Hey Amigo, You’re Dead (1970)

A band of bandits ride into a down-on-its-luck town and take everyone captive so that they can rob the Butterfield Stage of the $100,000 its carrying.

They force Doc Williams (Wayde Preston) to greet that stage. And when the escort detail is gunned down, the townsfolk blame Doc for not doing anything to stop the massacre.

He vows to correct that. He plans to hunt down and kill every member of the gang, led by a man named Burnett (Rik Battaglia).

Burnett dresses like a gentleman even if he doesn’t act like one. And his gang includes a sex-crazed killer named Black (Aldo Berti), who is especially intrigued by Doc’s pretty girlfriend (Anna Malsson).

In his quest for vengeance, Doc picks up a sidekick named El Loco (Marco Zuanelli), who rides around on a burro and rescues his new friend from a couple of tough jams.

About that name: El Loco says people started calling him that because he enjoys a carefree lifestyle and doesn’t care about money.

But $100,000? That’s quite the temptation.

Review:

This film features a razor-thin plot, a budget that must not have been much bigger and a couple of truly head-scratching moments.

The bandits don’t find the gold in the chest that’s hidden in the stagecoach. Instead, the bags inside the chest are full of rocks. How often have you seen that trick used?

But they figure the gold must be in the stagecoach, so they take off the wheels and haul it back to their hideout, with one horse in front and one behind lifting it off the ground. Huh? To hide he wagon tracks? If so, they never indicate as much.

Then the final bandit left standing inexplicably returns to the scene of the original robbery. After all, Doc’s pretty girlfriend is there, just waiting to be tied up and assaulted and have no one run to her rescue when she starts screaming.

Marco Zuanellli does appear to have fun in a Fernando Sancho comic relief type of role. Except for when he’s hung from the beam in a livery stable.

He’s left to stand on a couple of bags of grain; then the bandit leader shoots holes in those bags so they’ll drain very slowly. Now that’s a trick you might not have seen before.

Directed by:
Paolo Bianchini
as Paul Maxwell

Cast:
Wayde Preston … Doc Williams
Rik Battaglia … Burnett
Marco Zuanellli … El Loco
Aldo Berti … Black
Anna Malsson … Doc’s woman
Raffaele Baldassarre … Manolo
as Raf Baldwin
Zucio Barini … Barnett henchman
Alberto Di Graciz … Barnett henchman
Agnes Spaak (?) … Mary, farmer’s wife
Franca Scagnetti … Woman in mourning

Runtime: 84 min.

aka
Ehi amigo… sei morto!
Hey Amigo, to Your Death
Hey Amigo! A Toast to Your Death
Hey Amigo, Rest in Peace

Music: Carlo Savina
Song: “Hey Amigo, You’re Dead” sung by Don Powell

Memorable lines:

New widow, after the outlaw’s attack: “You didn’t get killed, Doc, and you were right there. Now what about Walter? My husband was killed. What are you gonna do?”
Doc: “Now, I’m gonna kill. All of ’em.”

El Loco: “Hey, amigo, whiskey burns your guts. Instead, if you try tequila, it caresses them.”

El Loco to Doc: “Only you call me hombre. Everyone else calls me El Loco.”

Trivia:

When Doc Williams makes his first stop in a town while searching for the robbery suspects, you can hear a saloon tune being sung in the background. It’s the theme song performed by Mercedes Castro early in “Dynamite Joe,” also scored by Carlo Savina.

This film marked the only screen credit for Anna Malsson, who plays Doc’s woman and one of the females assaulted by Aldo Berti’s “Black” over the course of the film.

This marked the last of four Spaghetti Westerns Paolo Bianchini directed between 1968 and 1970. It was preceded by three better films, “God Made Them … I Kill Them” (1968), “I Want Him Dead” (1968) and “Machine Gun Killers” (1968)

This also marked the final Spaghetti Western for American actor Wayde Preston, who made several after playing the lead in the “Colt .45” TV series that began airing in 1957. Those Spaghettis included supporting roles in “Today We Kill, Tomorrow We Die” (1968) and “A Man Called Sledge” (1970).