The Executioner of God (1973)

William Berger is Padre Tony Lanthony, who returns from a trip to town one day to find two bandits gangs waging battle outside his mission.

Both want to gold supposedly hidden there. The padre is accosted by the leaders of The Three Aces Gang, who demand that he show them the secret passage into the mission.

When he refuses, they blow up the mission, killing all the innocents inside. Then they cut the rope they’ve tied the padre to, sending him plunging down a well.

He’s rescued and sets out to even the score.

His job is made easier by an ally named Goliath, a scorned saloon girl named Carol and the fact that The Three Aces didn’t trust one another, so they split the gold up into three hiding places.

Pretending to be a salesman named Mulligan, the padre manages to find out where all the gold is hidden.

Review:

To be handed a cast that includes Berger, Donald O’Brien, George Wang and a female lead as fetching as Nuccia Cardinali and still produce a film this amateurish takes a special brand of incompetence.

Try not to laugh too hard when you see The Three Aces wearing their yellow handkerchiefs the first time. It’s the first of the film’s several unintentionally funny moments.

As for the director’s actual attempts at humor … well, they’re more likely to make you moan.

This film threatens to get better when the aforementioned Cardinale shows up. Tossed aside for a younger whore, she plots her own revenge.

But then director and script writer Lattanzi screws that up with a ludicrous plot twist and a horribly choreographed shootout.

Yep, you might watch this Spaghetti once. I’m pretty sure you won’t be tempted to watch it twice.

Directed by:
Franco Lattanzi

Cast:
William Berger … Padre Tony Lanthony / Lang
Donald O’Brien … Frank Bridge, “Ace of Hearts”
George Wang … Ramon Orea, “Ace of Diamonds”
Ivan Greeve … John Darnell, “Ace of Spades”
Victor Stocchi … Paul, “Goliath”
as Victor Stock
Nuccia Cardinali … Carol
Attilio Dottesio … Tim Robson
Antonio Dimitri … Riango
Clara Hopf … Brenda
Nello Palladino … The safecracker

Other credited cast members: Alessandro Perrella, Lorenzo Piani, Albert Santilli, Nicola Mozzillo, Maurizio Mannoia, Raffaele Rossi, Gianni Cardillo, Giovanna Mainardi, , Angelo Casadei, Clemente Ukmar, Bruno Arie, Franco Pasquetto, Benito Pacifico, Luciano Conti

Runtime: 87 min.

aka:
Il giustiziere di Dio
God’s Gunman
The Judgment of God

Music: Piero Piccioni

Memorable lines

Ramon Orea: “Each one of those cases holds 100 gold ingots. Every ingot is a pound of gold.”
Three Aces gang member: “Well, with the price of gold what it is, that makes around half a million.”
Frank: “In spite of being such an ignorant son of a gun, he sure is good at arithmetic.”

Ramon Orea to Padre Lang: “You tried to resist The Three Aces.” He spits. “I said I’d give you a hand to paradise, didn’t I? But that wouldn’t be right. The place for you is hell.”

Saloon girl Carol: “In eight years, it never happened once. It’s the first time you’ve forgotten to say hello to me after a journey.”
Frank Bridge: “I said hello to ya, perhaps you just didn’t hear.”
Carol: “You only said ‘howdy.'”

Trivia:

Nuccia Cardinali’s relatively brief film career included appearances in three Spaghetti Westerns, beginning with a supporting role in “Two Crosses to Danger Pass” (1967). In 1975, she’d make her final film appearance in Lattanzi’s Kung Fu Western “Tiger from River Kwai,” starring George Eastman and Gordon Mitchell.

Ivan Greeve, who plays the third “Ace” in this film, appeared in just five movies, all Spaghetti Westerns. His largest role outside this film was as Mister Hobby in 1972’s “Beyond the Frontiers of Hate.”