''Shoot the Living and Pray for the Dead'' ( it, Prega il Morto e Ammazza il Vivo) is the original release title of the 1971 Italian
dramatic Spaghetti
Spaghetti () is a long, thin, solid, cylindrical pasta.[spaghetti](_blank)
Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridg ...
Western film
The Western is a genre set in the American frontier and commonly associated with folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada. It is commonly referred ...
directed by
Giuseppe Vari
Giuseppe Vari (9 March 1924 – 1 October 1993) was an Italian film director, editor and screenwriter.
Life and career
Born in Segni, Rome, Vari started his career as an editor of films and documentaries, collaborating among others with Fe ...
, and starring
Klaus Kinski and
Dante Maggio
Dante Maggio (2 March 1909 – 3 March 1992) was an Italian film actor. He appeared in 115 films between 1940 and 1975.
Born in Naples into a family of actors, Maggio had a turbulent adolescence that led his father to send him in an institu ...
.
With its many international releases, the film had additional English titles of ''Pray to Kill and Return Alive'', ''To Kill a Jackal'', and ''Renegade Gun''.
The script by
Adriano Bolzoni is inspired by American noir-crime films of the 1930s and 1940s, and Kinski's entry into the scene reprises
Edward G. Robinson's presence in ''
Key Largo
Key Largo ( es, Cayo Largo) is an island in the upper Florida Keys archipelago and is the largest section of the keys, at long. It is one of the northernmost of the Florida Keys in Monroe County, and the northernmost of the keys connected by ...
'' (1948).
Plot
After having robbed a bank for $100,000 in gold bars, Dan Hogan (
Klaus Kinski) and his gang meet up at the Jackal's Ranch
stagecoach way station near the Mexican border, where Hogan's girlfriend Eleanor (Victoria Zinny) is to surreptitiously bring their stolen gold to them. While they await her arrival, they encounter John Webb (Paolo Casella), a stranger who had shot the man who was to be their guide and who himself wants half their gold in exchange for leading them into Mexico. Hogan agrees and they depart into the desert with the law close behind. In fact, Webb plots to destroy the gang as Hogan, during his earlier days with the
Ku Klux Klan, had killed Webb's father.
Cast
*
Klaus Kinski as Dan Hogan
*Paolo Casella as John Webb
*
Dante Maggio
Dante Maggio (2 March 1909 – 3 March 1992) was an Italian film actor. He appeared in 115 films between 1940 and 1975.
Born in Naples into a family of actors, Maggio had a turbulent adolescence that led his father to send him in an institu ...
as Jonathan
*Dino Strano as Reed
*Patrizia Adiutori as Santa
*Goffredo Unger as Skelton
*Aldo Barberito as Greene
*Victoria Zinny as Eleanor
*Anna Zinnemann as Daisy
*John Ely
*Anthony Rock
*
Fortunato Arena
Fortunato Arena (23 May 1922 – 7 March 1994) was an Italian stuntman and actor. He appeared in more than one hundred films from 1954 to 1989.
Selected filmography
* ''Blood for a Silver Dollar'' (1965)
* ''Conqueror of Atlantis'' (1965)
* ...
*
Adriana Giuffrè
Adriana Giuffrè (born 9 March 1939) is an Italian actress. She appeared in more than fifty films since 1961.
Filmography
References
External links
*
1939 births
Living people
Italian film actresses
People of Calabrian descent ...
*Gianni Pulone
Production
The film was shot simultaneously with ''
The Last Traitor'' (''Il tredicesimo è sempre Giuda''), another Spaghetti Western that was also directed and written by Vari and Bolzoni.
[
]
Releases
First released theatrically as ''Prega il morto e ammazza il vivo'' in Italy on 31 August 1971, the film was distributed internationally under different titles. In West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
it was released as ''Der Mörder des Klans''. In its 24 May 1972 French release, it was ''Priez les morts, tuez les vivants''.[ On release on cable television in ]Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
it was titled ''Mata o Vivo E Reza Pelo Morto''. When first released in the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, it was as ''Pray to Kill and Return Alive'', while its international release title in English was ''Renegade Gun''. Subsequently, it was also released as ''To Kill a Jackal'' and then ''Shoot the Living and Pray for the Dead''.[ It was released in ]Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
as ''Rukous kuolleiden puolesta''. In its 19 September 1973 release in Sweden it was as ''Skjut de levande - bed för de döda'', while in Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
on 28 July 1975, it was as ''Reza Pelo Morto e Mata o Vivo'', and its latest US release was as ''To Kill a Jackal''.
DVD release
The German DVD release quality is considered very good, with the image being clean and sharp. The German language dubbing is well done but the English language dubbing is a bit dull. DVD extras include a picture gallery showing stills of the film, as well as stills of international poster artwork, clips of other Klaus Kinski projects, and trailers for other Koch Media films.
Reception
Of its German release, ''Das Filmmagazin'' said that there was nothing wrong in principle for Klaus Kinski to be in this Spaghetti Western even though the actor and genre have been in better productions. The role of Dan Hogan was a perfect opportunity for Kinski to create a character who was an ice cold lunatic on the verge. ''Das Filmmagazin'' also felt that the reduced scope of the limited locations of the coach station and the desert allowed the director to use hand-held shots to create a surreal tonality. The wobbling close-ups of faces captured intensity of expressions, short shots with wide focal lengths, tilted camera angles, and other unusual camera work were used to generate mood. They summarised by writing "Ein spannender, nahezu minimalistischer Italowestern, der zwar nicht mit den Besten seines Fachs mithalten kann, aber in der zweiten Liga eine ziemlich gute Figur macht." (An exciting, almost minimalist Spaghetti Western, which, although it cannot compete with the best in its field, makes a pretty good figure in the second division). The ''Spaghetti Western Database'' calls the film a "thoroughly interesting mystery thriller disguised as a Western" and representative of "one of the best examples of the forgotten gems of the Spaghetti Western". On the other hand, Italian film critic Paolo Mereghetti
Paolo Mereghetti (born 28 September 1949) is an Italian film critic.
Born in Milan, Mereghetti graduated in philosophy with a thesis about Orson Welles.Giorgio Dell’Arti, Massimo Parrini. "Mereghetti, Paolo". ''Catalogo dei viventi''. Marsilio ...
criticized the film, calling it "an absolutely conventional western, with a Kinski to the minimum of his actorial capabilities". In his review for the website ''Sense of View'', Carsten Henkelmann, while highlighting the lack of rhythm ("The action is for the most part very quiet, the narration is quite slow"), praised the originality of the plot ("it is a Western that uses the usual gunfights as a last resort").
In his investigation of narrative structures in Spaghetti Western films, Fridlund counts ''Shoot the Living and Pray for the Dead'' among the many stories about an infiltrator with a hidden agenda that took their inspiration from A Fistful of Dollars
''A Fistful of Dollars'' ( it, Per un pugno di dollari, lit=For a Fistful of Dollars titled on-screen as ''Fistful of Dollars'') is a 1964 Spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood in his first leading role, ...
.
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino (; born March 27, 1963) is an American film director, writer, producer, and actor. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue, profanity, dark humor, non-linear storylines, cameos, ensembl ...
ranked the film 16th in his personal "Top 20 favorite Spaghetti Westerns".
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shoot The Living And Pray For The Dead
1971 films
1971 drama films
1971 Western (genre) films
Italian drama films
1970s Italian-language films
Films directed by Giuseppe Vari
Spaghetti Western films
1970s Italian films