God Is My Colt .45 (1972)

Once upon a time, Landford City was a wonderful, peaceful place to live.

Capt. Mike Jackson (Jeff Cameron), working undercover, heads back to that hometown to find out what’s gone wrong.

He’s been told about the primary problem by a town sheriff ill-equipped to deal with thievery occurring on such a large scale.

The Greenwater Cattle Co., fronted by Manuel (Gianfranco Clerici) and Colin (Donal O’Brien) has set up shop in town.

And it uses strong-arm tactics to force the local ranchers to sell their herds to the company for a fraction of what they’re worth.

But the government dispatched an agent named James Clinger to deal with that problem. Now Clinger has disappeared.

Soon, Jackson discovers there’s another motivation for the trouble in Landford — a silver mine with a secret location that was owned by the father of his old flame (Krista Nell as Mary O’Brien.

The location was so secret, even Mary didn’t know where the mine was located. And now her father is dead, and the map revealing that information has gone missing from his safe.

Review:

When Jeff Cameron is at the top of your cast list, you know you’re about to embark on a low-budget ride through Spaghetti land.

And this one doesn’t disappoint in that sense, with banal dialogue (check out the last quote below), lots of horse riding scenes and lots of bad guys doing acrobatic death spirals after our hero points his gun in their general direction.

This one does benefit from a larger cast than most, which makes for a slightly more complicated plot.

Just don’t spend too long thinking about some of the plot twists, like why Mary’s father would reveal the secret location of his mine to a government agent minutes after meeting the man

The story line also includes a truly imaginative way to do away with the film’s bad girl (Esmeralda Barros as Paquita) so that Jeff doesn’t have to be responsible for gunning down a female.

That slightly larger than normal cast includes Donal O’Brien as a sneering villain with a penchant for pretty girls, and Krista Nell as Jeff’s former lover, forced into a life of whoredom by the low-lifes who have taken over Landford City.

Directed by:
Luigi Batzella
as Dean Jones

Cast:
Giovanni Scarciofolo … Capt. Mike Jackson
as Jeff Cameron
Krista Nell … Mary Bryan
Esmeralda Barros … Paquita
Gianfranco Clerici … Manuel
as Mark Davis
Gino Turini … James Clinger
as John Turner
Giulio Baraghini … Bradley
Attilio Dottesio … Sheriff Bill Harris
William Mayor … Richard Curtis
Mauro Mannatrizio … Major
Nello Palladino … Mary’s father
Alessandro Perrella … Company spokesman
Irio Fantini … Alan
Sophia Kammara … Carol Cutis
Donal O’Brien … Colin

Runtime: 85 min.

aka:
La Colt era il suo Dio
God is My Colt
His Gun Was His God

Music: Vasili Kojucharov

Memorable lines:

Richard Curtis, found shot by Capt. Mike Jackson: “They got me, Mike. They got me good.”

Colin: “Isn’t a guy supposed to say ‘hello’ when he comes into a strange town?”
Mike Jackson: “I only speak to my friends. And you ain’t a friend, friend.”

Mike Jackson, after catching Colin assaulting Carol Curtis and shooting him in the right ear: “Now, Colin, if you don’t want a hole in the other ear, be a good laddie for once.”

Manuel: “I’m scared. I’m afraid to die. I thought my woman would understand me.”
Paquita: “But I don’t want to belong to a no good, sniveling coward.”

Mike Jackson, from inside a barrel being rolled by a bad guy: “Put down your gun, or the boogeyman will get you.”

Trivia:

* The same director and the same cast made another Spaghetti, “Paid in Blood,” released a year earlier. Watch them back to back, note how many scenes are used in both films — including complete shoot-outs — and it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that all the footage for both films was shot simultaneously.

* Before turning to directing, Batzella acted in several Eurowesterns as Paul Solvay. He went on to direct 15 films. They included 1977’s “The Beast in Heart” about a female SS officer in Nazi Germany who creates a genetic, sex-crazed half-man, half-beast to torment female prisoners. He made that film as Ivan Kathansky.