Alleluja & Sartana Are Sons... Sons of God (1972) User Reviews

Quite dreadful comedic spagwest

[Leofwine_draca · 2/10 · 7 May 2017]

HALLELUJAH AND SARTANA STRIKE AGAIN is a comedic spaghetti western in the style of the Terence Hill/Bud Spencer productions, emphasising lowbrow comedy and action throughout at the expense of proper filmmaking values and realism. The plotting comes secondary to the laughs in the tale of a couple of bumbling idiots who team up with a church congregation to bring down a gang of criminals. It's a bit of a comedown for director Mario Siciliano, best known for his serious movies like OVERRUN! and EVIL EYE.

I'm afraid that I found this film completely irritating and near unwatchable at times. It seems to get worse and worse as it goes on, and the English dubbing is grating in the extreme. You get some idiot guy who howls instead of talking and the joke is repeated on and on endlessly. It's the type of film where everything is overemphasised and the characters mug constantly. You expect them to turn around and wink at the camera. The worst part of the film is the big slapstick fight climax, which goes on for an age and features the most irritating and repetitive bit of trumpet music I've ever heard. I was tearing my hair out by the end of it.

Well, Now I've Seen Pretty Much Seen Everything.

[Steve_Nyland · 4/10 · 24 May 2005]

I'm giving this movie a 4/10 instead of a 2/10 because it has one thing: The ability to annoy even me. Art that cannot provoke a reaction is not worth witnessing for ones self, and I think we can safely say that this Italian made so-called comedy/Western hybrid isn't for all tastes. Mine is still at the Old Corral waiting to be re shooed.

I sought it out due to my obsession with the recurring Spaghetti Western character Sartana, played by actors Gianni Garko and George Hilton, amongst others. Like the DJANGO films that aren't really about Franco Nero's DJANGO, this one has zilch to do with Garko's SARTANA and was doubtlessly titled HALLELUJAH AND SARTANA STRIKE IT RICH after the distributors realized there wasn't much they could do with it as just a zany, slapstick horse comedy with Ron Ely and "Richard Widmark". One plays a horse thief referred to by the translated script as 'Sartana', the other a phony Preacher whom I guess would be 'Hallelujah'. The two of them are con men who try to swindle a sweet young widow (Uschi Glass, sadly encased in rather opaque clothing during the whole production) and end up helping a small community save their money for a new church from a band of crooks.

At least I think that's what happened. You'll notice I engaged the Spoiler Disgronification Switch the IMDb provides to protect readers from having their viewing experiences ruined by clueless contributors who give away the ending to a film. I do not think the Spoiler Button was made with films like this in mind, though, and rest assured my use of it was arbitrary & based on the outside chance that I managed to touch on some sensitive plot point without realizing it. But since I am not even sure how the movie ended, let alone what events led up to it's conclusion, it was more of a safety measure employed to protect my own best interests.

This is a Spaghetti Western no doubt, and further evidence that the primary inspiration for the Spaghetti Western approach was cartoons. The motivation for it's making was most likely the TRINITY films with Terence Hill and Bud Bulldozer Spencer. Those movies are engaging, meaningful, escapist gems that just happened to be about Cowboys & Pistoleros. HALLELUJAH AND SARTANA has an extended custard pie fight, slapstick Keystone Cops like physical comedy, a recurring character from an insane asylum who thinks he is Napoleon, goofy doofus musical themes with tubas and BOING!! sounds, surrealist characters in bizarre costumes who burst into snippets of song, and a naked guy wandering around wearing a wooden barrel ... All of it amounting to an endless ball of energy that doesn't know which way to bounce. The one film it did actually remind me of is Juan Lopez Moctezuma's likewise annoying DR. TARR'S TORTURE DUNGEON, only with horses and no naked boobs. Even the horses look confused at times, and I wonder they thought about it all -- Probably used to being run all over creation with Lee Van Cleef & John Phillip Law shooting at Luigi Pistilli, and here they found themselves standing around watching a bunch of guys in Union Suits throwing pies at each other.

So I dunno. This isn't a film to recommend nor warn against, but to sort of note the existence of. Yes, Virginia, there is a movie called HALLELUJAH AND SARTANA STRIKE IT RICH, with Ron Ely and "Richard Widmark". And yes, Uschi Glass is in it too. What it is about I haven't the foggiest idea, nor do I care, and for some that might be the spoiler right there. If so, my apologies, but you knew it was coming.

Slapstick western.

[bruce3 · 4 January 1999]

Nothing about the film is serious; it's purely a slapstick western. The only violence is harmless punches and pies in the face. Children might like the film; it was too silly for me, but it's always nice to see Uschi Glas.

Save thy time, save thy money!

[Seeber selbst · 1 September 2001]

Alas, Carl Spiehs, what have you done this time? This is sort of a Western, and quite a bundle of scenes look quite familiar, you could swear you have seen them before. You are right. This film's effort is to copy known scenes of other westerns and to copy even the names of other films (the german title is related to a famous Terence Hill/Bud Spencer movie, the italian title to a well known 60ies Italo-western). It must have been fun for the actors - or a racket (at least it was for co-producer Spiehs). The whole film is quite a lukewarm business, every scene that begins promisingly looses quite every charm and drive until it's end - well, the end is always quite near. But I must admit that I enjoyed some fighting scenes which were intended to be funnny and in a way, they were. (These scenes were arranged by some cracks who also did these T.H./B.S. movies). If you can see it in TV, do so; if you'd have to rent it (and spend money) - beware.