They Call Him Veritas (1972)

Mark Damon is Veritas, one of four buddies who find themselves in trouble for doing everything they can to avoid their duties as Confederate soldiers.

They’re thrown in jail, but escape and set off on a series of misadventures.

Left penniless, they set off in search of food, horses and their fortune. After all, Veritas had a book he reads from religiously. It’s called “How to Get Rich Quick in the West.”

Veritas and those buddies — Chigger, Jesse and Misery — think they’ve stumbled upon their golden opportunity when they stumble upon a plot to steal a small fortune in Confederate gold.

They plan to rob the thieves by blowing up Devil’s Pass before their gold-laden wagon can get through.

Bungling that, because no one can find a match in time to detonate the explosives, they set out on the trail of the mastermind behind the robbery.

Review:

If you watch this film, you’ve stumbled across a real stinker. Besides Veritas and his book, we have Jesse quoting his granddad, Chigger telling stupid jokes and Misery scowling as our merry band wanders from one attempted swindle to another.

They wind up in a saloon with a brute of a manager, a dandy of a chef and a cutie of a bartender.

And locked in a room upstairs somewhere is the owner, a reclusive sort with a Gatling gun and a chest full of gold.

There is a slightly neat twist at the end. If only something — anything — up to that point justified spending 90 minutes getting there.

An example of the humor: Our gang wins a free meal in a bet because Veritas provides Chigger with a magnetic horseshoe (after all, isn’t that what every vagabond carries around).

Misery insists on kissing the horseshoe for luck, not knowing it’s magnetic. It pulls out a couple of his teeth. Oh, boy.

Directed by:
Luigi Perelli

Cast:
Mark Damon … Veritas
Pasquale Basile … Chigger
as Pat Nigro
Pietro Ceccarelli … Jesse
Franco Garofalo … Misery
Maria D’Incoronato … Paquita
Guglielmo Spoletini … Spencer
as William Bogart
Luigi Bonos … Pierre
Enzo Fiermonte … Confederate Captain
Corrado Annicelli … Will James
Fiorella Mannoia … Waitress

Also with: Giorgio Dolfin, Stefano Oppedisano, Franco Scanni, Tonino Aschi, Giuseppe Alotta, Mauro Mannatrizio, Federico Boido, Michele Basile, Pietro Torrisi, Gilberto Galimberti

aka:
Lo chiamavano Verita
They Called Him Verity

Score: Manuel De Sica

Runtime: 89 min.

Memorable lines:

Misery: “I’ll pluck those trousers off you like the feathers off a peacock.”

Jesse, as the Civil War wages around our four heroes: “My grandfather said, ‘I’d much rather be neutral than be buried.'”

Veritas, as he’s being marched to meet the Confederate captain: “The afterbirth of a nation.”

Chigger: “Jesse, what do you get when you cross a bumble bee with a doorbell?”
Jesse: “What?”
Chigger: “A humdinger.”

Jesse, as Misery stomps off: “He sure is a miserable cuss. I’ve often wondered why he’s like that.”
Chigger: “Cause the very first thing, when his ma saw him, she thought she’d had intercourse with the Loch Ness monster.”

Trivia:

* Mark Damon had an uncredited role as Henry Fonda’s pilot in the 1962 World War II epic “The Longest Day.” A year later, he appeared in Sergio Corbucci’s World War spoof, “The Shortest Day,” in which two goofballs help win a key battle purely by luck.

* Watch this back to back with “Red Blood, Yellow Gold” (1967) and you’re going to see lots of familiar scenes, as though producers cut costs on this film by crafting a script in which the first half uses as much stock action footage from the earlier film as possible. About the only fresh action here is the barroom brawl near the end of the movie.

* This marked one of just 16 credits on IMDb for the pretty actress paying Paquita. Maria D’Incoronato also had small roles in “His Name Was Holy Ghost” (1972) and “Sheriff of Rock Springs” (1971).