Friday, April 29, 2011

GOD'S GUN

Diamante Lobo - Italian title
Pistola a Dio - Italian title
Ekdach Haelohim - Israeli title
A Arma divina - Brazilian title
A pistola de Deus - Brazilian title
Villi joukko - Finnish title
Les impitoyables - French title
Der Colt Gottes - German title
To pistoli einai o theos mou - Greek title
Seis balas... una venganza... una oración - Spanish title
El dia de la venganza - Spanish title
Det blodiga gänget - Swedish title
Allahin Silahi - Turkish title
A Bulet from God - English title
God’s Gun - U.S.A. title

A 1976 Isreali, Italian production [Rovi, Golan Globus (Tel-Aviv), Dunamis Cinematografica (Rome)]
Producers: Irwin Yablans, Menahem Golan
Director: Frank Kramer (Gianfranco Parolini)
Story: John Fonseca based on a novel by Sergio Colasanti
Screenplay: Frank Kramer (Gianfranco Parolini)
Cinematography: Sandro Mancori (Alessandro Mancori) [Telecolor]
Music: Sante Maria Romitelli
Running time: 97 minutes

Cast:
Father John - Lee Van Cleef (Clarence Van Cleef, Jr.)
Lewis/’Diamante Lobo’ - Lee Van Cleef (Clarence Van Cleef, Jr.)
Sam Clayton - Jack Palance (Volodymyr Palahnyuk, Jr.)
sheriff - Richard Boone
Johnny O’Hara - Leif Garrett
Jenny O’Hara - Sybil Danning (Sybille Danninger)
Mortimer - Rafi Ben Ami (Rafael Ben-Ami)
Judge Barrett - Heinz Bernard (Heinz Messinger)
Willy - Chin Chin
Angel George - Ricardo David (Ricardo Davo)
Rip - Didi Lukov
Juanita Lewis - Zila Carni
Chesty - Pnina Golan (Pnina Rosenbloom)
Jess Clayton - Robert Lipton
Zeke Clayton - Cody Palance
Red Clayton - Ian Sander
woman on horse - Carolyn Stellar (Carolyn Underwood)


After a bank robbery in Crane City, where several people are killed and the town briefly taken over, Sam Clayton and his gang arrive in the small town Juno City where Father John is the priest of the town church. After having a little bit of fun, the gang leave town only to be caught by father John. Vowing to have revenge, the gang gun him down on the steps of his church and then set about taking control of the town while waiting for the stagecoach.

However, little Johnny manages to escape with a couple of their horses and rides off to Mexico in the hope of finding the priest's brother Lewis ‘Diamante Lobo’, a noted gunman . They soon meet and set off back across the border to clean up the town. Meanwhile Clayton discovers that he is Johnny's father. It seems that some fifteen years ago during the Civil War, Jenny O'Hara had been one of Clayton's rape victims and now Clayton takes to the idea of being a father.

YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSer6VULBzs

6 comments:

  1. All time Stinker! Hard to believe with the people involved, it could be so bad.

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  2. Biltmore: Please add Franco Pesce to the cast list. The Imdb lists him as playing the Cheating Gambler, but there wrong! He plays the Puppetier. I can't remember his character name. And yes it is one of the worst films ever made by an Italian.

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  3. I don't think Pesce is in "God's Gun" at all. The film was made in 1976 and Pesce died in 1975. The puppeteer resembles him but it sure doesn't look like Pesce to me.

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  4. Sante Maria Romitelli's soundtrack is great. Where can I find the whole thing, not two-minute mp3 clips?

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  5. Sorry a soundtrack CD or LP has never been released.

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  6. You're right, Tom. Franco Pesce WASN'T in "God's Gun". He was still alive in 1975 when the film was released but he didn't do anymore Spaghetti Westerns at all after 1970. He died a year later in 1976 when "God's Gun" was released in the U.S.A. The reason why we use 1976 as the release date is because that's when we in America got to see it. It was released elsewhere a year earlier but sadly we had to wait until a year later because it had to pass the film academy standards test that determined which films got released worldwide and which didn't. There was usually a country that would ban a film for obvious reasons and I wouldn't surprised if this was one of them. Luckily for us by 1976 we got to see it here in the United States. Back then, if you wanted to see a film in theaters that just came out in 1976, you literally had to flip a coin to see which one you ended up seeing. For example, "If it's heads, we'll see 'The Shootist' If it's tails, we'll see 'God's Gun'." Almost always, you ended up seeing "God's Gun" because at that time most people didn't wanna believe that "The Shootist" was John Wayne's final film. On the other hand, if they saw "God's Gun", chances are there was a slight possibility that Lee Van Cleef would be making another film by next year. By 1977, Van Cleef would make "Kid Vengeance" once again with Leif Garrett and this time the coin toss was different. "If it's heads, we'll see 'Kid Vengeance'. If it's tails, we'll see 'Star Wars'." But I was born in 1993 so for MY generation, you had only a couple of movies to choose from. During the coin toss, your friend would tell you that if it landed on heads, you would sit with them throughout "Jurassic Park" and if it landed on tails, they would sit with you throughout "Tombstone". That was 30 years ago and our culture hasn't been the same since. Nowadays, when the coin toss happens it's between watching "Frozen" on Hulu or watching "Law And Order" on TV. My parents go for the latter. And this is why I love entertainment. It never gets old.

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