Ringo ne devait pas mourir

I never thought I'd live to see the day when there was a good spaghetti Western. Most of the ones we have rammed down our throats are those goofy ones Eastwood was in, the ones where men are classified into gods who can't miss, demi gods who can only miss gods, and mortals who just fill graveyards. Yawn provoking one dimensional caricatures they think can pass off as caricatures because they don't shave.

But this one combines the elements of credible characters with entertainment and an actual story line.

It helps to have Guy Madison, too. No doubt he had a large say in keeping this one from being a cartoon cardboard cut out.

Not saying it is realistic. This is a shoot em up. But the circumstances are more thought provoking and believable, because the characters actually have motivation. In the spaghetti flops that clowns like Leone directed, he simply made everyone a certain degree of a sadist to explain their actions. In this film we are spared that cliché of the modern movie. The gun play is far more believable than anything Leone ever did. There are a few clownish fight scenes with people doing flips, but not many.

Like most good Westerns, the minor characters and their treatment with dignity make this stand above the lesser ones. Again, one sees this a lot with Guy Madison, so either he had a large hand in it, or he was careful in the selection of the role.

This is entertainment.

In Gianfranco Baldanello's third (of 6) Italian Western...Guy Madison stars as a mercenary undercover agent for the military... in this minor..but on the whole pretty well done western.

Martin Benson hasn't quite made it home from the war..rather working undercover & gaining a reputation as an outlaw. As 3 bad guys he helped to capture are hanging in the wind..he's offered a substantial amount of gold to find the leader of the gun & liquor smuggling operation he's helped to take a bite out of..even as.....gang members are out to get him..& target his family as well. His parents are killed..younger sister raped..& he & his younger brother set out for revenge...also trying to stay alive..as the remaining family members (2 sisters..2 brothers) are still being stalked.

Madison, of course, knows his way around sixguns, fistfights & horses..& it shows. He's as comfortable to watch as wearing an old pair of worn in jeans. There are no 'corrida' type showdowns..but some medium to larger gunfights...& probably pretty much how gunfights really were...shooting people anywhere & anyhow you could..in the back..through windows...whatever works.

Amedeo Tommasi's (The House with Laughing Windows ) first & only Spaghetti Western score is imitation Morricone..but good imitation Morricone......strings & horns w/ the dominant electric guitar..& the title vocal tune is a typical catchy Spaghetti Western pop ballad. Overall , among the best Morricone rips I've ever heard.

So what we have here is kind of a mixture of the pre-Leone SW & some post Leone elements......brutality...rape..nudity...& the the usual bloody messes. I don't believe that a widescreen version of this movie still exists...it's showing up on a lot of those 5..20..50 cheapo Movie packs...the fullscreen is watchable...I do recommend zooming it down to 1/2 if you come across the DVD. It's worth a viewing.

"I lunghi giorni dell'odio" (litrall translation: "Long Days of Hate") AKA "This Man Can't Die" (1967), directed by the capable Gianfranco Baldanello, who would go on to make the infamous "Black Jack" (1968), is above average Spaghetti Western. While not on the same level as Leone, Corbucci or Castellari, this film still holds it's grip pretty well, with excellent action scenes, some well staged bar brawls, very well done shootouts and a neat, Leonesque showdown for the climax. The plot is the usual story: parents murdered and daughter raped by outlaws, the sons set out to avenge their deaths. But it's capably handled, even if the revealing of who the head of the outlaws is is no big surprise. Still, a must-see for fans of the Spaghetti Western genre.

In This Man Can't Die (English title) Guy Madison plays an undercover agent of the United States government who recently finished up work on a group of gunrunner/bootleggers but failed to find out the identity of the ringleader. Meanwhile, a family is viciously attacked, the parents murdered and the youngest daughter raped.

The link between the two apparently unrelated plots isn't apparent at first, leading to some confusion on the part of the audience.

Overall, it's a decent little Italian western with a decent performance by Madison, good production values, and excellent use of locations, though the afore mentioned confusion and some slow spots lead it to be less than spectacular.

At first I was going to congratulate the filmmakers on an excellent imitation Ennio Moriconne score but then I recognized a few music cues as being directly lifted from A Fistful Of Dollars, which leads me to seriously question the other songs on the soundtrack! Were they from other movies too?

Guy Madison was another former big name star who went to Italy in hopes of work and got to star in this pasta oater, Long Days Of Hate. The former star of Wild Bill Hickok on television must have waited for the pay check to clear before embarking on this one.

When the film opens we find out that Madison has been undercover with a gang of gunrunners, selling army rifles to the Indians, but his cover was blown before he found out who the real leader was. So what do the outlaws do? Invade his home and kill his parents and rape one of his sisters. Of course Madison and the siblings are out for blood.

There is an older sister, but she's untouched because the leader of the gang has a thing for her. If you care to see the film, you'll find out who it is.

When he was in the states Madison in addition to Wild Bill Hickok on television did a few nice B westerns and seeing him in this is really quite a come down.

Madison must have envied what happened to Wild Bill in Deadwood after working on this.