Customer Reviews

Boot Hill

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Don't expect a comedy in the vein of TRINITY or THEY CALL ME TRINITY. If you do, you are in for a fall. Both of those were silly but redeemed themselves by being entertaining. This one has no such pretensions. It is merely boring.

The story concerns a corrupt mining company out to cheat the local town's folk out of their claims. They do this through intimidation and violence. When a couple of friends get hold of a claim, they put together a plan to secure that claim and those of the rest of the town from the bad guys. To do this, they enlist the aide of a traveling circus to serve as a distraction. They yell, they fight, they wrestle, they shoot and then they do it some more. Its not very exciting cinema.

This production is made worse by the DVD. I suspect that the original film was a rather low budget affair. The DVD, however, is of such low quality that who could really tell? The edges are clipped off, the transfer is grainy and the effect is of someone holding a hidden handycam in a theater trying to bootleg it. IT was not worth the effort.

Spaghetti westerns can be fun. This one, however, needs the Pepto Bismol right from the beginning to drive off the heartburn.

"Boot Hill" from 1969 is a spaghetti western, with a mix of American and Italian actors. A traveling circus becomes involved with some really bad hombres when they save the life of the man who is after the bandits. But when the bad guys claim the life of one of their own performers, they team up with the hero to help stop the desperados in their tracks. Lots of fun! The film stars Terrence Hill and Woody Strode and is also known as " Boot Hill:Trinity Rides Again". Also look for Victor Buono, Bud Spencer and Lionel Stander. In color directed by Giuseppe Colizzi.

This film may also be found on Platinum Disc's Great American Western series. This one is included on the single disc of Volume 13 in the series, along with a great documnetary on "Gunfighters", "My Outlaw Brother"(1951), with Mickey Rooney and Robert Stack, and "The Gun and The Pulpit", from 1974 starring Marjoe Gortner and a great cast. Volume 13 may also be purchased as part of Volume 2 of the larger sets(10 discs/40 films). The DVDs in this series are not pristeen. There are scratches and graineyness, especially in the older films, and the color films are usually pretty dated. All are enhanced with DD5.1 sound, and if you are a western lover, you really can't go wrong for the price.

Check em out..Sadlle Up and Happy Trails...Laurie

Poor ol' BOOT HILL doesn't have the best reputation among fans of sphaghetti-westerns, but it's not entirely the movie's fault. While it sure has lots of flaws and is on-par with later efforts of the genre (or later efforts of Bud & Terence), fans of the genre could easily squeeze some joy out of this.

Seems like most people judge this movie on it's alternate title TRINITY RIDES AGAIN. This doesn't make sense at all since it was made BEFORE anybody thought of the two later TRINITY movies and has close to zero similarities to them. What all three have in common is of course the presence of Bud Spencer and Terence Hill team up to help (more or less for the completely wrong reasons) the poor against the big bad opressors, in this case some evil gold-mining company. BOOT HILL is a very disjointed movie, it starts off as a serious and mean spirited italo-western and ends up in the usual TRINITY-style with the two legends beating up as many badguys as possible. The overall disjointedness is the pictures biggest fault, if you can look over it, you'll find some things to like here (if you are a fan of the genre):

The scenery and photography is excellent and the movie has some real highlights of scenes just watch Terence's encountering with one of his followers in a big, stonhedge-like circle of stones. The chemistry between him and the not-quite-as-bully Spencer works for the picture, even if Bud doesn't show up until the movie is half over. The circus-element is quite likeable too, I really could relate to the revenge-motive one character carries throughout the movie. Until the end, BOOT HILL doesn't offer much of the usual Hill-Spencer-Humor which is possibly for the better, the movie is at it's strongest when things are played serious.

So yes, this isn't one of the best movies (or even the best italo-westerns) ever made, but it sure has alot going for it. Forgive BOOT HILL becoming a complete suckfest in the last 15 minutes and see it as it is. This is not a "trinity" movie and was never intended to be, so keep that in mind!

THIS IS THE WORST BUD AND TERENCE MOVIE NEXT TO BLACKIE THE PIRATE

One of the three "Cat Stevens" films that immediately preceded the breakthrough "Trinity" films, Terence Hill and Bud Spencer are not yet in the full characters they are famous for. The film is interesting mainly for the glimpses of how the Trinity/Bambino characters were developed. Do not expect comedy, although there are a couple moments of it. Directing OK but film shows its age and circus scenario will be too exotic for many tastes. Some viewers will find the film more dull than moody or stylish (as the director seemed to intend). Film was pretty well received by audiences in the late 1960s, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

I have yet to actually watch more than the first 10 mins. The quality is so bad I refused to go any further. For the life of me I can see how any Studio worth its salt could release anything so poor; where has "Pride In Your Work" gone. I could hardly make out the actors in this movie.
I skipped forward by chapters just to see if some change had taken place, but to my dismay there was none. I am not one of those critics always writing bad reviews, in fact this is probably my second ever. I just had to warn other buyers so they don't get shafted like I did.
In all fairness the movie itself may actually be great but for me what is the use if its un-watchable. Its almost like a bad bootleg movie (I refuse to watch those too). I am sure they could have spent some more time and money to remaster it and get all the graininess out and bring clarity to this film.
All in all this is just my opinion and I hope it helps someone save their money, however if you don't mind the picture quality get it because I love the Trinity Saga.

Also known as Trinity Rides Again/ La Collina degli stivali.
The print of this 1969 Italian western film is very poor. Grainy and greenish sometimes. Right away you will notice that Terence Hill and Lionel Stander (A Star Is Born [1937], Hart To Hart tv series [1979-84], Hart To Hart tv-movies [1993-96] ) have their voices dubbed by someone else. Sometimes you hear Stander's real voice. Stander plays a circus ringmaster. With his assistance he will help Terence and Bud Spencer take down the bad guys in the west. Difficult film to enjoy without Terence Hill's real voice. Victor Buono also in the film.

Boot Hill is a Guiseppe Colizzi film and Colizzi also directed 'Ace High'. Spaghetti western fans will appreciate Boot Hill as an essential addition to their collections and Colizzi maintains the gritty realism throughout. Colizzi began experimenting with rapid action close-ups and handheld camera work in this film -- sometimes it works and sometimes doesn't. In the opening scene Colizzi manages to capture an 'art house' film effect which spaghetti western fans will love, but traditional western movie fans will probably deplore. Colizzi also introduces the idea of an Italian-style circus to a western town which is truly bizarre yet creative throughout. But the biggest problem with this movie - besides the technically poor rendering from film - is the lack of a cohesive plot structure. The story gets far ahead of itself early on and the viewer will wonder if 'Boot Hill' is really three separate films rolled into one. There is a midway point where a third character is introduced to effect a situation where the protagonist can explain things and even tell us what will happen next! To complicate matters further the roles of two characters are never made clear. Even after watching this movie several times it is not entirely understandable to most viewers that this movie is about a large mining company trying to defraud small prospectors from their claims, with a circus thrown in to create interest. Diehard spaghetti western fans love Colizzi's juxtaposed plot style and many of us watch these films over and over picking out new details every time. However if you like your movies straightforward and simple then forget this one! Pluses: Lionel Stander and Woody Strode. Minus: Poor media conversion and very confusing plot + Stander is killed in the end! 4 stars to diehard spaghetti western fans and 0 stars to traditional western fans.

I should have recognized that given the age of this film that the DVD print would be of such low quality

The picture quality sub VHS standard. I'm a fan of Terence Hill films but this was by far the worst I've seen. I would not recommend this to anyone.