Bill il taciturn (Silent Bill) was directed by Max Hunter AKA Massimo Pupillo (Lady Morgan’s Vengeance, Bloody Pit of Horror, Terror-Creatures from the Grave) and had the traditional big team of Italian writers, including Lina Caterini (the editor of The Girl Who Knew Too Much and Blood and Black Lace), Paul Farjon, Marcello Malvestito (the editor of The Last Blood and Assassination In Rome), none of whom had much writing experience before or after this movie. They were joined by the person who came up with the story for this film, Leonide Preston, who is really Renato Polselli.

Yes, the same lunatic who made Delirio caldo and La verità secondo Satana.

It was retitled to Django Kills Silently or Django Kills Softly, as the original script had Bill (or Django for Americans) be the strong and silent type. He’s played by future baby eater George Eastman, who decided. to rewrite the script. This isn’t his first Western or even his first Django, as he was also in Django Shoots First (and he’s also in Django, Prepare a Coffin and W Django!).

According to the invaluable Spaghetti Western Database, “Eastman declared that director Pupillo had asked him to play the hero in the taciturn style of Clint Eastwood, but Eastman, who had studied the classics and was a screenwriter himself, thought this was a bad idea and made up his own lines, for the most part improvising them on the set. While the character was turned into a more talkative version of the taciturn Bill, the title wasn’t changed, causing a lot of confusion and leading to some oddly inadequate titles in other languages.”

This feels like a totally made up comment, as this movie was obviously made without live sound, so no one would have known what Bill or Django was saying anyway and it would need to be dubbed! In fact, he was dubbed by Tony La Penna.

Regardless, let’s discuss the film.

The movie starts with a massacre of an entire family. It’s brutal and seems like the kind of action that often happens in the Italian West. Bill/Django is visiting the border town of Santa Ana but the person he was to meet is already dead. He learns that the town is caught between Thompson (Luciano Rossi) and a bandit named El Santo (which yes, is a bit disconcerting seeing how many lucha movies I watch; he’s played by Domenico Maggio). That means that our hero is ready to pull a little A Fistful of Dollars/Yojimbo/Last Man Standing on the two and get ahead for himself.

He also teams up with a gunfighter named Miguel (Spartaco Conversi) and a mute man named Pedro (Antonio Toma). There’s also a woman to save, Linda (Liana Orfei, Mill of the Stone Women) and the normal torture that the Italian Western hero must endure.

It’s not the most Italian of Italian Westerns, feeling trapped in the pre-Leone days, but it’s fun seeing the gigantic Eastman try and play a hero.