Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia are horse thieves who come up with an ingenious scheme.
They set up phony way stations along a desolate stagecoach road leading to the town of Desolation.
Once they lure the stage drivers and guards inside that waystation with the promise of a much-deserved rest, it turns out to be nothing but a false front.
At which point, Franco and Ciccio make off with the horses they’ve promised to care for, riding them to the Mexico border where they’re sold.
All works well under the vicious bandit El Diablo (Fernando Sancho) falls for their trap. His horse is marked by an easily recognizable white star on its flank. And the wagon they steal along with the horse is — unbeknownst to them — made of gold.
Franco and Ciccio wind up in Desolation, where the El Diablo is trying to reclaim his property, two of his past partners show up looking for revenge and the U.S. Cavalry is on the search for the bandits.
Oh, Calamity Jane (Gia Sandri) and her sharp-shooting sister Betty (Rosella Bergamonti) show up as well.
Review:
A silly and eventually tiresome Spaghetti Western comedy from the team of Franco and Ciccio, and there’s nothing subtle about their brand of comedy.
We have a couple of long flashback sequences where first Ciccio, then Franco, explain to the Jane sisters how they did away with the bandit El Diablo — they didn’t, of course — in the best Clint Eastwood or Lee Van Cleef fashion.
Along the way, our heroes have to survive being locked in a bank safe, a treacherous walk along a saloon’s railing high off the ground and a seemingly endless game of cash register roulette in which the register is somehow rigged to explosives.
Sandri and Bergamonti have little to do as the Jane sisters. But, hey, every Spaghetti needs a couple of pretty faces, right? And check out the all the phony fruit poor Betty has to wear on her bonnet!
Franco Franchi as Franco during a tense moment in Ciccio Forgives, I Don’t (1968)
Ciccio Ingrassia as Ciccio, doing his Clint Eastwood imitation in CiccioForgives, I Don’t (1968)
Directed by:
Marcello Cioriolini
as Frank Reed
Cast:
Franco Franchi … Franco
Ciccio Ingrassia … Ciccio
Fernando Sancho … El Diablo
Adriano Micantoni … Black Jack
Mario Maranzana … Doc
Gia Sandri … Calamity Jane
Rossella Bergamonti … Betty Jane
Renato Baldini … Angel Face
Luca Sportelli … Bartender
Gianni Solaro … Colonel
Leo Gavero … Officer
Saverio Lagana … Sergeant
Giuseppe Castellano … Sheriff
Bruno Ukmar … Baleno
Runtime: 100 min.
aka:
Ciccio perdona… Io no!
Music: Robert Pregadio
Fernando Sancho as El Diablo with his infamous horse with a badge on its flank in Ciccio Forgives, I Don’t (1968)
Gia Sandri as Calamity Jane and Rossella Bergamonti as Betty Jane in Ciccio Forgives, I Don’t (1968)
Memorable lines:
The version I watched was not in English
Trivia:
The comedy team of Franco and Ciccio made more than 100 films between 1960 and 1984. That included several Spaghetti Western comedies that played off titles of popular films, but which didn’t necessarily have anything else in common with them.
Among the duo’s non-Westerns was 1965’s “War Italian Style” in which they play two U.S. Marines who go up against German Gen. von Kassler. That role is played by former silent film star Buster Keaton in one of his final screen appearances.
Adriano Micantoni as Black Jack playing cash register roulette in Ciccio Forgives, I Don’t (1968)
Ciccio Ingrassia as Ciccio and Franco Franchi as Franco in Ciccio Forgives, I Don’t (1968)
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