Thou shalt not kill film review

Quinto, don't kill (Quinto: non ammazzare aka Bloody Dollars), Italy/Spain 1969 (Director: León Klimovsky)

A little money doesn't make you unhappy, a lot of money kills you!

"Lepers"! A cry of fear echoes through a small town and ensures that the main street is empty in a matter of seconds. But that's exactly what Blackie (Alfonso Rojas) and his gang consisting of Sucre (German Cobos), Navajo (Jose Maro), Jones (Jose Luis Lluch), Albert (Joe Kamel), Hank (Alfonso de la Vega), Vincent (Gonzalo Esquiroz) and the pretty Kate (Sarah Ross) wanted to achieve, That's why their arrival in a cloak, hood and a little bell on a horse is the perfect disguise for an extremely brutal bank robbery, during which they mercilessly shoot (almost) all the bank employees, loot a large amount of dollars and then make off. But after a short time, the townspeople have recovered from their shock and take up the chase. They almost catch up with the bandits, but then Vincent is shot and falls off his horse, preventing the pursuers from continuing the chase. However, Vincent keeps his mouth shut and doesn't reveal the hiding place, which earns him the rope. In order to raise all the money again, a town meeting is called to decide what to do. Through an intermediary, they receive an offer from a stranger not only to recover the stolen 500,000 dollars in return for a reward of 10,000 dollars, but also to neutralise the gang, which is of course immediately accepted in the absence of any seemingly positive alternatives.

Meanwhile, the bandits have arrived at their hideout and are sobered to realise that the dollars have gone missing. Fearing further pursuit, they agree to split up, but at least always in pairs, and meet again at the Ghost Valley hostel in the middle of the desert to find out where the dollars are.

Kate, Blackie and Albert are the first to arrive in the stagecoach and immediately massacre all the inhabitants and visitors to the hostel (Raf Baldassare, the stagecoach attendant, only makes a brief appearance and is allowed to go straight away), leaving only the owner of the hostel, William (Roberto Carmardiel), the shy and trembling coward Bill (Steven Tedd), the saloon girl Eliana (Diana Sorel), who wanted to leave and look for a good husband in a big city, and 3 of her colleagues, who are to serve as amusement girls, are left alive.

The next to arrive is Sucre, a deserted army officer, just as brutal and merciless (see the scene when he gleefully shoots one of the girls, who was supposed to poison him on assignment!) as the others, who befriends Bill a little in the course of the plot and tries to give him a little self-confidence, including with a gun in his hand. After that, Hank and Jones appear on the scene, only Navajo takes his time and is immediately suspected by the others of having embezzled the money. But he had a good reason for his delay: he found and saved a young woman from death in the desert. Now that the gang is complete, the big guessing game about the whereabouts of the dollars begins, everyone suspects everyone else and the intrigues and plots begin. Kate in particular excels in this respect and sets the men against each other, she is the cat in the cat and mouse game, so to speak, and also causes one or two deaths herself. Let the killing begin!

This raises questions that are eagerly awaited to be answered:
Why is Sucre teaching Bill to shoot?
Why did Navajo save the girl?
Who embezzled the dollars?
Who is the stranger who wants to blow the gang's cover?
Who is the lucky owner of the bloody dollars in the end?

León Klimovsky's western stands out from the crowd with its great brutality. The protagonists around Blackie and Kate kill without mercy, including each other in the course of the story. Although the script can be criticised for one or two logical errors, they can be forgiven, as the plot leads to a very exciting climax and resolution in a kind of chamber play. In flashbacks, the viewer's knowledge of the course of the robbery is gradually expanded and details are added. The implied, somewhat naively tender love between Eliana and Bill seems a little out of place; Kate's brash way of throwing herself at men and ensnaring them is more fitting. All in all, the result is an exciting spaghetti western that received unjustifiably bad reviews and remained fairly unknown.

The music by Piero Umiliani, who enriched several Spaghetti Westerns with his music but was unable to create any great masterpieces, is average and is used rather sparingly. The theme song in the opening credits, "Quinto", is sung by Peter Tevis (a good western has a theme song).

I take up the cudgels for the film and give it an above-average rating!

The name Quinto in the title does not refer to a protagonist, but simply means: 5th commandment: Thou shalt not kill.

Diese Filmkritik auf Deutsch: Quinto, töte nicht Filmkritik

Written by Perdono