God’s Gun / Diamante Lobo (Gianfranco Parolini, 1976)

Indio Black isn’t so bad. I love the first Sabata though.

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Adios Sabata, Indio Black, or The Bounty Hunters is a fun movie … good use of Almeria locations, great music, wicked villains and some rousing action - Dean Reed is a bit of a prick, but that’s what his character is too. I really like it and the first Sabata.

Just noticed on my DVD of ‘God’s Gun’ (MGM) the UK cert is 18 but it also has the Irish cert 12.

I can’t remember which scenes would qualify this as an 18 … and I’m not in a big hurry to re-watch it to find out. Anyone remember ?

The sexual assaults, I presume. In Italy this one was rated ALL with a couple of scenes of that kind slightly shortened.

I have only watched this once, a few years ago … and I really don’t think there was anything very graphic or disturbing to warrant an 18 cert … it’s not ‘Straw Dogs’ or ‘Chato’s Land’ in the sexual violence department.

I’ve never seen God’s Gun, is it really that bad?

It’s pretty bad … but maybe a worse watch for SW fans considering the cast and crew involved.
I have vague memories of reading somewhere that Richard Boone walked out on this one, citing it as the worst film production he’d ever worked on (and he was in ‘Madron’!). Perhaps out of revenge he’s dubbed in a totally unsuitable weak voice … as far away from his trademark gravelly voice as possible.

I don’t think it’s any worse than your average spaghetti. Once you’ve got through the really good ones/top 20 material, you’re left with a bunch of mediocre films and you either enjoy them or you don’t. If you like spaghetti westerns in general, I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t have some fun with this one. Obviously people’s opinions will always differ. Do you think people would judge this one as harshly if it wasn’t for the cast? As long as you don’t have high expectations, it’s a decent film (on the spaghetti scale).

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Well, we all have had to watch a bad movie, so i think i’ll give this one a watch when i have the time. Thanks for the input, amigos.

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But even Fidani movies don’t have the leading man with a mullet hairdo !!! - I suppose it could be resurrected as a drinking game - one shot or small glass of beer every time a ridiculously inappropriate hairstyle appears … in which case you’ll be plastered drunk within the first 5 minutes :rofl:

I don’t know. I kinda have fond memories about this one. Kinda. Even if it is only a crap movie, it’s kind of fun at being crappy so to speak. The Israeli locations look astonishingly good, the acting is decent and the score is pretty absorbing as well. I’ve always loved the opening scene, but the rest of the movie sort of highlights the fact that Parolini has never been much of a strong director to begin with and his directing style primarily relies on action sequences rather than anything else. Overall, the movie is definitely not good, but it’s not insufferably bad either.

Apart from the opening scene the film doesn’t look much like being directed by Parolini, and actually I might have read somewhere that probably he indeed did not direct that much on this film.

No, it is a total bore, a film as bad as many Fidanis.
And I don’t think that outside of the top 20 most other films are only mediocre. Of course there are many mediocre and even many bad Spags, but there are for me about 80 good Spags and many more which are ok, and that means better than average.

I like to repeat what I wrote once in this thread about this absolute turkey:

The best part about the film was … that I watched the wonderful opening scene, with the puppet theatre and the laughing kids accompanied by great music, again and again.

The rest of the film is a helpless mess with most of the participants giving their worst.
And meanwhile I had become just used to Parolini’s way of directing westerns, but there’s not much left of it in God’s Gun, except for the opening scene of course.

Not easy to decide what’s the worst aspect:

The unimaginative directing?

The dull acting?

The unatmospheric sets and costumes?

The lousy photography?

The shitty action scenes?

The standard dialogues?

Jack Palance?

I’m really sorry for Jack Palance, who at this time was maybe at the nadir of his career, and he seems to know it, only indifferently repeating his evil grinning baddie routines, walking through the film like a zombie.

And what’s about Richard Boone? He simply disappears after 20 min (in which btw his role wasn’t needed) and returns out of nothing for one scene near the end.
And he’s the sherriff. Where was he in between? Fishing (like all good sherriffs do)?

Then there’s the kid.
Yes, I like these type of kid roles as much as most of you do, even if this one is by far not the worst of them.

Lee van Cleef. Oh, he’s ok, quite ok. Only in the wrong movie.

I liked the main theme of the score. Not much else.

Have I mentioned the lovely opening scene?

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All this talk about Gods Gun is forcing me to watch it since my memories of it are rather non-existent. And of course, my freshly obtained opinion about the movie will be one and only right and proper and will put a shame on everyone who thinks differently.

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And this is the kind of attitude that I like. Noice.

That’s very interesting. If this is correct, it means that the production probably had a shitload of problems from the very get-go.

:rofl:

Well, I wasn’t bored watching this and I like Fidani’s westerns just fine, so that explains a lot.

I am not talking about the official top 20 on the website. I mean the type of films that the average fan would regard as worthy enough to be in such a list. God’s Gun might be a bad movie but if you’re a fan of the genre, I think it’s enjoyable enough. Same thing with Fidani’s films. They might not be good but they are fun to watch.

After all this back and forth, I’m toying with the idea of having a few drinks and watching this again in the spirit that @The_Man_With_a_Name suggests :rofl:

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I’m a fan of the genre, obviously, nevertheless many Spags are totally boring, and half of Fidani’s output is unwatchable for me, or let’s say they are only watchable by extensive use of fast-forward. Some of his others are not that bad, but so far I haven’t seen one which was really worth the time. I gave one or two a 4/10 rating, so these were entertaining enough on a simple level.

Well, films which are not good are never fun to watch (that’s why they are not good). If a film is fun to watch it is automatically a good film (for me).

Well, I acknowledge the difference between being good on a technical level and good on the entertainment level. One couldn’t deny that Once Upon a Time in the West is technically brilliant without having to be a fan of the film itself. Whether you enjoy a film or not is all down to personal taste. I didn’t have high hopes after reading all the negative comments but ended up enjoying the film anyway. For those who haven’t watched it, I think it’s best for them to give it a try and make up their own mind.