ââJimmy, I thought you were dead or in a hex or something like that.â â âHow could I be dead,â he said, âwhen Iâm standing right here with this bad looking hat?ââ
â Royal Trux, âLetâs Get Lostâ (1993)
Now you got me, the once lone defender of Boot Hill in what was once a forum of blindness.
I remember making some comments in favor of Boot Hill quite a few years ago. Granted, not quite as much as you Stanton, but you did have some support from me. I still think the beginning sequence is great.
This was on of the first spaghetti westerns I saw. Itâs funny because I never really thought of it as of a western but as of a circus movie in west. Iâve seen it many times when I was kid but somehow I never understood what was the story about. All I could remember were depressing circus scenes where I always pressed mute button because circus music was simply unbearable. The problem was it cut into the circus scenes out of nowhere, music started without any warning and it was damn loud. I watched it recently again and I still hate that circus music. Itâs a pitty because outside the circus there are some greatly made and beautifully shot scenes. The music gets better but is terribly overblown and it often feels like it tries to kill the image instead of complenting it. I finally understood what the story is about. Itâs actually a simple story but itâs explained in a hardly understandable manner. Usually you donât have to wait till end to know a plot, but the storytelling of Boot Hill is just about that! As the minutes goes by the movie starts to disintegrate even more, but it should do just the opposite. In the end it does not offer much more than revealing the plot. When you learn it, you question yourself "Thatâs it? Nothing else?â It does not feel like finished work.
And for that very similar to OUTW.
I love the circus music btw
True, but it works much better in Once Upon a time in the West.
To me Boot Hill is still a collection of very good and not so good scenes, it gives me the idea that there was a much better movie in this story material. But I wouldnât know how to improve Once upon a time in the West, virtually everything is in the right place.
The only weak scene in Bot Hill is a Trinity like brawl towards the end amidst the final shoot-out. I still donât know why this scene is there
But, of course, Boot Hill has not the scope of OUTW, but which other Spagie has?
I have seen Boot Hill in cinema, but in the early seventies, on a re-run, after the Trinity movies had created a comedy craze. Could it be that they added the scene to make it look more like a Trinity movie? Otherwise thereâs not much âtrinityâ in it. I think they had also given the movie a pseudo Trinity title (including âdevilâ, they all had a âdevilâ in it)
No, this scene was always there, it is just a stylistic crack.
There is certain âlightnessâ in the film, which contrasts with the dark and grim mood the film otherwise shows, but this short brawl scene is pretty odd.
The 3 Colizzi westerns develop a lot of patterns of the partnership of Spencer/Hill, but yes, at the same time the 3 are still different enough from the pure comedy style of theTrinity films.
Colizzi later made the first Spencer/Hill film after the 2 Trinity films ,and this one contains more adventure elements than any other Spencer/Hill comedy ,but is now definitely more a comedy than an adventure film.
Colizziâs last film, before his prematue death, was then a Spencer/Hill comedy without Spencer/Hill (Joe e Margherito, 1974), at least thatâs what I assume, cause I never was able to watch it.
In that case I donât get it at all. I premused it was added later. And what I donât get at all, is the place of the scene, if they would have inserted it (originally or later) somewhere along the ride, okay, it wouldâve been acceptable within the context of the genre. Many spaghs have silly barrom brawls thrown in, even those with a more serious, downbeat tone, like for instance The Long days of vengeance or Pistoleros
I donât get that either. It really looks like it was added later for commercial reasons, after the success of the Trinity films, but I never read anything that would indicate that.
But then it was obviously shot to be inserted where it is. I have no idea what Colizzi was thinking by doing so.
According to an Italian site, itâs called a poliziotesco, a thriller that is. A synopsis reads more like a buddy movie, about two guys on the run, possible half serious. I also found a download, but no idea if itâll work and no idea either about the language
The Hill-Spencer movie Colizzi made after the Trinity successes is not bad (All the Way Boys), but not great either
But easily the best after the ones from Clucher.
Probably yes, but thatâs not saying much âŚ
I have a Tijuana Edition of this one, which combines all scenes from the Italian and the German version. The most funny scene (a bank robbery) was never part of the Italian version, which is also strange. It is about 20 min longer than the international version.
And a well directed film it is.
You need a strong conclusion in the end for this formula, which Boot Hill unfortunately lacks. It is like when you are promised a present but when the time comes you get nothing. I was always bothered by the artist who fell down from bar to the ground. It was too gruesome for my taste, it must be among the sickest things Iâve seen in sw. When we are comparing the movie to OUTW, it reminds me of the hanging, which was also quite nasty, but it worked better for the plot. Another thing in the movie that I did not understand was the Catâs motivation. He worked for some insurance company in God ForgivesâŚ, did he still work for the company in Boot Hill? Maybe I just donât remember.
Bud worked for the company while Cat wanted to keep the money himself. He was a gunman and a gambler in my eyes.
Werenât the two duped at the beginning of Ace High?
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It starts out with promise, but quickly devolves into a circus drama that moves at the pace of molasses
Thatâs mostly how I felt when I read A Coffin Full of Dollars.
Strodeâs Thomas seems to be Petersâ, but older and not quite as outwardly good-natured.