Bury Them Deep (1968)

Bury them deep just for jolly.

Bury Them Deep is directed by Paolo Moffa and written by Enzo Dell'Aquila. It stars Craig Hill, Ettore Manni, Giovanni Cianfriglia (as Ken Wood) and José Greci. Music is by Nino Fidenco and cinematography by Franco Villa.

Essentially it's a buddy buddy spagwest, with the plot seeing Hill and Manni as an unlikely pair brought together in the search for stolen gold. The booty, robbed from the army, has been hidden by renowned tough guy Billy The Gun (Cianfriglia). It's very much a collage of other genre movies, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun and exciting, because it is - that is on proviso you are not a hard core spagwest fan hoping for something to reach your best of lists!

First half of pic is more sedate than the second, as the makers build the jittery relationship between the two protags. Aided by Fidenco's schizophrenic - irritatingly catchy - musical score (woodwind and percussion on acid sometimes), tone always suggests a tongue in cheek approach. Not to say there isn't violence, since there is lots of it, shoot-outs, an extended knife fight and general raucous bad behaviour fill out the story, all completed with spagwest traditions such as exaggerated dives and punches.

There's some nifty scenes and inventive camera shots, where we like see-saw hangings, great escape from being trussed up, and up-tilt shots of horses leaping. The stunt work is good dollar, with plenty of deaths from heights (cliffs and windows of course), this certainly doesn't lack for human efforts. The villains, in among shifting allegiances and mistrust, are a roll call of laughing hyena Mexicans, or in Cianfriglia's case (looking suspiciously like Burt Reynolds here!), very cool and measured. All in all it's not top line spaghetti, but filling enough for those after a fun genre time waster. 6.5/10