An unexpected encounter with a Mexican bandit leader named Pedro leaves Jeff Smart (Kirk Morris) wounded and his partner Hernando dead.
He winds up being nursed back to health by a lovely lady named Julie (Dada Gallotti) and her family, then heads off to avenge the partner’s death.
In fact, he now has three deaths to avenge. He was already on the trail of those responsible for his parents’ deaths when Hernando was killed.
His journey leads him to Lake City where he meets a pretty saloon owner (Gisella Arden as Katy) and clashes with a gambling gunman named Clayton Foster (Gordon Mitchell).
He also agrees to pin on a deputy sheriff’s badge, hoping to bring law and order to a town where Mexican bandits shoot up the street whenever they want and the sheriff cowers in his office.
He cowers because of a mysterious man named Saguaro. He’s the one pulling the strings for the bandits, even if no one seems sure of his identity.
Kirk Morris as Jeff Smart has tough words for the Lake City sheriff in I’ll Die for Vengeance (1968)
Larry Ward as Saguaro, the bandit posing as a businessman in I’ll Die for Vengeance (1968)
Review:
Give director Tanio Boccia this: In the third of his four Spaghetti Westerns, he keeps the action coming fast and furious. And when the action stops, there’s usually a lovely lady on screen.
He decorates those lovely lasses in fine fashion too. Check out Gisella Arden’s leather riding outfit. Or the bustier and corset rancher’s daughter Dada Gallotti apparently wears to bed at night.
Problem is, the plot is a bit of a haphazard mess. The actor playing Saguaro is second billed, but viewers don’t find out who Saguaro is until more than an hour into the film in the print I watched.
The climatic showdown is also a bit of a letdown considering the convulted path the film has taken to get to that point.
Oh, and speaking of Gallotti, she’s involved in one of the most unintentionally hilarious scenes you’ll see in a Spaghetti Western.
As Julie, she’s walking along with Jeff Smart to the stable, trying to convince him to stop putting himself in the path of danger.
He’s being stubborn. So she stops … well, I won’t spoil the surprise. But he keeps right on putting himself in danger.
Sergio Ciani (Alan Steel) as Pedro, leader of the gang of Mexican bandits in I’ll Die for Vengeance (1968)
Gordon Mitchell as Clayton Foster, the gambler and gunman who crosses Jeff Smart and Saguaro in I’ll Die for Vengeance (1968)
Directed by:
Tanio Boccia
as Amerigo Anton
Cast:
Kirk Morris … Jeff Smart
Larry Ward … Saguaro
Sergio Ciani … Pedro
as Alan Steel
Gordon Mitchell … Clayton Foster
Gisella Arden … Katy
as Kim Arden
Dada Gallotti … Julie
Ana Castor … Meg, dancer
Aldo Cecconi … Bronco
Giovanni Ivan Scratuglia … Hernando
Luciano Bonanni … Julie’s father
Also with: Rossana Rovere, Remo Capitani, Attilio Marra, Alfonso Giganti, Juan Fairen
aka:
Sapevano solo uccidere
Saquaro
Music: Angelo Francesco Lavagnino
Gisella Arden (Kim Arden) as saloon owner Katy, who reached Three Crosses and finds a surprise in I’ll Die for Vengeance (1968)
Dada Gallotti as Julie, the woman who takes Jeff Smart in and nurses him back to health in I’ll Die for Vengeance (1968)
Memorable lines:
Jeff Smart: “Revenge is all that matters in this territory. And revenge is what I intend to get.”
Bronco as Julie insists on picking up a stranger lying wounded in the road: “I just gotta face it. You ain’t cut out for this kind of life. That city life and those books of yours has twisted your mind.”
Lake City doctor, looking after an injured Jeff again: “You know, I don’t think you and this town were made for each other.”
Saloon owner Katy to Jeff, after he’s been involved in a gunfight and a barroom brawl, all in the same night: “We’re just peaceful, loving people here.”
Lake City doctor: “That’s dead right.”
Katy as Jeff slips through her window: “You picked the hard way to get into my bedroom.”
Ana Castor as Meg, Clayton’s girl, securing the cash when shots ring out in I’ll Die for Vengeance (1968)
Bronco (Aldo Cecconi) and Julie’s father (Luciano Bonanni) debate the wisdom of bringing a wounde man home in I’ll Die for Vengeance (1968)
Trivia:
* Kirk Morris was Adriano Bellini, working as a gondolier in Venice when discovered and turned into a star of peplums so popular in Italy in the 1960s. This marked his only starring role in a Spaghetti Western, though he played the famed gunfighter Ringo in “Rita of the West” (1968).
* This marked their only Western collaboration, but Morris starred in seven of Tanio Boccia’s other films, including 1964’s “Hercules of the Desert.”
* Gisella Arden’s handful of screen credits also include a pair of Zorro films, “Zorro, the Navarra Marquis” (1969) starring Nadir Moretti and “Invincible Masked Rider” (1963) starring Pierre Brice.
Kirk Morris as Jeff Smart, ready to dispense justice and revenge in I’ll Die for Vengeance (1968)
Kirk Morris as Jeff Smart (second from right) and Gisella Aren as Katy after a barroom brawl in I’ll Die for Vengeance (1968)
Dada Gallotti as Julie and Kirk Morris as Jeff Smart talk about a possible future together in I’ll Die for Vengeance (1968)
Kirk Morris as Jeff Smart gets a look at the trouble in Lake City from his hotel room in I’ll Die for Vengeance (1968)
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