Oh, I’ve found it on the YT channel now. 
The packaging looks nice, as usual, I’ll give it that. At least its got that going for it.
This has one of the best title sequences in the sub-genre. Have there been any good Blu-Ray releases of this one yet?
Yeah, just recently the German one
1 Like
Thank goodness I have a region free player!
Has anyone watched the Germsn blu ray and reappraised this one? Its a gap in my Garko collection.
Haven’t really managed to write a review. I would say for a slightly comedic western it’s almost a tad too smart, but it’s neither super entertaining nor will it ever regain a position of fandom…
3 Likes
I got the most recent German blu and really enjoyed it. Some clever humor in it as well as some exciting sequences.
2 Likes
Totally agree…also loved the humour.
1 Like
20 years ago I didn’t like any of Carnimeo’s films, but the more I watch them the more I get used to them, the more I like them.
Rewatched this one due to buying the beautiful Western All’arrabbiata Blu, and I enjoyed it more than before. The silly comedy elements still kill some parts of the film, but other parts are so well done and enjoyable that 5/10 seems to low.
A mixed affair, but the good aspects dominate. Not as great as They Call Me Halleluja, but it’s also positively weird.
2 Likes
I was already familiar with this film in the eighties, but only from hearsay, and the more I heard, the greater the myth became for me. Unfortunately, there was only one cinema release in Germany, no video release, no DVD. So I was all the more delighted when Plaion released the film in the Allarabiatta series. Because now I could see this myth with my own eyes for the first time. And it immediately shot into my Top Twenty with a rating of 9/10. Wonderful!
1 Like
Saw this in an English dubbed version of the Italian print. A bootleg since Plaion won’t sell a copy of their Blu Ray to me (not on Amazon.de and their website won’t ship to UK).
Firstly, the name - Garko is called Holy Ghost by everyone except one and signs off a note to Ubate as Holy Ghost. However, the Chris Huerta character, ‘Chicken’ in the English print, calls him ‘Harold’ throughout (they are past accomplices). Ubate wears Gen/President Huerta’s trademark spectacles (see Herbert Lom in Villa Rides) and is presumably a parody of Huerta rather than a mafia don. The use of the prostitutes to enter the presidential palace was referred to as a Trojan Whores in the English print. The white dove was referred to as ‘Eagle’.
As others have commented, this is pretty much a cross between a Sartana and a Trinity movie. I found Carnineo’s and Tito Carpi’s model to be a bit tiresome here and a step down from both the Sartana movies and the Hallelujah/Cemetery movies made in 1971. Two much silly slapstick for my liking - although there were a few good gags. It looked really cheap also - the President (of Mexico?) lived not in a city but in a small compound not far across the USA border. Garko looked a bit bored to me.
Saw the Italian version of this with English subtitles of the Italian on UK Amazon Prime. Much better print than my English language bootleg DVD so I could now actually see some of the scenes (half of the opening credits scene, the best scene in the movie was impossible to make out on the bootleg). It did improve my opinion of it although I don’t think it’s as good as the first Hallelujah film. Although better than the Tricky Dicky films. The Bud Spencer character, played by Chris Huerta was irritating and some of his scenes - long wrestling fight sequence and subsequent comedy fight - went off far too long and the bad guys were killed off far too quickly at the end.
There are quite a view interesting differences between the English and Italian versions. In general the English version adds more silly jokes and breaks the fourth wall a couple of times:
- Huerta’s character is ‘Chicken’ in English but ‘Carezza’ (‘Caress’) in Italian
- Huerta calls Garko ‘Harold’ (!) in English but ‘Santo’ in Italian. No Harold.
- In the English version, when Garko first appears, in response to ‘Who is he?’ a peasant says ’ I don’t know but he must be the hero’ in English and Garko later says he is a ‘hero’. In Italian the peasant says ‘They call him Spirito Santo’ ( literally ‘Holy Spirit’ but ‘Holy Ghost’ in subtitles). No fourth wall humour.
- Garko ironically tells Pilar ‘I’m a peaceful man’ in Italian but ‘Conscencious Objector’ in English
- Garko calls the Trojan Horse prostitute wagon ‘Cavello di Troia’ which is a play on words in Italian as Troia can mean Troy the city or ‘bitch’ (as per my auto translate). For the English version, there is a different, but equally clever, play on words as he says ‘Trojan whores’ rather than ‘Trojan Horse’.
- At the end, when Huerta is shouting out to Garko he ends with ‘Don’t leave me alone. It gets lonely at night in Cinecitta’. He doesn’t say this fourth wall joke in Italian.
One thing which must have been altered in post production is the name of the country. Urbate and Mendoza are President of ‘Morelos’ in both Italian and English. Yet there is ‘Viva Mexico’ grafitti and when the good guys cross what is supposed to be the American border and wade into the Rio Grande there is a Mexico/USA road sign, so they are clearly riding into Mexico. I can only assume that in the original they were in Mexico but then decided that as they couldn’t afford to show Mexico city and Urbate only had a pathetic compound as his HQ they changed it to a mythical country, Morelos.
1 Like