind of audience: nothing more and nothing less. In my youth I loved such kind of movies a lot. Good.