Death Knows No Time (1968)

Gugliemo Spoletini (as William Bogart) is Martin Rojas, a Mexican forced off his farm in New Mexico by a land-hungry gringo named Marlowe.

Rojas and his companeros decide to send their families south of the border, then strike back at the gringos. And with the help of a partner named Trevor (Eduardo Fajardo), they rob a cash-rich bank.

But tragedy strikes the Rojas family after he returns home. He wife gives birth to a healthy son named Juan, only to die shortly thereafter.

When a posse led by Red Stacy (Sydney Chaplin) rides down on the hacienda where Rojas and his companions are living, they find him grieving by the bed of his dead wife and arrest him with ease.

He’s sentenced to 20 years in prison. Meanwhile, Stacy takes the baby boy and decides to raise the child as his own.

Flash forward 10 years, and Rojas escapes prison. He returns to the town where the Stacys live to catch a glimpse of the son who doesn’t know him.

He also happens across Trevor, who lures him back to a hideout by acting like a long-lost friend.

In truth, he wants Rojas’ share of the money from the long-ago bank job. Despite being beaten, Rojas refuses to disclose the location of the loot.

Trevor knows what might make him talk. He dispatches his henchmen. Their goal: Kidnap a young boy named Juan.

Gugliemo Spoletini (William Bogart) as Martin Rojas, striking back at the gringos in Death Knows No Time (1968)

Eduardo Fajardo as Trevor, showing up with a proposition for Martin Rojas in Death Knows No Time (1968)

Review:

Given the rare chance to play the lead role in a Spaghetti Western for once, Spoletini responds with a convincing performance as a tormented man and a deadly enemy.

And if Wayde Preston is pretty much an afterthought despite his second billing, Fajardo delivers a villain you’re sure to hate, one willing to torture a young boy with a lit cigar to get the information he wants.

The film also makes good and extensive use of flashbacks, allowing it to open with the aftermath of a climatic showdown between Martin Rojas and Trevor’s henchmen, then return to show viewers exactly what happened near the end of the film.

The biggest drawback: Some of the scenes featuring Rojas and the son who doesn’t know him come off as way too sappy. And the ending piles on the melodrama.

Wayde Preston as Marshal Johnny Silver stops a lynching in Death Knows No Time (1968)

Fernando Sanchez Polack as Yuma, Martin Rojas’s good friend in Death Knows No Time (1968)

Directed by:
Leon Klimovsky

Cast:
Gugliemo Spoletini …. Martin Rojas
as William Bogart
Wayde Preston … Marshal Johnny Silver
Agnes Spaak … Mrs. Stacy
Eduardo Fajardo … Trevor
Sydney Chaplin …. Red Stacy
Fernando Sanchez Polack …. Yuma
Fabrizio Mondello …. Juan
as Fabrizio
Pilar Cansino … Mrs. Rojas
Miguel del Castillo … Banker

Also with: Luis de Tejada, Alberto Gadea, Jaime de Pedro, Juan Fairen, Angel Menendez, Alfonso de la Vega, Manuel Tejada

Runtime: 102 min.

aka:
Pagó cara su muerte
Tierra Brava

Music: Carlo Savina

Sydney Chaplin as Red Stacy finds an abandoned baby boy in the Rojas home in Death Knows No Time (1968)

Fabrizio Mondello as Juan knows trouble is coming after Martin Rojas dispatches of two Trevor men in Death Knows No Time (1968)

Memorable lines:

Martin Rojas: “The gringos think the war is finished. That our lives here are finished. But there are surprises.”

Martin Rojas, of the gringos: “I will answer their hate with our hate.”
Yuma: “Once you said from the Americanos you want only peace. What have we instead, amigo … What good does it do?”

Martin Rojas to Trevor: “You know it is better to have a lot of money under the bed than one woman on top of it.”

Trevor henchman #1: “That’s the one they call El Lobo, the wolf.”
Trevor henchman #2: “He don’t bite much anymore.”

Martin Rojas to young Juan. after he kills one of Trevor’s men: “You would kill the scorpion? It’s true, isn’t it? That one was going to kill us, so I kill him like a scorpion. There are more scorpions still, waiting for us.”

Gugliemo Spoletini (William Bogart) talks about stashed loot with Monk, one of Trevor’s henchmen in Death Knows No Time (1968)

Fabrizio Mondello as Juan helping fellow captive Martin Rojas (Gugliemo Spoletini as William Bogart) quench his thirst in Death Knows No Time (1968)

Trivia:

* Gugliemo Spoletini appeared in more than a dozen Spaghetti Westerns, almost always under the name William Bogart. But one of his final film roles was as an Italian taxi driver in “The Omen” (1976), starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick. Spoletini died in 2005 at age 75.

* The marked the only Spaghetti Western for Pilar Cansino, who plays Martin Rojas’s wife. She did play a key role in a 1960 Spanish revolutionary film called “Juanito.” According to IMDb, Rita Hayworth was her cousin.

* Sydney Chaplin was the son of silent film star Charlie Chaplin. He also appeared in “If You Meet Sartana, Pray for Your Death” (1968) and “One by One Without Pity” (also 1968). Sydney enjoyed most of his success on Broadway. After retiring, he opened a popular restaurant called Chaplin’s in Palms Springs, Calif. He died in 2009 at age 82.

Pilar Cansino as Mrs. Rojas, watching her husband ride off for one last job in Death Knows No Time (1968)

Sydney Chaplin as Red Stacy and Anges Spaak as his wife watch over the baby boy they’ll adopt in Death Knows No Time (1968)

Eduardo Fajardo as Trevor, letting Martin Rojas know he’s been lured into a trap in Death Knows No Time (1968)

Gugliemo Spoletini (William Bogart) clutches a keepsake from his ‘son’ as he watches him return to his adoptive parents in Death Knows No Time (1968)