Ace High (1968)

Well, no. Money corrupts men, it softens him. So to keep you young and pure, I think I'll take everything.

Ace High is directed by Giuseppe Colizzi and Colizzi co-writes the screenplay with Bino Cicogna. It stars Eli Wallach, Terence Hill, Bud Spencer, Brock Peters and Kevin McCarthy. Music is by Carlo Rustichelli and cinematography by Marcello Masciocchi (Technicolor/Techniscope of course).

After Cacopoulos (Wallach) manages to save himself from being hung on a false charge, he robs Cat Stevens (Hill) and Hutch Bessy (Spencer) of a lot of money and steals their horses. This results in a merry chase and Stevens and Bessy become unwilling allies in Cacopoulus' revenge against the people who deserted him and framed him towards the rope...

Is it a spoof or a parody? Well I'll leave that to the hard core Spag Western fans to decide, what I do know is that it's good entertainment. Plenty of daft sub-genre staples are adhered to, as are the many cool action sequences as our gruff anti-heroes go about their greed and revenge fuelled ways.

Colizzi wisely keeps his cards close to his chest as regards our trio of lead characters, who in true Spag convention are making it unclear where we are heading. The action is wonderfully kinetic, with some sterling sequences unfolding when our leads get involved in a Texan/Mexican battle. Why I'm still not so sure, but it's exciting stuff!

It's all very derivative, there's no getting away from that, and as the genre often does, it renders the porotags/antags under developed. Yet for fans of such fare this is well recommended, with lovely cinematography that gives some authenticity to the era, Wallach channelling a Tuco clone, and Hill and Spencer doing their Spaghetti Abbot and Costello thing, it's all good really. 7/10