HOLY GOD! HERE COMES THE PASSATORE

aka Fuori uno sotto un altro… arriva il Passatore (I), El audaz aventurero (Es), Wenn Engel ihre Fäuste schwingen (WG)
1972
Italy/Spain
Benito Bertaccini for Marco Davis Films (Rome), Procinor (Madrid)
Director: Anthony Ascott [Giuliano Carnimeo]
Story: Benito Bertaccini
Screenplay: Tito Carpi, Gustavo Quintana, Nanda Migliozzi
Music: Aldo Buonocore
Cinematography: Pablo Ripoll {Cinescope - Eastmancolor}
Editor: Ornella Micheli
Set design: Gian Francesco Ramacci
Cameraman: Michele Pensato
Filmed: Colmenar Viejo (Madrid), La Granja de San Ildefonso (Madrid)
Release information: Registered 09.01.73. Italy (18.01.73, 96 mins), Spain (01.09.75, Madrid), West Germany (06.03.75, 83 mins)
Spanish takings: €72.241,35
Cast: George Hilton (Stefano Pelloni, aka 'Il Passatore'), Edwige Fenech, Manolo Zarzo, Sal Borgese, Chris Avram, Chris Huerta, Jack Logan, Helga Liné, Lucretia Love, Umberto D'Orsi, Marco Migliozzi, Dante Maggio, Fortunato Arena, Dante Cleri, Alessandro Perrella, Luigi Antonio Guerra, Mario Gigantini, Giuseppe Terranova, Ettore Bevilacqua, Ruggero Rosi, Elio Angelucci, Dorian Bertaccini
Spanish prints: Carmen Martínez Sierra, Jack Logan

Strangely enough, I found myself enjoying this preposterous nonsense a lot more than I had expected to. It is the type of film that simply defies analysis. Partly - I would guess - influenced by Richard Lester's Three Muskateers (73) and partly by the more traditional Zorro legends, this actually bears more resemblance to the slapstick westerns in which Carnimeo and Hilton had begun to specialise. They'd even managed to gather together a repertory cast by this stage including short, hairy (and usually mute) Sal Borgese; fat, balding Chris Huerta and the omnipresent but totally anonymous Umberto D'Orsi.

Attempting to give a reasonable description of the plot presents an unforeseen difficulty - there isn't one. Rather there are a series of sight gags and comic set pieces that revolve around the idea of a gang of brigands making a mockery of the authorities trying to capture them.

Said rogues are led by the eponymous Passatore (Hilton), whose trademark is to dress up in the robes of the priesthood - a profession in which he originally trained. He is answerable to only one person, his frankly nutzoid paramour Mora (Edwige Fenech), who spends most of the running time screaming, throwing things or - for a brief but most commendable moment - getting her kit off.

On the other side is the commandant (Chris Avram), his former classmate who has become a bigwig in the police force and is famed for bringing such bandidos to heel. Much of the running time is taken up with ugly men gurning at attractive women, exaggerated sound effects and the stereotyping of all foreigners. So it's not that dissimilar to most stuff clogging up the multiplexes at the moment. It does, however, also feature speeded up comedy sequences, something that I feel that the world has been missing for far too long. Everyone seems overkeen to slow things down at 'tense' moments nowadays, why can't we crank up the pace for sword fights and brawls in the same way. Several films would benefit hugely from this. Saving Private Ryan, for instance, would be far better if the opening battle scene was played at double speed to bring out that underlying buffoonery.

In the meantime, this is disarmingly honest in its intentions. There must have been a reasonable budget, and production values are as high as you would expect from the creative personnel behind it. In many ways Hilton is especially good in this one, displaying a vast amount of pure gusto in his performance. Always athletic, he careers through this one like someone has shown him a 'Brian Blessed Guide To Acting' video.

By all accounts, the legend of 'Il Pastore' is well established in Italian mythology (rather like Robin Hood or Dick Turpin for the English). There's a nice in-joke finale that places him in the Wild West, capitalising on the star's popular previous roles as Hallelujah and Sartana. For those who attempt to find political ramifications in even the most innocent of texts, there are certain allusions to the Mafia in the way in which a secret cabal fights the governors and that the heroes are associated with Sicily. Not to mention the fact that they have paid friends in the police force, as well as the sympathy of the peasants.

Matt B