I quattro dell'Ave Maria

A Leone pasta western without the pretentiousness. Easy going romp of crosses, double crosses, and triple crosses. Wallach is just fine and dandy reprising his Tuco role from GOOD, THE BAD... this time playing an ethnic Greek-Mexican bandit with a Yiddish accent (oy vey) manipulating ol' buddies Hill & Spencer into a scheme to get back at the people who left him out to dry years back. Along the way they pick up acrobat (!) Brock Peters who becomes crucial to their plan. Kevin McCarthy is the target of their wrath. The film concludes with a satisfying round-up. Colizzi directs with a sure hand, even allowing New York method actor Wallach to kvetch for several minutes at a time. No wonder he returned to Italy and Spain from time to time to make these films. No where else would a director allow his star to chew the scenery in such a way. The comedy is not broad or overpowering as most films in this sub-genre tend to be. The characters are uncharacteristically likeable, thanks to the cast. Great scene: revelutionaries mete out rough justice to a town's leaders. Later, our trio, with the help of some greedy peasants retake the town and mete out the same justice to the revolutionaries!!! I've never seen that done in a Euro-western.

giuseppe colizzi was a fine underrated director dead too early that invented the characters of Spencer-Hill. Differently from E.B.Clucher, Hill is more Eastwood-way then Trinità but the substance is the same. Colizzi was a well competent director, more american then italian, with strong sense of spectacule and correct with the particulars. In Italy is very underrated, I don't know why. "Ace high" is, probably, his best western. It's also hard to see his movies in tv. You can only see every summertime "Arrivano Joe e Margherito", but this is not his best. I hope one day critics rediscover the art of this modest, hard worker artigian of the screen.

I Quattro dell'Ave Maria (original title) is an entertaining and amusing Macaroni Western starred by the notorious Italian couple , Hill and Spencer , pre-Trinity and Bambino . Likable Terence Hill and stocky Bud Spencer team up again as the valiant and enjoyable duo . The agreeable crew makes a new adventure movie plenty of fist-play , action , shootouts and entertainment . This fun Pipperone Western deals with our intimate friends in Far West , they're two bank-robbers , the blue-eyes and sympathetic Terence Hill as Cat Stevens and a grumpy and goofy Bud Spencer as Hutch . Then appears Cacopoulos (Eli Wallach) , a cunning thief who arranges to save himself from being hung on a fake charge , as he breaks out and steals Cat Stevens (Mario Girotti or Terence Hill , Massimo Giroti'son ) and Hutch Bessy (Carlo Perdesoli or Bud Spencer) a lot of cash and he also robs their horses . This results in a merry pursuit and Stevens and Bessy turn into unwilling allies in Cacopoulus' vendetta against the people who double-crossed him and accused him to get their loot back . Cat Stevens and Hutch unite Cacopoulus , after that , the trio joins forces with a circus artist (Brock Peters) taking on nasties . Nevertheless , the cruel baddie is still alive and seeks avenge , he is a relentless saloon owner (Kevin MacCarthy of Invasion of the body snatchers) and supported by ominous hoodlums .

This funny story contains crossfire , the usual slight fights and a little bit of action , pursuits and circus spectacle . The humor is based on physical and personality differences of the starring , as Terence Hill is the sympathetic and brave hero and Bud Spencer is the corpulent and hunk man . The movie contains gun-play , action Western , bloody spectacle and fist-fights . The film isn't always good , sometimes is fresh and diverting and on a couple of memorable occasions , it's frankly delicious . Terence Hill as a two-fisted gunslinger and Spencer as a bouncing hunk are good but still not personified the Trinity hero characters . Later on , the 'big time' duo of Spaghetti Western with humor such as ¨They call me Trinity¨, ¨ Trinity is still my name ¨ and sequels as ¨Troublemakers¨ were run out and for that reason were transfered in modern era film , playing the police/action genre and adventures as ¨All the way boys¨ also titled ¨Plane crazy¨ ; after that , they starred the successful ¨ Miami police series ¨, which belong the followings : ¨Crime Busters¨ , ¨Superfuzz¨ and ¨Supercops in Miami¨. However , being the great American actor Eli Wallach from ¨Actor's Studio¨ who steals the show as Cacopoulus , a similar role to Tucco he performed in ¨The good , the bad and the ugly¨ . At the picture appears customary Spaghetti secondaries who played ordinary characters as villains in numerous Spanish/Italian Western as Livio Lorenzon as Paco Rosa , Steffen Zacharias as Harold , Rick Boyd as Drake's blond henchman , Bruno Corazzari as Charlie , Frank Braña and Riccardo Pizzuti ,habitual secondary in Hill-Spencer films . The movie is finely photographed by director of photography Marcello Masciocchi , and of course is shot in Almeria , Spain, location where were filmed hundreds of Western in the 60s and 70s . Evocative as well as atmospheric musical score by the usual Carlo Rustichelli , conducted by Bruno Nicolai , ordinary collaborator to Ennio Morricone .

The motion picture was regularly directed and produced by Giuseppe Colizzi . Giuseppe directed a trilogy starred by Hill and Spencer as Cat Stevens and Hutch Bessy respectively . The first , superior and the best outing was ¨Dio Perdona..¨ with Frank Wolf and Jose Luis Martin ; this second installment also titled ¨Four gunmen of Ave Maria¨ or ¨Ace high¨ with the great Eli Wallach and more camp tendencies ; and the third is ¨Boot Hill¨ with Woody Strode , Eduardo Ciannelli , George Eastman , Alberto DellÁcqua and Romano Puppo . A bit later on , Colizzi again directed Hill and Spencer at an adventure movie titled ¨Più Forte, Ragazzi!" or ¨All the Way Boys" or "Plane Crazy" , USA title . Giuseppe subsequently realized another buddy movie ¨Joe and Margherito¨ with Keith Carradine and Tom Skerrit , being his last movie a real flop titled ¨Switch¨ , starred by Annie Belle , until his early death at fifty years old . The flick will appeal to famous pair fans , in fact , this was the second teaming of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer .

The comical duo Bud Spencer and Terence Hill are teamed with a likable crook played by Eli Wallach.Hill as Cat Stevens and Spencer as Hutch Bessy show the western people what they are made of.Wallach as Cacopoulos is fantastic with the stories about his grandfather.And another veteran actor Kevin McCarthy makes a great character as Cacopoulos' third enemy, the sniveling casino owner Drake.All these people work great together in Ace High from 1968.There are some great scenes in this western comedy.Bud boxing with the champion is brilliant.Guess who wins.The sequence in the end with the roulette table and the violin...beautiful, just beautiful.These movies bring me back to my childhood, back to the early 90's.Those were the days Bud Spencer and Terence Hill ruled the world.

Character actor Eli Wallach is the real treat here as he carries his Tuco role from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" over to "Ace High." This is a pre-Trinity pairing of Spencer, Hill and most of the fun and hilarity is carried on the able shoulders of Eli Wallach, who is more than up for the assignment. Wallach steals every scene he's in and this only means total enjoyment for the viewer. A must see for all western fans!