God Forgives, I Don't (1967)

The first pairing of popular Spaghetti Western comic actors Terence Hill and Bud Spencer, this is a surprisingly brutal and straight-forward Spaghetti Westerns. This is actually the first of three Westerns by the same director with the same characters (although the third one is generally regarded as much weaker).

The plot—obviously influenced by "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly"---features three characters (Hill, Spencer, and also Frank Wolff as villain Bill San Antonio) all after some gold that San Antonio has stolen. San Antonio is conducting robberies incognito after faking his own death (this is one of the weaker parts of the film, since it is obvious to the audience yet takes Hill a long time to work it out). Hill (mostly) wants revenge on San Antonio, while Spencer is after the gold.

The the three leads are uniformly pretty good, with Frank Wolff clearly enjoying a larger than normal role as a fickle, slightly unhinged villain. Spencer's character is slightly underused. The landscapes in Almeria are well-shot, with some interesting locations that I hadn't seen elsewhere. The plot is OK – an entertaining enough gold-based adventure without being a story that particularly drew you in. In general the film is towards the top of the second tier of Spaghetti Westerns: nothing absolutely special, but well-made and very enjoyable.

A watchable widescreen version seems to be available on youtube. The Dutch DVD version is general regarded as the best, but currently seems to be out of print.