Da uomo a uomo

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Da uomo a uomo (Italy 1967 / Director: Giulio Petroni)

  • Runtime: 116 min
  • Release Date: 31.8.67

Also known as

Death Rides a Horse (U.S.A.) | Vita, morte e vendetta (Italy) | Die Rechnung wird mit Blei bezahlt (Germany) | Von Mann zu Mann (Germany) | A morte vem a cavalo (Portugal) | De hombre a hombre (Spain) | La Mort était au rendez-vous (France) | D'homme a home (France) | A Morte Anda a Cavalo (Brazil) | Śmierć jeździ konno (Poland) | Hämndens timme (Sweden) | Kosto odottaa (Finland) | Oi 5 simademenoi tou El Viento (Greece) | Muž proti muži (Czech Republic) | Viva Django, Man to Man | Two Deadliest Guns Alive

Cast and crew

  • Cast: Lee Van Cleef (Ryan), John Phillip Law (Bill Meceita), Luigi Pistilli (Walcott), Anthony Dawson (Manina/Bert Cavanaugh/4 Aces), Jose Torres (Pedro), Carla Cassola (Betsy), Archie Savage (negro soldier), Mario Brega (One-Eye), Giuseppe Castellano (sheriff), Franco Balducci (Lyndon City sheriff), Romano Puppo (deputy), Guglielmo Spoletini (William Bogart)(Manuel), Elena Hall (Mrs. Meceita), Natale Nazzareno (member of Pedro's gang), Giovani Scarciofolo (Jeff Cameron)(Cavanaugh henchman), Felicita Fanny (Marita), Ignazio Leone (minister), Nerina Montagnani (minister's wife), Carlo Pisacane (station master), Nino Vingelli (card player), Bruno Corazzari (bartender), Angelo Susani (Paco), Walter Giulangeli (Mr. Meceita), Remo Capitani (member of gold escort), Mario Mandalari (Walcott henchman), Ennio Pagliani (Walcott henchman), José Terron (Walcott henchman), Giovanni Petrucci (Walcott henchman), Claudio Ruffini (warden), Vivienne Bocca, Richard Watson
  • Story: Luciano Vincenzoni
  • Screenplay: Luciano Vincenzoni
  • Cinematography: Carlo Carlini [Technicolor - Techniscope 2,35:1]
  • Music: Ennio Morricone
  • Song: "Death Rides A Horse" sung by Raoul
  • Producers: Alfonso Sansone, Henryk Chorscicki

Synopsis

Bill (Law), who as a child witnesses the slaughter of his family, sets out to track down the outlaws from the clues he remembers from that night. Ryan (Van Cleef), being released from prison, is on the trail of the same gang having been robbed and double-crossed by them. What starts as a rivalry turns into a deadly cooperation, and the discovery of their linked pasts.

Review

By A. H. WEILER Published: July 10, 1969

"DEATH RIDES A HORSE," which rocked the DeMille Theater yesterday like a convention of drunken firecracker salesmen, is proof in stark colors, once again, of the indestructibility of the "Spaghetti Western" produced continuously and cheaply over the last five years by Italians in Spain with an imported Hollywood rawhider or two to ramrod the gory goings-on. As usual, the clutter of clichés is exceeded only by the excessive sound and fury.

To the credit of Giulio Petroni, the screenwriter, it must be noted that he has kept the dialogue, too obviously dubbed into English, at a minimum. If the plot is somewhat fuzzy at first, it quickly becomes clear that the simple-minded succession of blood baths, pedestrian as well as horse-borne, are the results of a double vendetta.

On the one hand, we have John Phillip Law, who, as a child, has seen his family raped and slaughtered by a gang of thieving desperados, and now is the grown-up, fastest gun in the Sierras out to annihilate those bastards. And, we have Lee Van Cleef, one of those five bad men who had been framed into a long prison stretch by them and is out for their ill-gotten gains and their hides.

Mr. Law, tall, rifle-slim, blond, blue-eyed and properly laconic, may be quick on the draw but he is slower than Mr. Van Cleef in catching up with their mutual quarry. As a comparative tenderfoot, he can't be blamed. Mr. Van Cleef, of course, has been going that-a-way for years in Western Westerns ("High Noon," etc.) and in the "spaghetti" variety ("For a Few Dollars More," etc.).

So, as the squinty-eyed, mustachioed, crafty and tough (he shaves with a knife, no lather) vaquero it's only natural that he is brighter about bad men than his callow opposition.

They face each other in a climactic Mexican standoff that bristles with spurious honor. "Vengeance is a dish that must be eaten cold," Mr. Van Cleef observes philosophically. He's right. "Death Rides a Horse" is not so hot.

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