Ringo ne devait pas mourir

Things are getting complicated in the Benson family. Older brother Martin is out tracking down and destroying gun runners, while back at home a bunch of jerks have just turned up at the ranch, killed Ma and Pa, and raped sister Jenny! Revenge is on hand, but only the wounded guy the Benson family find on the ranch can tell them who set the attack up. That man can't die!

At first you've got a split film, as you have Guy Madison as the more violent Benson brother wasting his way through the bad guys before he even knows what has happened back home. In fact, his girl Rosalba Neri can't get a word in to tell him what's happening while he's all over her like a rash, Elsewhere, you have the rest of the Benson clan keeping it together and trying not to let the world know that one of the attackers is still alive. Plenty of twists happen and thankfully although the film drags here and there things pick up with the gunfights at the end.

There's a pretty good gunfight in a burning house and an even better one in a bar. For the most part this plays out like an average Western but has enough in there to stand out at least slightly from the pack. Rosalba Neri helps. Of Course.

Second-tier American leading man Guy Madison plays a character whose notoriety precedes him in this Spaghetti Western – which, having very modest credentials emerges as essentially routine (though featuring a nice enough score). The plot offers some mild interest: the title, incidentally, refers to a wounded man involved in the murderous assault by gun-runners on a ranch – the property of the family of their pursuer, cavalry agent Madison. The latter's younger siblings are determined that the injured party, now in their charge, lead them to the gang boss responsible; ultimately, the identity of either mystery man proves a surprise – and both, ironically, become involved with one of Madison's sisters (another is raped during the raid). Euro-Cult starlet Rosalba Neri appears unremarkably as a saloon hostess, and Madison's ex-flame.

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.

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?

"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.