VIDEO ARCHIVES NOTES: This movie was discussed on the April 18, 2023 episode of the Video Archives podcast and can be found on their site here.

Also called Bluff, High Rollers, The Switch and The Con Man as well as its Italian title, Bluff – storia di truffe e di imbroglioni (Bluff – Histories of Scams and Cheaters), this movie finds director Sergio Corbucci making a transition from violent Westerns like Django, The Mercenary, The Great Silence and The Hellbenders and into making comedies such as The White, the Yellow and the Black, The Beast, Who Finds a Friend Finds a Treasure and Super Fuzz. You know those social media posts that say “four films, all the same director?” Corbucci made movies where a gunfighter’s hands were ruined before he opened a grave and massacred his enemies with a gigantic machine gun, Civil War soldiers keeping a treasure hidden in coffins and a mute hero who dies in front of his lover in an inverse of every Western ever with, well, a movie where a super cop is invulnerable against everything except the color red. It’s a big shift but his movies are united by their quality.

Philip Bang (Anthony Quinn) is expecting his ex-wife Belle Duke (Capucine!) and his daughter Charlotte (Corinne Clery!) to get him out of the high security prison he’s supposed to live out the rest of his days in. But in the middle of the plan, Felix (Adriano Celentano) gets sprung instead. He’s coerced into breaking Bang out — which he does — only to learn that the elder con man might not want to see his former love, as he stole plenty of money from her. That means it’s time for one movie long scam — well, a series of them — as Felix has fallen in love with Charlotte and Bang has reunited his gang.

Writer Dino Mauri directed and wrote Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die as well as serving as one of the writers of one of my favorite Franco Nero movies, Street Law. He wrote this along with Massimo De Rita, who wrote Violent City, The Heroin Busters and Blastfighter.

The tagline was “A comedy of stings and double stings!” so if you’re wondering what movie this should remind you of, it does it twice.