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Three men enter the town looking like Clint Eastwood, Lee van Cleef and Franco Nero (some have said it was Gian Maria Volonte) but they are not the protagonists of this film. Those who looked like Franco Nero were evil gunmen so evil that windows and doors were rapidly closed for safety. A black-dressed bounty hunter is already waiting for them. The gunman is also introduced to a gravedigger who, having three coffins, is trying to ride out of the town. The coffin’s destination is somewhere near the gunman. Everything escalates as the bounty hunter swiftly kills them with no hesitation at all.
The film ‘Vado, l’ammazzo e torno’ literally mentions that the gunman does indeed go and kills. A wise man once mentioned that the film borrows from more illustrious genres, but the rest of the movie serves have wonders within it. Regardless of the previous statements, I can assure you that this is a great opening to the movie itself.
Hilton, the bounty hunter, unwittingly sees a train robbery carried out by Roland, the Mexican bandit he is pursuing. The Mexicans start quarrelling among themselves, and Hilton reevaluates his desire to kill Roland. There is greater reward money available, and perhaps it would be better to join him instead. After Roland executes the man who tricked him, he gets captured, tried, and sentenced to death. Hilton, however, rescues him in the nick of time, but a crooked employee of the bank Byrnes has obtained one part of the medallion that points to the gold’s location, which also needs to be dealt with.
However, the fact that there are three separate parties interested in treasure places this movie within the same premise as the latter. The intertwining features of the plot place a strong emphasis on the action comedy genre of the film, while simultaneously displaying Castellari’s unique vision. One of the best directors of his time, Enzo G(Girolamo) Castellari, will probably always be remembered for the spaghetti flick Keoma, and the Shakespeare analog Johnny Hamlet, but he brought forth some fun elements to the genre as well. Similar to Alberto de Martino’s Django shoots first from 1966, this is an example of a spaghetti western that is light-hearted. There is still some prosecutable violence, commit the assault during the train robbery, and while some of the genre is cynical, the opening is far too humorous for the second half to be so violent. What greatly facilitates the change is the fistfight between Byrnes and Hilton where Hilton was dressed in nothing but underwear. While Castellari does have some issues with pacing, there is enough intricacy in the plot to keep us occupied.
One such chase sequence is set in a marketplace, which begins with some furious punches thrown and concludes with Byrnes bouncing off trampolines while attempting to elude his pursuers. The scenes tend to slip into absurdity from time to time, but the cinematography including the first sequence where Hilton makes his surreal appearance over a deep crimson background, the mountains of cash, and the scenes leading to them are simply mesmerizing, to say nothing of the other actors. I’ve never particularly liked Hilton, but the part of the almost completely smiling, amoral adventure/bounty hunter suits him perfectly; Roland seems an odd choice to play the sophisticated Mexican bandit but turns in a fine, laconic performance and television actor Byrnes was a pleasant surprise to me as the deliciously wicked white collar criminal with a fifties forelock (the Fonz out West!). I’m not particularly sure how to feel about De Masi’s score; it’s not that bad and goes rather well with the film, but it is also very strange and parts of it reminded me of French comedies from the sixties when Louis de Funès was playing the gendarme of St. Tropez.
This film comes from the St. Clair Vision box set which contains 3 DVDs and 9 movies in total. Don’t expect too much from such box sets, but I must admit this film is in more or less its original ratio and the image quality is not bad at all. Furthermore, its duration is 1:37:22, so it looks like this version is unedited, unlike the official US version. Surround sound is claimed to be 5.1 virtual, whatever that is, but I did not hear much surround sound activity. Dialogue is always easy to make out, although there are some lip sync problems. It is rather crackly and has a bit of hiss. Due to so many lines being in Spanish, the lack of subtitles might annoy some people.
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