Colt in the Hand of the Devil (1973)

When inmate Roy Koster (Robert Woods) gets into a dispute with a prison guard, Jeremiah “Sulky” Scott saves his life. “You owe me,” he says.

Scott dies in prison, but once released, Koster doesn’t forget his debt. He heads to Silvertown with just one clue, a pair of cuff links passed to him by Scott.

Once there, he learns that Jeremiah had been sentenced to life for killing a leading citizen and his young niece (?), presumably to steal the money the man was carrying.

Scott’s children – Grace (Fiorella Mannoia) and Phillip (Nino Fuscagni) – blame their father for the shame he brought them. Only Scott’s wife Martha still believes in his innocence.

Once Koster sees the reaction to the cuff links, he too comes to believe Scott might have been frame. Those cuff links make him quite unwelcome in Silvertown, especially among those aligned with a rich rancher named Warner (George Wang).

Turns out they were also a key piece of evidence in the trial against Scott.

Review:

Woods plays a tough as nails fast gun, minus the histrionics that marred his performance in the same director’s “Black Jack” (1968).

And he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get the information he wants, even if that means slapping around pretty Grace (before grabbing and kissing her in one of the film’s worst scenes) or threatening to hang former saloon employee Sam Dayton (in one of the better).

There’s also a memorable card game in which Koster throws down three aces, then uses a pencil to turn a deuce into an ace, just to prove he’s not the least bit intimidated by Warner.

Unfortunately, Wang is a tough sell as a Western rancher who can’t even be bothered to button his shirt. And this is far from the “cool” roles saloon owner William Berger played in many of his other Spaghetti appearances.

The film also suffers from a low-budget feel and a nagging question: How did “Sulky” Scott wind up back in possession of those cuff links that were used to frame him?

Directed by:
Gianfranco Baldanello

Cast:
Robert Woods … Roy Koster
William Berger … Isaac McCorney
George Wang … Warner
Fiorella Mannoia … Grace Scott
Nino Fuscagni … Phillip Scott
Federico Chentrens … James
as Fred Kent
Giovanna Mainardi … Martha Scott
Attilio Dottesio … “Sulky” Jeremiah Scott

Antonio Dimitri … Jack MooreVictor Stocchi … Sheriff
Mario Dardanelli … Sam Dayton

Runtime: 89 min.

aka:
Una Colt in mano al diavolo
When the Devil Holds a Gun

Music: Piero Piccioni

Memorable lines:

Roy Koster, about the mysterious cuff links he carries: “I happened to bump into a dead body one day and he said, ‘Dig me a grave and keep this little trinket in exchange. Then, when he’d been buried decently, he said, ‘Watch out. There’s a place in Texas where they might just try to kill you if anybody sees you walking around with it. That’s what he said.”
Isaac McCorney: “He was very talkative for a body.”

Phillip Scott: “My father? You’d do me a favor if you called me a bastard!”

Jack Moore, Warner’s gunman: “Folks usually respect my word. You saying I’m a liar, mister?”
Roy Koster: “Yes, I am. And a little more. You’re a no good son of a bitch, like your friends.”

Grace Scott to Koster after he’s starting asking questions: “After all these years, they’ve begun to forget that I’m still tainted with the name of Scott. But we aren’t free yet. Cause you’re gonna set it all back like it was.”

Martha Scott, reflecting on a conversation with her late husband: “There was a drought for months and the ground was all burned up. ‘Just wait. Just wait,’ I said to him one day. ‘The good Lord will soon provide us with some rain. You’ll see.’ Jeremiah smiled. ‘If our blessed Lord doesn’t know by now that we need that water as much as the damned in hell, then he’s not much of a cowboy, whatever else he is.'”

Trivia:

Sergio Bergonzelli directed a 1967 film — Una colt, in pugno al diavolo – with an identical U.S. title. It’s a better film with a bigger budget and – quite coincidentally, George Wang in the role of the chief “villain.”

George Wang was born in 1918 and got his start in the Chinese film industry before heading to Italy and finding himself in high demand on one of the only Oriental actors available to play villains like Warner. He wound up appearing in more than a dozen Spaghetti Westerns. In moved to Hong Kong in 1978 and started a film production company there. He died of a heart attack in 2015 at age 96.