Database page: Vendo cara la pelle - The Spaghetti Western Database
aka I’ll sell my skin dearly aka Zum Abschied noch ein Totenhemd
who has seen the film and wants to comment on it? I just got the German DVD, which is VERY poor quality, but at least it’s widescreen and watchable.
the film actually is not bad at all. nice typical spaghetti western style, cool shoot outs, outstanding fist fights and acceptable music. it’s a pretty rare piece though
Vendo cara la pelle it’s a great low budget SW, Mike Marshall is cool as Shane. a revenge story with plenty of good action, as you said a typical SW style. it’s funny to discovered this rare movies, i saw it for the first time in my local movie theather in 1979 or 1980.
-nice, little revenge movie
-solid average material
-pretty hard at times
does it have English audio or subtitles on it, ive left it all this time because i think it may be German only
No english, unfortunately.
A Jerksi bootleg has been issued to this film using the German DVD (Marketing Film) as source print according to the review at Shobary’s site, and mentions the German DVD is heavily cut.
Shobary’s review:
http://spaghettiwesterns.1g.fi/illsell/myskin.htm
Does anyone have any information about the cuts?
Well the [quote=“ENNIOO, post:6, topic:52”]Does anyone have any information about the cuts?[/quote]
Well, the German dvd has a runtime just around 73 minutes (PAL-time) and Bruckner states that the original length was 87 minutes so it seems like a good 10 minutes are missing which is really quite a lot.
Anybody has the version the above-mentioned English dub came from? And how long does that run then?
Thanks for the information :).
Jerksi running time information (NTSC Region free):
Does the German DVD just end with the word end in German and no end credits?
The running time to this point is 73 minutes and 4 seconds.
However, the Jerksi version carries on after this point with end film credit information (and this section looks sourced from a T.V print), and the total time of the film to the end of the credits is:
74 minutes and 19 seconds.
There is an extra on the disc, and this is a scene at the end of the film which is not on the German DVD, and this scene runs for 3 minutes and 40 seconds.
Adding this time onto the longer running time (74 minutes and 19 seconds) gives us a running time of:
77 minutes and 59 seconds.
84 minutes ;D - is my version from start to end of credits. Not the best quality but watchable and widescreen.
And in English.
the german version you can actually notice places where footage is missing as far as i remember. nice flick though
Yes just states The End (or Ende in German) and that’s it, no credits. The exact running time is 73 minutes 9 seconds.
Reverend, you sound like someone I want to trade dvdrs with 
Yes there is a lot of frame skips along the way due to a partly ruined print I guess. Not too disturbing though, have seen worse. The Fedra West release was more lacking in that department
As there’s been some recent discussion about this, I dug it out and stuck it on.
This does look pretty uncut in this version. Only once did I notice a ‘jump’ - somewhere near the beginning when the returned Shane is carried to the jail for being ‘drunk’.
Some thoughts … and SOME SPOILERS no doubt.
The version I have is pretty ‘soft focus’, slightly hallucinogenic colours, and a bit blurry but it’s watchable - I’ve seen worse.
It also has a white 9 with a ‘rocker’ bar over the top permanently on screen (bottom left) - so I presume its a TV station logo maybe (I think I have other films with this logo).
At the start we meet some old scrote (who buried Shane’s dad - John Shane) complaining that “Whisky is his only friend”. He then recognises the returned Shane who tells him “You can bury a body, you can’t bury a memory” and then we get the titles - THE HANGMAN’S TREE - in this case.
In true s.w. style and convention we get a flashback as Shane picks up a doll, complete with a clockwork musical box soundtrack, and we find out that his mother and kid sister were also killed by Magdalena and his gang for the goldmine and land.
Out now for revenge, Shane turns into a blue-eyed killing machine devoid of feeling - until shot in the leg and - you just knew it - is rescued by a harmonica playing kid (Christian) and his dog (Laddie). These act to bring about a regained innocence in Shane to counter his darker side.
35 minutes into the film and it’s big love interest as Shane wrestles with his dual personality, and it’s all a bit too obviously done (it’s quite wordy and not a Clinty ‘less (said) is more’ type of way).
The film is quite ‘American’ in style in places being all a bit ‘A man’s gotta do …’ and moralisticly ‘black and white’, but there are some definate s.w. conventions at play as well.
Interestingly, there’s a character called Manco/Monco is this (as well as in FAFDM - for anybody who’s not familiar with the genre??). Shane warns him with a crafty dagger thrown at his wooden right hand. (So this backs up the Spanish ‘Manco’ meaning of a one/left handed interpretation regarding Clint’s character name.)
There’s a great deal of naivity and silliness as well. Theres pure comedy (not meant tho’) when Shane tries to discourage Christian from playing with guns. He tells him that they are not toys and then discharges the gun in a magnificently over-the-top display of gun twirling acrobatics and fancy shooting. Hmmmmm, so that’ll do the job.
The obligatory protracted bar fight has ‘shot-leg Shane’ bouncing off an (off-screen) trampoline to beat up baddie-Benson.
Other Americanisms relate to a - ‘go fetch Shane, Laddie’ - Lassie-ism, and a schmaltzy lovey-dovey babe-interest, which is unusual in being so obvious in this genre.
So, despite being a tad on the ’ big white teethy grin and blue-eyes’ side of cheesy in places, I still enjoyed it for the spaghetti vengeance and touches. One of which involves a priest - Father Dominique - a reformed murderer that Shane is out to get. Weisser would have us believe that Shane kills him as well as giving us the marvellous line "If God wants you, let him have you!“
Unfortunately, predictably’ this is more Weisser-bollocks”!
But overall an enjoyable, if predictable, outing.
Interesting Rev as the Jerksi version on the end credits and the extra scene on the disc have this logo on you mention…so this looks like where the english audio was sourced for this disc I have.
I just watched it an wrote a little DVD review (in German) about it: Zum Abschied noch ein Totenhemd DVD Review - The Spaghetti Western Database
Wish I understood German :).
Wish we could put it thru the same translation software as that ‘Gian Maria Steering Wheel’ stuff on the other thread.
Only jokin’ Lode 
@ ENNIOO / Reverend
I’ll make a translation of the parts Der Film and kritik tomorrow
Much appreciated Scherpschutter :).
Thanks sherp. If there are any problems, talk to me. I do a translation then.
Der FILM
When gunslinger Shane (Mike Marshall, a bad copy of Franco Nero and Gianni Garko) comes home, he finds the house deserted. Both his parents and his surprisingly much younger sister have been killed by Ralph Magdalena and his men, in order to lay hands on their properties. So Shane starts looking for them. On his way he gets wounded and to regain his health he stops at the ranch of a widow, who lives there alone with her son and admits Shane into her house. Inevitably they have to flee for Magdalena’s gang. But like before Shane is out for revenge so it all leads to a decisive showdown.
Kritik: It’s nice to get hold of a western this hard to find and be able to watch it finally. The revenge story is typical and doesn’t stand out among the numerous others within the genre. We knew in advance that the film couldn’t keep up with the greatest, and it never was intended to do so. This quite violent western is slightly above avarage. Unfortunately the main character doesn’t really shine (the only things shining, are his blue eyes). Personally I was particularly pleased by the Benson part (an excellent performance by Spartaco Conversi). All in all the actors do a decent job. True assets of the movie are the well-executed fistfights and great shootouts. The music fits the movie perfectly well but I was surprised to hear a Morricone adaption shortly before the showdown in the mine. The two composers Enrico Ciacci & Marcello Marocchi probably thought that was a lucky strike. All in all an above average western.