I crudeli (The Hellbenders)

Joseph Cotten in The Hellbenders
Joseph Cotten in The Hellbenders

Review from The Monthly Film Bulletin, May 1969

Jonas (Joseph Cotten), a renegade Confederate Colonel, in fanatically resolved to win back the South for the Confederacy by reorganising the Confederate Army and attacking the Union.  Supported by his sons – Ben (Julian Mateos), Jeff (Gino Pernice) and Nat (Angel Aranda) – he massacres unionist soldiers escorting a large consignment of banknotes, then packs these into a coffin supposedly containing the body of a fallen confederacy officer.  When Kitty (Maria Martin), a dissolute alcoholic co-opted to enact the role of the widow, is killed after attempting a double cross, Ben persuades Claire (Nora Bengall), a saloon hostess, to take her place and the pair soon fall in love.  Saved by Ben from being raped by Jeff, Claire feels increasingly resentful of the effects of Jonas’s fanaticism and arranges for the coffin to be buried in the fort once commanded by her fictitious husband.  With the coffin disinterred, the party moves towards its destination, but a beggar who shelters in their camp steals their possessions and shoots their horses before being killed by Jonas, who is wounded in the struggle.  When Jeff is accused by an Indian tribe – to whom he had gone to buy fresh horses – of raping one of their maidens, Ben denounces his family’s fanaticism and offers the Indians the money in the coffin, which his mercenary brothers die trying to protect.  Ironically, since the wounded Jonas now discovers that he had dug up the wrong coffin.

Formulary [sic] European Western, quite efficiently made but with the usual quota of gratuitous violence and the inevitable solo trumpet blaring away on the soundtrack.  The script is a little more ingenious than most; and though the tortuous journey which provides the basis of its story has its longueurs, there are enough dramatic highlights to keep things ticking over until the nicely times ironic twist at the end.  Joseph Cotten, who seems to be specialising in fanatical Southern patriarchs (he had a similar part in the same producers The Tramplers), is a little too conspicuously out of place among an otherwise almost entirely European cast.  2/3 (Average)

About Matt Blake 890 Articles
The WildEye is a blog dedicated to the wild world of Italian cinema (and, ok, sometimes I digress into discussing films from other countries as well). Peplums, comedies, dramas, spaghetti westerns... they're all covered here.

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