A Sky Full of Stars for a Roof (1968)

The most interesting thing about this odd spaghetti western is that you can see that it probably was an influence on the wildly successful comic spaghetti western "They Call Me Trinity" that came out two years later. Among other things, the two leads here have some of the trademarks Terence Hill and Bud Spencer sported in the later movie. However, Hill and Spencer's comedies didn't sport some scenes of harsh violence as this film does, which doesn't fit at all with the otherwise lighthearted spirit. Also, the comedy in this movie really isn't all that funny, being mostly simple-minded slapstick and silliness you will have seen in other comedies before. The script also suffers from the fact that there is hardly any plot - for the most part it's just a series of vignettes that have little to no consequence to what comes afterwards. And under the direction of Giulio Petroni, the movie unfolds at a really slow pace. There is some merit to be found here and there, particularly a fine musical score by the ever reliable Ennio Morricone, but as a whole the movie is a really tired and uninspired effort.

Mario Adorf hunts down con-man Giuliano Gemma, who swindled him out of six-hundred dollars worth of gold, only to partner up with him for a series of crooked money-making schemes and a few encounters with a psychotic gunman from Gemma's past.This lightly comedic western is likable enough, though a little too loosely plotted. After awhile, one begins to wonder what exactly is the the point of all the duo's hijinks. However, the climax is definitely worth hanging around for.The entire film hangs solely on the charisma of it's two stars, who don't disappoint. The score by Ennio Morricone is pretty good too.

The first time I watched this I rated it only **1/2; among the first to send up the Spaghetti Western genre, I tended to overlook it in favor of the director's more sobering DEATH RIDES A HORSE and TEPEPA (both 1968). Still, it's such an engaging, consistently entertaining and often uproariously funny film that rating it any lower than *** would suggest that it's less than good, which certainly isn't the case! The film's rambling narrative revolves yet again around the buddy-buddy formula in an obviously broader vein; even so, the film has its serious side since it opens with a stagecoach massacre and a similar fate befalls a couple of traveling circus performers towards the end - the perpetrators are a gang of criminals hotly in pursuit of ex-comrade and sharpshooter Giuliano Gemma who wants out (he doesn't even carry a gun anymore), preferring to make his living as a confidence-trickster (which, as it turns out, is no less precarious or law-abiding than being a bandit!).His companion, more often dupe, is Mario Adorf turning in an inspired performance as the gullible and gruff yet amiable would-be rancher (whom Gemma embroils in many a scheme - fake telegraph service, circus acts involving a siren and Adorf himself fitted with a loincloth and breathing fire - to fleece the unsuspecting townsfolk). At one point, Adorf himself is made to invest all his savings in an inexistent bank and, later, falls for his partner's ruse that a funeral procession they meet up with is for a famous bandit who has a fortune buried in his back-yard (only to learn, after having dug a hole "all the way down to Hell", that he had been wheelchair-bound since childhood) just so Gemma could make out with the deceased's luscious young wife - the dinner-table scene between Gemma and Magda Konopka here is highly reminiscent of the celebrated one featured in TOM JONES (1963). Forsaking Gemma for a visionary drunk, Adorf manages to rob a gold shipment by posing as a Wells Fargo employee - though his partner in this venture turns out to be a bloodthirsty maniac who mows down an entire Army platoon which sets out in pursuit of them! Anthony Dawson turns up at the climax as the sadistic chief villain; having taken refuge in Adorf's dilapidated ranch (which they leisurely restore), our heroes then see their dreamhouse literally go up in smoke when they are forced to blow the place up with Dawson's gang still inside! The tireless Ennio Morricone provides yet another exemplary score; the wistful main theme is especially striking.

This is a spaghetti western that is genuinely funny, but it also has its share of serious action which keeps it from being just another run-of-the-mill light-weight comedy.Adorf and Gemma are great as the protagonists of this film, and I find them much more believable than Terence Hill and Bud Spencer. Federico Boido and Anthony Dawson are even better as the over-the-top father-and-son villains who are hunting for Gemma. They are very entertaining to watch. Boido's character is especially funny, and both are marvelously ruthless. The showdown at the end of the film is classic.The music score by Ennio Morricone is great, as always, even though its far from being one of his best.This is definitely a movie worth watching, especially for Euro-western fans.