Saturday, August 8, 2020

Van Cleef vs. Palance

GOD'S GUN-1976-Sam Clayton (Jack Palance) and his gang stop over at the town Juno after a bank robbery. One of Clayton's men kills a man and they take off. The sheriff (Richard Boone) wants to let them go but the local priest (Lee Van Cleef) goes after them. He brings the killer back to the jail but the gang breaks him out and shoots up the town and the priest is killed. A young boy named Johnny (Leif Garrett) who helped the priest around the church goes to Mexico to find the priest's brother Lewis (also Van Cleef). It seems the trauma of the killing leaves him mute but he finds Lewis and they go back to Juno. Along the way we get a flashback to the last time the two brothers met. Meanwhile Clayton's men molest the womenfolk until Johnny's saloon owner mother (Sybil Danning) reveals that Sam is her son's father. A flashback shows that as a Union soldier he raped her. Sam's pretty happy about this but before anything can happen Lewis returns in his brother's robes and some of the dumb outlaws think he's come back from the dead. Lewis gets his vengeance in a gun fight and Johnny gets his voice back. 

Great cast, terrible drawn out movie. Boone left before filming was completed so he only shows up sporadically with a dubbed voice that sounds like it's on helium. Palance usually makes anything he's in worth watching and his elation at finding out he has a son is the movie's highlight. 

This Italian-Israeli production (filmed in Israel) was directed by Gianfranco Parolini/Frank Kramer had early made THE RETURN OF SABATA with Van Cleef.

Also known as DIAMANTE LOBO.

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