User reviews

This Spaghetti Western oater starts when Cat Stevens (Terence Hill or Mario Girotti) trying to save himself from a pursuit by nasties . He's picked up and healed by a circus troupe (Lionel Stander , Woody Strode, among others). Later on , Stevens reunites with Hutch (Bud Spencer o Carlo Perdesoli) , joining forces and confronting baddies . The villain is Honey Fisher (Victor Buono) , a powerful magnate in a small town and supported by heinous henchmen . A government commissioner (Eduardo Ciannelli) comes to little town and the ruthless Fisher is worried but he's usually swindling gold prospectors and gaining exorbitant price leases .

The movie contains gunplay , Western action , circus spectacle and fist-fights . Terence Hill as a tough gunslinger and Spencer as a bouncing hunk are good but still not personified the Trinity heroes characters . In the picture appears usual Spaghetti Western secondaries as Lionel Stander , Woody Strode, furthermore, George Eastman (Luigi Montefiori) , Alberto DellÁcqua and Romano Puppo . The film belongs to the Giuseppe Colizzi trilogy starred by Hill and Spencer as Cat Stevens and Hutch Bessy . This one is the third and inferior installment , the first and the best is ¨God forgives¨ or ¨Blood river¨ with Frank Wolff and the second is ¨Four gunmen of Ave Maria¨ with the great Elli Wallach . The film was produced by Manolo Bolognini , a nice producer of classic Spaghetti (Djanjo , Goodbye Texas , Keoma) and accompanied by an atmospheric musical score by Carlo Rustichelli with an enjoyable leitmotif . The film will appeal to Hill and Spencer hardcore fans .

I approached this film with little to no expectations, after reading a few fairly negative reviews here on IMDb. I was pleasantly surprised.

The film opens up with Stephens (Terence Hill) trying to evade a posse of killers chasing him through a small town, where a circus is performing. After taking a bullet, Stephens eludes his would-be killers and stows away in a circus cart. We soon learn that one of Stephens fellow gunslingers is working as a trapeze artist with the circus. Ultimately it is revealed that a local exploitative mine owner is in control of the posse and one of his henchmen eventually crosses the circus performers. So the gunslinger, trapeze artists and a local itinerant official join forces to fight against the corrupt mob lead by Honey Fisher (Victor Buono).

The film is well-paced, though not as hurried as many spaghetti westerns sometimes are. The camera work is just a touch above the standard spaghetti western, and a little different from the standard approach. There are a lot of close-ups and the camera is used effectively to create an unsettling and downright weird atmosphere throughout a good portion of the film - this puts an unexpectedly sinister spin on the seeming novelty gimmick of circus performers in battle.

Director Collizzi did a masterful job with a script and story which were - by genre standards - merely OK. Some of the characters remain somewhat weakly developed, but this doesn't really detract from the film's entertainment value. The actors perform generally well (though the charismatic Lionel Stander gets just a little irritating at times).

Recommended for fans of the western genre.

Misleadingly promoted as a "Trinity" film, "Boot Hill" can barely even be classified as a "Bud Spencer-Terence Hill" film, since it gives the two stars very few chances to exercise their teamwork (Spencer appears after the first half-hour). The story is confusing, and the direction is annoying: for one thing, many action scenes take place in the dark, and for another, the camera focuses a little too closely on the actors; too often half the action appears to have been chopped off the sides of the screen, even though the version I watched was letterboxed. Not recommended. (*1/2)

Boot Hill is such a different film to the popular ‘Trinity' films amongst which it was lumped, presumably by the American distributors keen to attract the same appreciative audience, that it often disappoints those who are expecting more of the same. In fact it stands well as a serious Western in own right, perhaps not at the very front rank of the genre, but an above average Spaghetti outing, both in direction and casting.

Director Colizzi conceived the film as the third in the loose trilogy which features Hill as Cat Stevens (the other two films being Dio perdona... Io no!/ God Forgives – I Don't! (1968) and I Quattro dell'Ave Maria, / Revenge at El Paso (1968). In this movie Hill, Spencer, and Stander are all excellent with none of the jokey humour which made the official Trinity films so distinctive and, for this viewer anyway, a little forced. Strode is outstanding and makes one wish that Hollywood had made more of his talents as muscular leading man. Too often one associates him with his mute, opening appearance in Once Upon a Time in the West, or in Ford's stagey Sargeant Rutledge, and forgets how easily he can carry the action for more than one scene. His later encounter with Stevens, while Hill hides out (‘I don't like to thank a man too many times') is one of the best scenes in the film. Although race is not an issue in the film, the American trailer makes play in that ‘two colours' are fighting against one threat, and the austere pairing of Hill and Strode – noticeably seen in single shot at the climax of the film – is electrifying.

The biggest weakness of writer-director Colizzi's film lays in the middle section, when the chronology is rather truncated, although even here the growing rapport between Stevens and Thomas is effectively conveyed by way of compensation. One would have appreciated seeing more of the dissolution of the circus, the debilitating effects of the murder of the acrobat on the troupe.. Meanwhile,the late introduction of Hutch (the essential other half to the expected Trinity pairing) gives plenty of time for an on-screen bond to form and, once the new group re-encounter the show, a real sense of mission has been formed. Such difficulties are partly the problem of a script which attempts too readily to combine showbusiness and showdowns in equal measure. The fault lines in Boot Hill are perhaps best described by the music, which ranges from Bullitt-like suspense riffs, through to a sentimental ‘circus' tune to a third, decidedly ‘epic' theme for the friendship of Stevens and his black comrade.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Boot Hill is Colizzi's inventive use of cross cutting between circus and gunfight, editing between ring and revolver as it were. The most notable example of this occurs at the beginning, when Stevens is stalked outside of the performance tent. By interweaving the dangers of the high wire with more immediate dangers faced outside, Collizi achieves a timing and balance which, in a sense, is as impressive as those inside the big top. Life - at least as shown in Boot Hill – thereby becomes kind of dangerous act of its own, and Colizzi heightens this sense through his shaping of his visual materials. Some critics have compared the acts in Boot Hill to the kind of medieval pageant served up for warlords centuries ago – especially when the troupe perform in front of head villain Honey (a surprisingly underwritten part for Victor Buono); I prefer to see it as a heightening of the tension inheirent in Western action, a different play on the skilful rituals involved.

Interesting comparisons might be made between this film and others where circus play intrudes into otherwise conservative genres (Vampire Circus springs to mind as a similar example) creating an interesting hybrid. Cukor's Heller in Pink Tights – highly rated by French Critics, less well liked at home - would make an interesting double bill with Colizzi's production, which is in need of some reassessment.

Terence Hill & Bud Spencer early pairing. Low budget western with a lot of stars in it. Not the usual by any means.. western-wise or hill/spencer-wise.. 3 years before Trinity, Hill portrays a character named Cat Stevens ( A name that was also his characters in both Dio perdona... Io no! & I Quattro dell'Ave Maria). It can be dull at times but it's a good movie given the chance. I originally wrote a more negative review of this film and after watching it a few more times since I have edited it to lean on the more positive side. Worth checking out & it is made on DVD now. Although the transfer is cassette quality. It does give the film that nostalgic quality & makes the dirt floors & dirty faces look even more filthy.

Boot Hill, the English title for this spaghetti western finds Terrence Hill confronting a the hired thugs of town boss Victor Buono and getting shot up for his efforts. A traveling circus takes him in and gives him shelter over the objections of owner Lionel Stander who reluctantly gives in. After that Hill teams up with Bud Spencer, a fellow gunfighter whom he brings out of retirement and Woody Strode who is with the circus, but has his own agenda with that town and its boss.

The film sadly enough tries to be a comedy, but the laughs don't quite come in the right places. For the life of me I could not understand the dubbing of Victor Buono who is playing a variation on the part he had in Four For Texas. Buono had one of the most cultured voices in the English language during his lifetime so that just seemed incredibly stupid to me.

Boot Hill marks the farewell performance of Eduardo Ciannelli who was all of 80 years old and looked it. He was dubbed, but his Italian accent would have been really out of place in this western. My guess is that Ciannelli was not in the best of health making this film. Not one I'd want to go out on.

For those who like the pasta westerns from Europe you might enjoy Boot Hill. But it just isn't my taste.

Released in 1969 and directed/written by Giuseppe Colizzi, "Boot Hill" stars Terence Hill as Cat Stevens, a hunted and wounded man who hooks up with a circus troupe and the oppressed citizens of a small town in the Southwest to take on Honey Fisher (Victor Buono) and his murderous gang who corruptly gain leases on valuable gold-yielding land in the area. Woody Strode plays one of the trapeze artists.

"Boot Hill" is the last film in a trilogy that started with "God Forgives... I Don't!" (1967) and "Ace High" (1968), all starring Terrence Hill as Cat Stevens. It was then rereleased as "Trinity Rides Again" to cash in on the later success of "They Call Me Trinity" (1970) and "Trinity Is Still My Name" (1971) even though "Boot Hill" has nothing to do with those movies, except that Terrence and Bud Spencer star in them.

The main reason people complain about this movie is not due to the quality of the film itself, but rather the lousy fullscreen pan & scan 1:33:1 reduction print, transferred to VHS from 16mm and then transferred from VHS to DVD and typically sold for a buck or less. This crappy version often cuts out the speaker during a scene (!). The movie itself, however, was filmed on anamorphic 35mm in 2:35:1 Techniscope, and was meant to be seen in the widescreen format.

In regards to the film itself, it's a spaghetti Western in the tradition of Sergio Leone's "Dollars" trilogy. I like it better than the first two "Dollars" movies, but it's not technically as good as 1966's "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

There are several things I appreciate about "Boot Hill." For one, Terrence Hill is as good or better than Clint Eastwood and it's surprising that he didn't become more popular. Secondly, the traveling circus sets this movie apart from other Westerns. Thirdly, it's nice to see a black character in a Western as one of the protagonists. I can only think of two other Westerns off the top of my head that have done this (not including Mario Van Peebles' "Posse" from 1993): "Duel at Diablo" (1966), with Sidney Poitier, and "The Gatling Gun" (1971), also with Strode. Fourthly, there's a cool Ennio Morricone-like score by Carlo Rustichelli.

On the negative side, the story's kinda muddled and the circus girls aren't as prominent as they should be. In fact, the latter is made out to be a joke when the high wire act starts to perform and the audience boos because they're all male, lol. I also don't like the title "Boot Hill" because I can't figure out why it's the name of the movie; I'm assuming it's the name of the main town in the story, which they should've made clearer at some point.

The movie runs 97 minutes and was shot in Almería, Andalucía, Spain.

GRADE: B-

I have seen alot of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer movies and this is one of the first I ever saw and i have to say, it sucks! It's just awful. The plot is about a guy named Cat Stevens ( Terence Hill ) who was shot buy some bandits and a circus trupe helps him recover. Cat Stevens needs to get revenge and avenge the death of a circus performer who helped him recover. he asks his old buddy Hutch Bessy (Bud Spencer) to help him. This movie may sound good, but believe me, its not!!!!!! I suggest you see either They Call me Trinity , Trinity is STILL my name , My name is Nobody , Crime Busters or Watch Out...Were mad!

Boot Hill ~ A good 'Trinity' Spaghetti Western. It follows the receipt for the Trinity Spaghetti Westerns... Trinity has the icy blue eyed stare for which he is famous and is very similar to the Clint Eastwood 'stare'. Spencer plays Trinity's friend & antagonist in this light comedy, mild drama story about Trinity & Spencer teaming up with some carnies to help some underdog miners fight against a gang riding roughshod over the miners, killing, and stealing their claims... A good family movie: No gore, no profanity, no nudity! Yes, the photography isn't great, nor even good, but enjoy some entertaining and laughs along the way.

This is an entertaining conclusion to the trilogy of westerns made by directer GIUSEPPE COLIZZI and stars TERENCE HILL and BUD SPENCER.

The first collaboration GOD FORGIVES... I DON'T benefited from the presence of FRANK WOLFF, the ruthless master criminal BILL SAN'ANTONIO; ACE HIGH allowed ELI WALLACH to steal the show whenever he was on-screen, giving us a variation on his TUCO role (THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY), so that we could overlook the meandering approach to the memorable finale, set deliriously to a waltz, and the third film BOOT HILL provides a white collar villain in VICTOR BUONO.

His angle on life and death in the west is complementary to what SERGIO LEONE proposed in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. Big business and its money was the only means of beating the gun. And so the heroes' approach to defeating the wonderfully obese BUONO is different from the slugfests and shootouts from earlier westerns.

This is why I would disagree with Tom Weisser in his otherwise excellent tome on spaghetti westerns - "the genre's most (unintentionally) nonthreatening villain, Victor Buono". The most successful villains get others to do their dirty work, yet believe their own hands are therefore clean!

On the Spaghetti Western Scales of Justice, another 7.5/10: good cast, music, plot and characterization with some novel elements such as the traveling circus troupe, and the stubborn old judge.

I bought this movie because it was sold as a set with "Trinity is Still My Name" and was advertised as a sequel to the two Trinity movies. It was actually produced 2 years before "They Call Me Trinity" and the only thing that "Boot Hill" (AKA "Trinity Rides Again") has in common with the other Trinity movies is Terence Hill. "Boot Hill" is long, boring and doesn't hold together. I tried to watch it, but found myself fast-forwarding through it, waiting for something interesting to happen. I wound up throwing "Boot Hill" away.

Third and rarest pairing of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer after God Forgives... I Don't (1966) and Ace High (1967), both by director Colizzi, before the Trinity films turned them into Italy's most dubious exports of the Seventies. Hill was given these cold-eyed roles before the more familiar slaparound antics; here he plays a grimy cheroot-huffin' hombre called `Trouble', who enlists a traveling circus (led by Woody Strode and Lionel Stander) to defeat a money-grubbing land baron (Batman's King Tut, Victor Buono). Like all good Spaghetti Westerns, Boot Hill combines claustrophobic visuals and a lumpen left wing philosophy, with the added novelty of the circus backdrop. Bud's almost a supporting player, but thankfully the dumb ox still gets to throw his weight around. Recommended, muchachos.

I doubt if any other film has had so many strange characters in it as this one has. The makeup was very odd as if the cast had just finished a long shift down a coal mine and not had a shower yet.

An interesting combination of cowboys with with a travelling circus which travelled very slowly so I wonder if they visited any more than a few towns a year.

It's not going to have won any Oscars but it is good fun to watch and there's a lot worse films out there.

Worth watching as Mr Hill's films have a unique quality to them even if some may think it good news that there are no other films made with the same qualities as his have.

Hi, Everyone, The DVD copy I have is not great quality. If it were beautifully restored it might be better. My copy gives me the impression the camera operator held the camera in one hand and a candle in the other.

The movie might be the best ever Western/Circus/Musical/Comedy/Action film ever to combine Little People, Cowboys, Land Grabbers and Trapeze Artists. It is never as much fun as the Trinity movies I loved.

Terence Hill looks OK when it is possible to see him. Usually he is in the dark. The gunfights are passable, but often I had no idea who was the good guy getting shot or the bad guy getting punched.

Victor Buono does a fine job being bad.

The basic story line is excellent. The cast is fine. The telling of the story is where it falls apart.

If you get a chance to buy this one, called Boot Hill in the U.S., I would recommend not buying it. This is that rare old movie that could be remade better today. This could be a good vehicle for John Travolta and Will Smith and Steven Segal (spelling?).

Tom Willett, Yonhope

I consider myself a movie buff, but I have not seen any of the Trinity movies. I won't let this movie stop me from seeing them when I get a chance though. This movie was terrible. I'm not sure where this movie stacks with the rest of my rated one movies, but I'm sure it's down there aways. Since I rate my movies, I'm forced to sit through some pretty awful movies. I got this movie in a 20 movie pack for $5 in a Wal-Mart $5 bin. So the price was worth it to be able to rate 20 movies that I haven't seen and be done with any of the bad movies that I don't have to watch again and this movie is one of them. I won't say don't watch it because everyone has their likes and dislikes but if you do like this movie, than let me recommend "Jessie James Meets Frankenstein". Or " Napoleon Dynamite rides with the Dalton Gang".

"Boot Hill" (1969) is directed by Giuseppe Colizzi and stars Terrence Hill, Bud Spencer, Woody Strode and George Eastman.

The screenplay by Collizzi concerns a circus travelling the West who pick Cat Stevens (Hil), who has been injured by a mining company who are after his claim. When the company's henchmen kill a circus acrobat, former gunfighter Tomas (Strode) teams up with Stevens to avenge the man's death.

This is a very underrated Spaghetti Western, brilliantly photographed (by Marcello Masciocchi) and edited (by Tatiana Casini Morigi) with an unusual script, handled well and shot through with weird moments of humour and very well handled by the director, whose third film with the duo Hill and Spencer, after "God Forgives, I Don't" (1967) and "Aces High" (1968) this was. Although there are connections in this film with the previous two, it is sufficiently divorced from them that you can watch this and not the previous entries in the trilogy.

From the great opening scene to the final gun battle, this is one Spaghetti Western you can't miss.

The U.S. TV print of this film is awful. There is no pan and scan so there are long sequences where nothing is in the center of the screen! I found myself almost hallucinatory after an hour of this film. None of the American actors dubbed their own voices with the possible exception of Lionel Stander. Terrence Hill plays it straight here.

I would be very interested to see this film in Italian, subtitled and letterboxed. If you get the Trinity box set here in the U.S., I recommend you throw Boot Hill out immediately, unwatched.

Boot Hill (La collina degli stivali), directed and written by Giuseppe Colizzi, starring Terence Hill, Woody Strode, Victor Buono, Bud Spencer, Lionel Stander and Eduardo Ciannelli. Music by Carlo Rustichelli and cinematography by Marcello Masciocchi.

A Technicolor/Techniscope production! Boot Hill is very much an acquired taste. One man's art canvas is another man's paper mache head, such is the case here with this messy, muddled Spaghetti Western, a pic that has strong fans and haters in equal measure.

Personally I hated it, it was 90 minutes of motion sickness and staccato editing, with a musical score veering from plains driving grandeur to acid induced circus shrills. Cast are fine enough, though there's dubbing for dubbing's sake, while an extended over acted barroom brawl at finale is a fun time at least, but really it has to be your thing to enjoy as a whole.

A bowl of spaghetti sieved through a kaleidoscopic colander. 1/10