The Moment to Kill (1968)

George Hilton plays Lord; Walter Barnes is Bull. They’re partners hired to help locate $500,000 in gold bars that once belonged to the Confederate treasury.

But to find the gold bars, they’re told they must first find a crippled young woman named Regina, who vanished on her trip back home to the West.

And they need to find a book named “Camelot” that somehow holds clues to the location of the missing gold.

Problem is, an all-powerful businessman named Forrester (Carolo Alighiero) also knows about the $500,000.

His sadistic son Jason (Horst Frank) would prefer to have Lord and Bull killed, and tries more than once.

His father has a better idea: Keep the men alive until they lead him to the gold.

Well, Lord and Bull have no trouble finding the book. And they trick Jason into guiding them to the woman.

Recovering the gold might be far more difficult.

Review:

A so-so Spaghetti that’s more interested in body count than story, though an ending full of twists helps salvage the endeavor.

That said, Lord and Bull find some awfully imaginative ways to add to that body count.

At one point during a shootout in a slaughter house, one of them fires a shot that causes a side of beef to land on a bad guy’s head.

Barnes is particularly delightful in his role as a shotgun-toting sidekick; Lord calls him his “guardian angel.”

You’ll also likely to remember a scene in which the crippled Regina is tormented by Jason Forrester’s henchmen, her wheelchair spun first one way, then another as they threatened to assault the “helpless” woman.

Directed by:
Anthony Ascott

Cast:
George Hilton … Lord
Walter Barnes … Bull
Horst Frank … Jason Forrester
Carlo Alighiero … Forester
Loni von Friedl … Regina
Giorgio Sanmartino … Trent
Rudolph Schundler … Judge Warren
Remo de Angelis … Dago

Also with: Ugo Adinolfi, Pietro Ceccarelli, Fred Coplan, Luciano Doria, Sergio Ukmar, Enrico Chiappafreddo, Sergio Testori, Giorgio Sanmartino, Carlo Alighiero

aka:
The Moment of Killing
Il Momento di uccidere

Score: Francesco De Masi
Song: “Walk By My Side, sung by Raoul

Memorable lines:

Lord, to a cowpoke who has spit into the water he’s about to drink: “You’re pretty cute. That’s some sense of humor for a son of a bitch.”

Blonde, in bed, going at it with Lord: “Oh, lord.”
Lord: “How’d you know my name?”

Lord: “I don’t like it when friends of mine disappear. It makes me nervous. Nervous as hell.”

Lord: “You always this nervous? Or just when questions are being asked?”
The town barber: “No, no, really. I don’t know nothing at all. No one around here does.”
Lord: “Yeah. I’ve never been to a town where so many people were so button-lipped.”

Lord: “Everybody’s got the right to make an error. Pity yours was fatal.”

Lord, to one of the henchmen: “Okay, Mr. Hurt, you’ve got an empty gun and an empty head.”

Jason Forrester: “Look who’s here. It’s our friend, Mr. Lord. It’s a terrible shame. He’s lost his watchdog.”
Bull, appearing from behind some curtains: “Be careful, mister. Sometimes, this old dog bites.”

Lord: “Don’t forget, Bull, you’re my guardian angel.”
Bull, indicating his shotgun: “With two beautiful wings.”

Trivia:

Ascott directed this film under the pseudonym Giuliano Carmineo. He made more Spaghetti Westerns than any other director (13), but also
directed some unusual horror films, like “What Are Those Strange Drops of Blood Doing on the Body of Jennifer?”

In the German version of this film, the name of Hilton’s character was changed to Django; the title of the film to: “Django … It’s Time to Kill.”

Barnes was an American character actor who made his mark in 1957’s “Westbound” and headed to Europe in the 1960s, where he appeared in about a dozen Spaghetti films. A former pro football player, he also had a role in the miniseries, “North and South.”

ci (right) as Forrester and henchman Drago (Remo de Angelis) face Lord and Bull in The Moment to Kill (1968)

Loni von Friedl as Regina, the wheelchair bound woman with the key to a missing $500,000 in The Moment to Kill (1968)