Always liked Bava films, in my opinion he was a talented director, of course his runs in the genre were all nothing special if, we compare with his terror movies for instance.
Whit that said didn’t quite know what to expect from this one. Read the premises about it, and of course learn that it was suppose to be a “serious” SW Leone style, but Bava somewhree along the way must have thought that he didnt’ had both the money and the actors for that, so must have decided to change things into a comedy pretty fashionable stuff at the time, still some of the Leone stuff did remained, the Russian Reverend character (played very well by Teodoro Corrà ) is inspired to say the least in Eli Wallach Tuco.
the main problem are both lead actors, neither one of the two is specially good for comedies, Brett Halsey was real out of his league (not that he ever plAyed the main league but…) and Southwood ALSO didn’t impress much in that aspect.
So a real turkey going nowhere, well not quite IMO, Bava is a talented director and that shows even in this low key productions, there are directors that struggled in several SW to keep their comedie well balance, Bava didn’t had any problem in that area, we know its a comedy, just a plein simple comedy, the scene where the guy shoots at the crutches is funny, and that’s just an exemple there are others.
So there’s no exaggerated drama no mix of dramatic emotions with jokes, meaning the narrative flow of the film is well balanced , there’s one or another point in the film where we can see Bava’s quality behind the camera.
Of course it still a pretty low key job, and Bava never reach at least Fulci level in SW, he was best known for being a director that spend little money in the films he directed (a producers dream), but maybe he should invested a bit more in this one, making a comedy of any kind with Halsey, is a lost cause.
Watchable if not for more at least for Marilu tolo she’s great and lovely and the best thing in the all film