Abbe Lane into A Dollar's Worth of Jitters

 Happy Birthday Miss. Abbe Lane & A Dollar's Worth of Jitters

"Emo Bistolfi Productions is preparing a parody of western films entitled the "Children of the West". Filming will begin on December 30, [1959] on the indoor soundstages at Cinecitta. The film will star Ugo Tognazzi and Walter Chiari and will co-star Miss. Abbe Lane. The director will be Giorgio Simonelli, who has recently finished Bistolfi's "I Baccanali di Tiberio" [for a January 1960 release]. The new film was first announced under the title "Sfida al Rancho Grande" / 'Challenge at Rancho Grande'. It will be shot in Technicolour and be released in Italy by WB." - Corriere Canadese, Toronto, Canada, January 16 1960 [reprinted from a mid-December 1959 Italian newspaper notice].

The above announcement shows you how tenuous a film cast can be. For whatever reason Miss. Lane did not appear, and the film's producer, Emo Bistolfi, selected actresses Hélène Chanel & Dominique Boschero to play the female leads.

First announced as "Sfida al Rancho Grande" / 'Challenge at Rancho Grande', it was then during filming that it became known as "I Fanciulli del West" / 'Children of the West'. A play on the earlier "I Fanciullo del West" / 'The Child of the West' (1942). "Fanciullo" would have been his second comical western following "Il Bandolero Stanco" / 'The Tired Bandit' (1952).

 

Following shooting Warner Bros. then changed the title for a third time settling on "Un dollaro di Fifa" / 'A Dollar's Worth of Jitters' (August 28, 1960 release), a sound alike title for their own release "Rio Bravo" (September 1959), which was called "Un dollaro d'onore" / 'A Dollar's Worth of Honor' in Italy. By mid-October "Un dollaro di Fifa" was still performing strongly in Rome. On that note Bistolfi commissioned a second paring of Tognazzi & Chiari called "I Magnifici Tre" / 'The Magnificent Three' to start in the new year.

This would have been Miss. Lane's only spaghetti western.
She had co-starred in a number of historical/westerns such as"Wings of the Hawk" (1953), "Ride Clear of Diablo" (1954, both Universal) and "The Americano" (1955, RKO), before heading out to Italy.

Incidentally the 'A Dollar's Worth of Jitters' was the title that the film was listed under in the pages of Unitalia, while the export title was "A Dollar of Fear".

The three leads (Chiari, Tognazzi & Lane) had worked together before. They had been in Giorgio Simonelli's "Tiberius" (US title) / "I Baccanali di Tiberio" (1960), that was released in Italy during the early days of 'Jitters' preproduction. Lane and Tognazzi had also appeared together in Simonelli's "Marinai, Donne e Guai" (November 1958). In fact, she first worked with Simonelli on "A Sud Niento di Nuovo" (November 1956). Miss. Lane made a few more films in Italy. One was "Il Mio Amico Jekyll" (August 1960 release) playing alongside Tognazzi, for a third time, but for a different producer. After a few more years, and fewer films she returned Stateside. 

Miss. Lane later got to horse-around in an episode of the TV western sitcom ''F. Troop" (February 1966), before eventually retiring in 1985.

Happy 89th Birthday, Miss. Lane

 

Michael Ferguson