itās very strange movie and it has our spyro foka but he looks litle boring
horst frank giveās life to this forgoten gem
The fight of the two bad guys in this, and this is great for me. But like I have read in Philās review of this one the good guy is overshadowed for sure. So on a pure revenge level it does not work 100%, but yes there is more to the story than that of course. Even though I enjoyed the claw style fighting, enjoyed the way the dynamite was used at the end more. Not the best by the director, but not the worst either ā¦some where in the middle.
better than many others in the genreā¦
Baldiās Hate Thy Neighbour (1968) is a good, but not great Spaghetti Western. Itās too over-lit, too TV-like, with the sets looking too fresh and clean. No real feeling of the West is invoked. Almost as bad are the bland hero and his pointless coffin-maker sidekick. There are things to like though: the character Gary Stevensā torture is well done and ingeniously cruel; Horst Frank is a lot of fun and invests the film with some actual menace. The gladitorial fights are a good idea (perhaps a nod to the Italian film industryās previous phase?), but isnāt really developed properly. A generous 3/5.
Gladiator scene (although that idea went nowhere from there) and snakes scene only pluses. Uninteresting soundtrack (and non-existent in places where there should be music) and one of the most boring good guys. Iām feeling less generous these days, 2 out of 5 rope eating mice for me.
Finally watched this movie. Like most people here have stated, itās a not so great movie with some great scenes and two terriffic villains, George Eastman and Horst Frank
https://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Hate_Thy_Neighbor_review
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A pretty good film with memorable characters and some of the greenest scenery Iāve ever seen in a SW (What is this, The Quiet Man?).
The Koch DVD transfer is lush as expected. 
I agree, after having watched a good Youtube video.
The story isnāt near as good as in Baldiās Viva Django / Django Prepare A Coffin and The Forgotten Pistolero/Gunman Of Ave Maria (both 7/10) and has rather weak music. Still I just ordered the Koch DVD and with good will I might rate it 6/10.
Hate Your Neighbor so far appears to be one of the a little bit more entertaining SWs on my watch list since I have even not completed watching several of them recently due to boring fist fights etc. Nowadays it seems hard to get another 7/10-rated after having watched not far from 100 SWs rather carefully picked out of which I rate 35 films 7/10 or higher,
I received the Koch DVD today and after this second time it got a little bit better for me (as did also Baldiās Django Prepare A Coffin last year).
I like the slightly twisty story and serious mood (as in Viva Django / Django Prepare A Coffin and The Forgotten Pistolero/Gunman Of Ave Maria), and Baldi creates some stylishness.
Of course it was George Eastman and Horst Frank that dominated the film in their usual type of characters, while the supposed antihero is in clear shade of their charisma and for the better got less screen time. The serious Terence Hill type character as in Viva Django would probably have made the film even better where he was acting against those two same actorās characters.
The bizarre āgladiatorā duels with the H Frank character and his amused wife is example of one of the type of components that can contribute to a more interesting SW IMO.
There were some nice music, both orchestral and solo guitar but also some less good as the song in beginning.
It feels fair to increase my rating to 7/10, but so far at the last position of those SWs with such a rating, i.e. rank 37, but maybe it will climb some more in my appreciation later.
35 Garringo (Rafael Romero Marchent) (good music Marcello Giombini)
36 A Gun For 100 Graves/Pistol For A Hundred Coffins (Umberto Lenzi)
37 Hate Thy Neighbor (Ferdinando Baldi)
Itās a heroless movie in a way. The death of protagonistās brother serves only as a pretext to move on to the villains played by George Eastman and Horst Frank and the motion picture never really bothers to elaborate on the good guy in any meaningful way whatsoever, nada, zero. The main hero has got to be the most generic, rachitic, pointless and boring leading man Iāve ever seen in any spaghetti western, bar none. Heck, weāre talking here about an action-oriented genre, yet this guy still takes the cake, I canāt tell a single thing about him despite having just watched the thing.
The narration is out of focus in the sense that it liberally switches back and forth between the narrative strand of the good gunslinger and the treasure hunt with Eastman and Frank battling each other. The issue with this lies in the fact that it makes the whole script stillborn; the basic dramatic progression of the plot seems to rely on the character of Dakota, which is left completely underdeveloped and unexplored. The part of the film relating to the treasure hunt is the most interesting component of the film because it features some highly original touches and scenes, but then again, it gets attenuated by the other half and doesnāt really have any characters you could root for.
The crude, eccentric amalgamation just doesnāt work, endows the structure with a distinctly ugly, amorphous look and results in a messy succession of events I didnāt know how to feel about. There are quite a few neat as well as intriguing elements and Baldiās handling of action is as strong as ever, but I ultimately found little of it to be of much interest in the end.
Interesting is that a short musical theme (6 notes) which appears in the last scene is very similar to the main theme in the Swedish TV series āKullamannenā from 1967 (and 1968), about a year before Hate Thy Neighbour was released.
Hate Thy Neighbor has been updated to the new layout (3.0). Let us know if you can add anything: pictures, posters, trivia, facts, figures, links, etcā¦
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Watched this one for the first time the other night and I was a bit disappointed. I liked Eastman and Frank, but it didnāt seem as inspired as some of Baldiās other westerns like Blindman or The Forgotten Pistolero. The lead actor (forget his name) wasnāt that convincing in the lead and felt under-used, as did Machiavelli. Didnāt hate it but it was far from special and could have easily been better.
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I agree that it isnāt on the level of those two or Django, Prepare a Coffin but it definitely blows Little Rita out of the water. 
I did love Horst Frank and his Roman Colosseum style fights that he hosted and George Eastman is always entertaining. Then, we also have Nicoletta Machiavelli. 
The plot wasnāt carried out as well as it could have been and Spyros Fokas was as wooden as any actor could be. I enjoyed it but it wasnāt Baldiās best.
New poll for this one at the top of the page on the original post. 
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