Beyond the Frontiers of Hate (1972)

A frontier family is celebrating the return of a gift-bearing father when the Indians attack, killing everyone but the young daughter they carry off as a captive.

Flash forward several years, and hostilities between the whites and the Indians are still raging, with members of the Arikara tribe determined to go on the warpath to make the whites pay for a recent massacre.

Kite (Jeff Cameron) will have the privilege of leading the Arikara warriors into battle, though his pretty lover Loana (Stefania Nelli) has premonitions that all might not end well.

Nevertheless, Kite and his men ambush a cavalry caravan, making off with a large supply of guns and two captive troopers, one of whom is badly wounded.

Loana sneaks into the teepee where the prisoners are being held one night, intent on killing that captive. Until she notices the necklace around his neck. It’s identical to one she’s worn most of her life.

Then the memories of that long-ago attack on the frontier family come flooding back. She was the young girl captured; the wounded soldier is the brother she presumed was dead.

Meanwhile, spurred into action by the attack on the caravan, Col. Manson vows to annihilate the Indians and bring peace to the frontier once and for all.

Review:

A bizarre Spaghetti Western in which the filmmakers clearly wanted to deliver a message about the tragedy of the West, with Indians killing whites and whites killing Indians in an endless cycle of revenge despite the fact that we all bleed red.

Detracting from that message: Subpar acting and a budget so small that the climatic attack on an Arikara village is carried out by about a dozen troopers on horseback and that village features tee-pees so small and flimsy, they can be toppled with a simple push by a single soldier.

Then there’s the fact that no one has apparently figured out that Loana is a kidnapped white raised by the Indians. In spite of her pale skin and her light brown hair!

Stefania Nelli has that role, and overacts so badly she makes Jeff Cameron look good in comparison.

For some reason — perhaps that limited budget — Santini felt the need to include lots of poorly matching stock footage from a Winnetou film. In one scene, you can even spot Pierre Brice and Lex Barker dodging explosions as they make their way through an Indian camp under attack.

Directed by:
Alessandro Santini

Cast:
Jeff Cameron … Kite
Stefania Nelli .. Loana
George Cavendish … Black Cloud
Cameron Steel … Austin
Laila Shed … Janet
Ivan Greeve … Mr. Hobby
Nick Morelli … Col. Manson
Vincenzo Basile … Bogart
Patrizia Mayer … Pepita
Francesco Magno … Uncle Jonathan

Runtime: 79 min.

aka:
Al di la dell’odio

Music: Elsio Mancuso

Memorable lines:

Young George, after receiving a gift of a cavalry cap from his father: “I’m a general and I’m going to kill all the redskins.”
His younger sister Cathy: “We don’t kill Indians. They’re God’s children, like us.”

Austin to his lover Janet: “Dear Janet, you’re a great sinner. And you make me sin.”
Janet: “My poor thing.”

Kite: “Even if our skin color is different from that of other races, everyone has red blood.”

Trivia:

This was one of just three films directed by released by Alessandro Santini and his only Spaghetti Western.

This also marked the only Spaghetti outing for Stefania Nelli, who has just three film credits to her name on IMDb.

Does anyone know who played the role of Lt. George Wilson, Loana’s long-lost brother? The cast list above is based on the credits at the end of the version of the film I watched. Seems strange that someone in such a key role wouldn’t be among the credited cast.