{"id":3591,"date":"2014-09-01T20:49:44","date_gmt":"2014-09-01T20:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3591"},"modified":"2015-07-27T12:37:34","modified_gmt":"2015-07-27T12:37:34","slug":"between-god-the-devil-and-a-winchester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/reviews\/between-god-the-devil-and-a-winchester\/","title":{"rendered":"Between God, the Devil and a Winchester"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Between<\/a>
Between God The Devil And A Winchester<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Aka Anche Nel West C\u2019Era Una Volto Dio (Italy), Entre Dios Y El Diablo (Spain)
\nItaly\/Spain
\n1968
\nProduced by Marino Girolami for Circus Film (Rome) and R.M (Madrid)
\nDirector: Dario Silvestri [Marino Girolami]
\nStory: Liberally based on \u2018Treasure Island\u2019 by Robert Louis Stevenson
\nScreenplay: Marino Girolami, Amedeo Sollazzo, Tito Carpi, Manuel Martinez Remiz
\nCinematography: Pablo Ripoll, Alberto Fusi {Technicolor, Techniscope}
\nMusic: Carlo Savina
\nEditor: Antonio Jimeno
\nArt direction: Nicola Tamburro, Cruz Baletzena
\nOriginal running time: 96 minutes
\nCast: Richard Harrison (Father Pat Jordan), Gilbert Roland (Juan Chasquisdo), Dominique Boschero (Marta), Folco Lulli (Colonel Bob Ford), Enio Girolami (Marco Serralbo), Roberto Camardiel (Pink), Humberto Sempere (Tommy), Raf Baldassarre (Batch), Rocco Lerro, Gonzalo Esquiros, Mirella Panfili, Jose Luis Lluch Uncredited: Luis Barboo (Zed)<\/p>\n

Considering that Richard Harrison was one of the major stars of the Spaghetti Western, it\u2019s pretty hard to believe how average most of the films he appeared in actually were. With the possible exception of Antonio Margheriti\u2019s Vengeance<\/strong> and Leopoldo Savona\u2019s El rojo<\/strong>, he cannot be said to have appeared in any particularly good \u2013 and definitely no particularly significant \u2013 genre entries. Taken in that context, Between God, the Devil and a Winchester<\/strong> not only has a fantastic title, but is also a pretty solid film. It does borrow heavily from it\u2019s peers, admittedly, but is assembled in a capable and functional fashion \u2013 much as one would expect from a capable director such as Mario Girolami, whose credits span from 1949s La strada buia<\/strong> to L’insegnante di violoncello<\/strong> in 1986.<\/p>\n

Deep Lake City is a pretty miserable place; the only people passing through are those either escaping into, or escaping out of, the desert (strangely, considering it\u2019s arid location, it is also always raining). It\u2019s not too strange, then, when a fat, uncommunicative fellow, Ford (Folco Lulli), turns up at the local tavern and demands a room. One of the customers, Chasquisdo (Gilbert Roland), is pointed out to him as the best scout in the area, but when asked refuses to take him to Santa Blanca (a notoriously desolate place) unless he\u2019s paid in advance. Ford can\u2019t do this, as he has no money; what he does have is a treasure map \u2013 but until that is transferred into gold it can\u2019t be used to buy anything.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, a motley group of bandits led by Pedro Batch (Raf Baldassarre) are also after the treasure map, and it doesn’t take them too long to turn up on his trail. Whilst trying to escape from them Ford is accidentally killed, but not before passing the invaluable parchment on to Tommy (Humberto Sempere), the young nephew of the tavern-keeper. Tommy entrusts it to his saintly new friend, another stranger called Pat Jordan (Harrison), who reveals that Ford was an ex-confederate Colonel who had turned bad. After the cessation of hostilities he had stolen a chest of jewels from a mission, the hidden whereabouts of which is pinpointed by the map. When confronted with this information, Chasquisdo decides to revise his views and agrees \u2013 for a price – to guide them into the heart of the wilderness.<\/p>\n

\"Gilbert<\/a>
Gilbert Roland in Between God, the Devil and a Winchester<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From the above synopsis, it\u2019s easy to figure that this is another film with a post-war setting (see also Acquasanta Joe<\/strong>, Shango<\/strong> etc etc) which utilizes the central MacGuffin of a \u2018search for a hidden treasure\u2019. Of course, the grand-daddy of it\u2019s type was Leone\u2019s The Good, the Girl and the Ugly<\/strong> \u2013 and Girolami\u2019s production remains entirely in that films thrall, despite even namedropping Robert Louis Stevenson\u2019s timeless classic Treasure Island<\/em> as a source. Similarly, it is much more concerned the multitudinous ways in which the disparate set of characters attempts to interact, betray and \u2013 inevitably \u2013 kill each other.<\/p>\n

It also means that there are lots of scenes in which people wander around in glorious landscapes while nice music plays on the soundtrack, which is always a pleasure. As for the characters, Gilbert Roland\u2019s Chasquisdo stands out. A wily old goat, he portrays himself as being \u2018one of the people\u2019, but is in fact far more intelligent than 99.9% of \u2018the people\u2019, and knows it only too well. His earthy superficialities hide a rather complex and melancholy individual. Unfortunately, his humanity is brought out Tommy the brat, who would bring most people out in hives. It\u2019s not too far removed from Roland\u2019s role in Enzo Castellari\u2019s Go Kill and Come Back<\/strong>, another film in which he\u2019s extremely effective. In Go Kill and Come Back<\/strong>, however, his main foil was played by George Hilton, who is a much more effective performer than Richard Harrison, who\u2019s Pat Jordan remains an entirely bland concoction.<\/p>\n

Overall, then, a slightly above average effort, which is thankfully free from the twin genre curses of bad humour and bad pacing. There\u2019s also a hugely entertaining \u2018tragic\u2019 sequence in which the cook is shot whilst trying to save his favourite pot: \u201cThat pot was just sitting there\u2026I\u2019d made a real good dinner\u2026bleurg\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Between God, the Devil and a Winchester not only has a fantastic title, but is also a pretty solid film. It does borrow heavily from it\u2019s peers, admittedly, but is assembled in a capable and functional fashion<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1212,8],"tags":[846,1118,154,1073],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3591"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3591"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3870,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3591\/revisions\/3870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}