FVI WEEK: Father Jack-Leg (1972)

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Also known as Tedeum, Sting of the West and Con Men, this was directed by Enzo G. Castellari, who also wrote the script along with  Tito Carpi, Giovanni Simonelli and José Gutiérrez Maesso.

Stinky Manure (Lionel Stander) and his family of criminals have inherited a gold mine but they don’t trust anyone, so they send their son Tedeum (Giancarlo Prete) to sell the mine to someone else. Being a moron, he sells it to a lawman before getting help from a holy man named Santini (Jack Palance) and Betty and Wendy Brown (Francesca Romana Coluzzi and Mabel Karin) who also have a mine to sell.

The truth is that the Manure family mine is actually pretty valuable. That’s why an actual criminal with some brains and guile, Grant (Eduardo Fajardo), wants it. is after. I say that he’s a pretty good bad guy except he keeps losing his pants.

At the end of the Italian Western cycle, most movies were comedies like this. As to whether or not you find them amusing, well, that’s up to you.

If you don’t like it, well, you can at least keep an eye open for Jack’s brother Ivan as a man on a train. He also used the stage name John Gramack and is in A Bullet for the General, Kill a Dragon and A Bullet for Rommel. Castellari’s daughter Stefania is also on hand as is the mysterious Carla Mancini, who often is in credits just so a movie could receive Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia tax credits.

Oh yeah — it has music by Oliver Onions!

Do you think when Lionel Stander stood up and was blacklisted he knew he’d be playing someone named Stinky Manure?