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

Ok, so perhaps it is a stretch too far to picture Eli Wallach as a Greek gent called “Cacapoulos”, but he does look like he is having some fun in this adequate western. He only just manages to save himself from the noose then he “borrows” the possessions and horses of “Stevens” (Terrence Hill) and “Bussy” (Bud Spencer) and flees preparing his own unique form of revenge against those who would, believe it or not, wrongly have strung him up. What he didn’t know at the time was that there was $300,000 in their poke and these bounty hunters aren’t going to just wave it goodbye, so after many adventures they do finally reunite and "Cacapoulos” let’s them into his cunning plan to track down “Drake” (Kevin McCarthy). He is the last man standing from his original would-be hangmen and as he also advises them that their money has long since lined the pockets of gamblers and casinos across Arizona, they conclude that they don’t really have much to lose anymore so they unite with their erstwhile enemy and the nimbly acrobatic “Thomas” (Brock Peters) and set off. “Drake” is fairly easy to find, but how to get at him? He owns a well defended, entirely crooked, casino so that’s the task - and who knows, possibly there will be some loot in it for them too. There is plenty of action here, but it’s really Wallach who keeps it rolling along with his tongue firmly in his cheek throughout as we build to quite an enjoyable last twenty minutes. I suppose that Nick Cravat had probably hung up his leotard by 1968 but Peters does well enough in support and with Hill always with a glint in his eye, this works fine. It is far too long and some of the dubbing was clearly done in the pub after ten-too-many shots of tequila, but it’s still an amiable enough outing for a star that you’ll probably never recall, but will probably enjoy.