God Forgives, I Don’t! (1967)

Someone has robbed the HKT Train of $100,000 in gold and killed everyone aboard.

Well, almost everyone. One badly wounded man slipped away and told everything he knew to Hutch Bessy (Bud Spencer), an enforcer for the company that insured the shipment.

And from what he learns from the dying man, Bessy believes the responsible party was Bill San Antonio (Frank Wolff), a notorious outlaw leader supposedly killed by gang member Cat Stevens (Terence Hill) a year earlier.

So Bessy tracks down Stevens for details about their showdown. And as Stevens thinks back to that oddly staged gunfight in a burning building, something the outlaw leader said that night makes him suspect Bessy might be right.

Bessy heads off to track down San Antonio and recover the gold for the insurance company. Stevens heads off to do the same with less altruistic intentions.

After all, after staging that gunfight and his own death, San Antonio made off with a fortune in loot from all the jobs the gang had pulled, letting everyone believe Stevens was responsible.

But, eventually, Stevens realizes he and Bessy are going to have to team up if they’re going to outgun and outwit San Antonio and his new gang.

Review:

Given the fabulous success of the Trinity Westerns, some might forget that Terence Hill started off making serious Westerns, and this is the first of three with director Giuseppe Colizzi.

It’s probably also the best of the three, with an attention grabbing opening, clever dialogue and a quite diabolical performance by Frank Wolff as the outlaw who winds up trying to recover the gold his gang stole.

This film also marked the first teaming of Hill and Spencer and the duo already start benefiting from Hill’s cleverness (hiding a weapon with the gold) and Spencer’s brute strength (he’s given the task of lugging around a large chest of gold, then breaks a wooden beam in two to escape a jam).

Thankfully absent are any scenes devoted to his appetite.

Lots of other familiar faces show up too, including Frank Brana as a member of San Antonio’s original gang, Jose Manuel Martin as a bumbling lieutenant with the new gang and Francisco Sanz as a barroom gadfly with a big mouth.

Directed by:
Giuseppe Colizzi

Cast:
Terence Hill … Cat Stevens
Bud Spencer … Hutch Bessy
Frank Wolff … Bill San Antonio
Gina Rovere … Rose
Jose Manuel Martin … Bud
Frank Brana … Lou
Franco Gula … Coffin maker
Francisco Sanz … Cantina informer
as Paco Sanz
Remo Capitani … Bartender
Juan Olaguivel … Dargo
Tito Garcia … Tam Tam
Rufino Ingles … Miguel

Also with: Joaquín Blanco, Antonietta Fiorito, José Canalejas, Antonio Decembrino, Luis Barboo, Giovanna Lenzi, Roberto Alessandri, Bruno Arie, Giancarlo Bastianoni

Runtime: 113 min.

Music: Carlo Rustichelli

aka:
Dio perdona … lo no!
Blood River
He Never Forgives

Memorable lines:

Hutch Bessy, having tracked down Cat Stevens after a card game prompted a barroom brawl: “So, you’re down to playing solitaire, hey, Cat?”
Cat Stevens: “Yeah, you don’t have to worry if you win.”

Hutch Bessy, looking for information about Cat’s encounter with Bill San Antonio, a year prior: “Why don’t you tell what really happened that night?”
Cat Stevens: “I’ll tell you. In hell.”

Cat Stevens to Bill San Antonio: “It’s easy enough to talk with a gun in your hands.”

Bill San Antonio, during his showdown with Cat Stevens inside a burning building: “I always liked a good joke. And who knows if this ain’t the biggest joke of them all?”

Coffin maker, about burying Bill San Antonio: “It tweren’t no pretty sight. Fire made him look like he’d already been to his natural destination. And nobody figured Bill was ever goin’ to wind up singin’ with a harp.”

Coffin maker: “Look, I get paid for doing funerals, and I don’t care what’s in the coffin, long as it’s dead. …
Cat: “Thanks for the drink, grandpa. Good seeing you again.”
Coffin maker: “Son, I’ll tell you this. If you were to tell me you couldn’t be sure you hit him that night, I’d be ready to swear that Bill San Antonio was never in that grave.”
Cat: “If that’s true, grandpa, he’s going to be mighty sorry he isn’t dead.”

Bill San Antonio, about the need to take care of dirty deeds himself to make sure they’re done right: “I’ll have to remember that in the future.”
Cat Stevens: “There won’t be any future for you, dead man.”

Cat Stevens: “Did anyone ever tell you that even with a gun in your hand, you’re just a dumb bastard, Bud?”

Trivia:

* Colizzi’s other two Westerns featuring Hill and Spencer were “Ace High”(1968) and “Boot Hill” (1969). He directed just six films, reuniting with the team he first put together for the action comedy “All the Way Boys” in 1974. That film is set in the Peruvian jungle.

* Another actor was supposed to play the lead role of Cat Stevens, but broke his foot. Terence Hill got the part, worked with Bud Spencer for the first time, and the two went on to make 17 more films together.

* Both were in the cast of a sword and sandal film called “Hannibal” that was released in 1959. But on his website, Hill says they didn’t get to know one another because their shootings weren’t done on the same days.

* As for their meeting and work together on this film, Hill writes: “Bud and I had an instant positive vibe between us when acting in front of the camera. Everything felt so easy and things that usually have be done over and over again, resulted just intuitively.”