Don't Turn the Other Cheek (1974)

I'll tell you why so serious

Excellent but underrated film

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Bandit Eli Wallach and European con-man Franco Nero are in turn, set up, mistaken for, and masquerade as a flamboyant Mexican revolutionary and his military adviser, a Russian prince! The two know the partial whereabouts of a stashed fortune, but find it hard to get away from radical Irish journalist Lynn Redgrave long enough to go look for it.A typical, quirky Italian political western, Don't Turn The Other Cheek isn't as good as Sergio Corbucci's Companeros (also with Nero) or the fantastic (and non-comedic) A Bullet For The General starring A Fistful Of Dollars Gian Maria Volante.It's still a lot of fun though, with loads of action. Wallach and Nero have great comedic chemistry and should have been in more pictures together. On the other hand, with the exception of a few key scenes, Redgrave doesn't really have much to do.One other familiar face is Nero's Django nemesis Eduardo Fajardo playing the film's number one heavy.

So the Spaghetti Western as a comedy. You know whatever, there are some great examples of the approach; the TRINITY films, the priceless TOO MUCH GOLD FOR ONE GRINGO, Giulio Petroni's under-appreciated TEPAPA, various parts of DUCK YOU SUCKER ... The formula works best when the filmmakers don't try too hard, simply allowing the conventions of the genre to be as absurd as they are naturally. Terence Hill's bottomless plate of beans from THEY CALL ME TRINITY comes to mind. Beans. Eating. Cowboys. Get it? LONG LIVE YOUR DEATH tries to announce itself as a "funny" movie from the first frame with an oddball musical score and still images of Franco Nero yukkin' it up as a Russian Prince pretending to be a minister and holding up the congregation at a wedding ceremony for what turns out to be proceeds to help fund the Mexican Revolution. He drives a car instead of riding a horse, packs an automatic pistol instead of a six-shooter, and after his automobile is wounded during a shootout he puts it out of it's misery with another bullet to the engine block.Eli Wallach was of course hilarious as THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY'S "Tuco", the poster child misfit Spaghetti Western serio-comic leading man, and is probably the film's greatest asset. Here he plays a two bit Mexican chicken thief who may or may not know the location of a fortune in gold, but finds himself sprung from jail by a pretty, perky Lynne Redgrave, who wants to find the revolutionaries a hero to lead their struggle & write a Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper story about it. Nero and Wallach are good, but Redgrave is excellent and took her only Spaghetti Western performance to heart, trying a bit too hard, but we appreciate the effort.So already we have several "fish out of water" plot threads, a couple of "mistaken identity" skeins, and ample opportunities for Wallach to mug for the camera while he eats food, tries to proposition Redgrave, and form an uneasy buddy alliance with Mr. Nero to find the gold. Just for added effect, Horst Jansen apes his rather wooden cinematic persona as a corrupt sheriff with back problems, Victor Isreal pops up as a mining executive with some rather eye opening thoughts about the Mexican workforce, and Eduardo Fajardo wanders in from some other film as an unscrupulous cavalry officer bent on capturing the mischievous trio & keeping the gold for himself. As usual.A musical stopwatch gives composers Gianni Ferrio & Ennio Morricone an excuse to work yet another glockenspiel theme into their somewhat rushed sounding musical score, a sexy mute Spanish supporting actress gives Franco Nero someone to make googlie-eyes at, and director Duccio Tessari had a stable filled with scriptwriters to come up with all sorts of double-entrade laden dialog for Eli Wallach to belt out as quickly as possible when not running around jabbering excitedly and waving his arms in the air trying to be funny instead of just standing there being himself, which is hilarious all on it's own. What is amazing is that he manages to be constantly upstaged by Lynn Redgrave even though she never displays her breasts.I am fairly certain the filmmakers had good intentions and talent to spare when cobbling this movie together and if it seems like I am just not getting into the spirit of things you are correct. I have nothing but respect for everyone involved in the production, which is a nearly tactless, transparent attempt to cash-in on the notoriety of DUCK YOU SUCKER, TEPAPA, ARRIVA SABATA!, HEADS YOU DIE TALES I KILL YOU: THEY CALL HIM HALLELUJA and every other would-be gonzo Mexican Revolutionary Spaghetti Western made between 1968 and 1974 or so.The problem is that the number of jokes to be had about that conflict and it's ramifications was pretty much tapped out before DUCK YOU SUCKER entered it's fifteenth reel (I personally prefer TEPAPA with it's outrageous Thomas Millian performance as a prime example of the comic possibilities of the genre). And come to think of it, why do these Mexican Revolution Spaghettis all turn out to be social satires with gonzo comedy broken up by spats of war atrocity scenes? Are the Italians trying to tell us something about Mexico or the Mexicans that perhaps my liberal Eastern education failed to point out? Don't get me wrong, LONG LIVE YOUR DEATH is a fine movie with some entertaining parts, including another great Eli Wallach meal as he scarfs down some form of stew while describing his childhood kills to Nero in his cell. The problem is that this exchange -- the funniest in the movie -- happens in the first twelve minutes, and ninety minutes of additional "repeat and rinse" developments becomes nothing more than a bunch of Euro genre actors running around waving their arms & jabbering excitedly after a while. It gets old quickly, and as such this rather tired example of the later period of the Spaghetti boom is perhaps as obscure & hard to find as it deserves to be. Recommended for die-hard fans of the genre or those who have never seen one of the other examples. They shouldn't care.4/10; You know your Spaghetti Western is in trouble when your best asset is upstaged by Lynn Redgrave with her shirt on.

This one really needs a good DVD release. To my knowledge it's only available on an old VHS tape called DON'T TURN THE OTHER CHEEK, with animated asses (donkeys) wiggling their behinds, totally out of character with the film, which is an action filled Eurowestern by the director of the popular Ringo films, Duccio Tessari. Franco Nero plays another of his European adventurers, this time a Russian, who is seeking a lost treasure. Eli Wallach portrays another version of his popular "Tuco" character, this time once more a Mexican after playing the Greek version in ACE HIGH. Throw in Lynn Redgrave (slightly out of place in a spaghetti) as an Irish revolutionary and you have a film that is reminiscent of Sergio Corbucci's two popular political westerns THE MERCENARY (1968) and COMPANEROS (1970), both of which are superior to this. However there's a lot to be said for LONG LIVE YOUR DEATH, especially since it's so hard to find; you'll find the search worthwhile, and in the meantime let's hope Anchor Bay, Wild East, or Blue Underground release a definitive DVD version.

This movie shares a lot of elements with other Euro-westerns. Those who are very familiar with the genre will recognize similarities to films such as The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The Mercenary, Fistful of Dynamite, The Stranger and the Gunfighter, and other spaghetti westerns. Recognizing these common themes is part of the fun of watching this movie.The story is full of spaghetti western clichés presented in a fun, tongue-in-cheek manner, yet it still delivers in the violence and action departments as well. We even get to see some of Franco Nero's trademark machine gun wielding slaughter.The music score is very good. It matches the tone of the film, seems right for a slightly off-beat Euro-western, and definitely works in this movie.The movie boasts a phenomenal cast with Franco Nero, Eli Wallach, Lynn Redgrave, and Eduardo Fajardo. It would be hard to make a bad spaghetti western with those four playing the main characters, but I do have to say that although this movie was good, I think it could have been better. The acting and direction just seem a little bit sloppy. I suspect that either they were having so much fun making it that they were too relaxed to take their work seriously, or that they just didn't care all that much about the film. I prefer to think that it's the first reason. The US release (which is the version that I saw) also seems to have been edited way too much, probably to make the film shorter. My guess is that the movie is much better in its complete form.At any rate, I highly recommend this movie to those like me who have seen and liked lots of spaghetti westerns. To them it will be a fun movie. Others might not get very much out of this film.