Vamos a matar, compañeros (1970)

Director:

Sergio Corbucci

Writers:

Sergio Corbucci (screenplay)
Sergio Corbucci (story)

Release Date:

April 1972 (USA)

Genre:

Western | Comedy

Tagline:

Fate brought them together. Greed made them inseparable, and violence made them Companeros!

Plot:

Arms dealer Yolaf Peterson aims to make a sale to guerilla Mongo, but the money is locked in a bank safe...

Plot Keywords:

Political | Female Nudity | Nudity | Zapata Western | Train

Cast

Franco Nero	...	Yodlaf Peterson
Tomas Milian	...	El Vasco
Jack Palance	...	John
Fernando Rey	...	Prof. Xantos
Iris Berben	...	Lola
José Bódalo	...	Gen. Mongo (as Francisco Bódalo)
Eduardo Fajardo	...	Colonel (as Edoardo Fajardo)
Karin Schubert	...	Zaira
Gino Pernice	...	Tourneur (as Luigi Pernice)
Álvaro de Luna
Jesús Fernández
Claudio Scarchilli
Lorenzo Robledo	...	Man dancing with Zaira
Giovanni Petrucci		(as Giovanni Petti)
Gérard Tichy	...	Lieutenant

Also Known As:

Companeros (USA)
Laßt uns töten, Companeros (West Germany)
Los compañeros (Spain)
Zwei Compañeros (West Germany)

Runtime:

118 min | Spain:110 min | Germany:115 min

Country:

Spain | Italy | West Germany

Language:

Italian | English | Spanish

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16 (cut) (1971) | Finland:K-18 (uncut) (2005) | West Germany:18 (nf) | Singapore:NC-16 | Norway:16 (1970) | Sweden:15 | UK:15 (video rating) (1995) | UK:X (original rating) | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Almería, Andalucía, Spain

Company:

Atlántida Films

Trivia:

At one point, Tomas Milian is seen dragging a coffin out of a graveyard. This is a reference to Sergio Corbucci and Franco Nero's previous collaboration Django (1966) in which the title character drags a coffin behind him.

Quotes:

Yolof Peterson: Your friend is right, compañero. When you're about to die, don't ask so many questions.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Spaghetti West (2005) (V)

Comparing "Companeros"...

Get ready for a run-on... A Spaghetti Western set in the Mexican Revolution about a foreign mercenary played by Franco Nero who makes an uneasy alliance with a Mexican bandito who unwittingly becomes a revolutionary while simultaneously falling in love with a freedom-fighter chick who is really hot, all while being tracked by an eccentric villain played by Jack Palance...directed by Sergio Corbucci, with a score by Ennio Morricone and a few machine gun massacres and at least one scene where someone is buried up to his neck while horses are about to trample on his head. Ummm...haven't I seen this before? Oh yeah, it was called "The Mercenary" and stands as one of the best Spaghetti Westerns of all time. "Companeros", on the other hand, is an entertaining piece chock full of humor and action (although, like the two protagonists, the alliance between humor and action is not always a smooth one). The pacing could use some work and there wasn't enough nudity (ok, I'm joking on the last one...could have used more nudity though)

Where was I? Oh yeah, "Companeros" is bad-ass fun with one of the greatest shootouts of all time (Nero + Machine Gun = Bad-assery at its best). Wow, what a terrible review.