I Quattro dell'Ave Maria (original title) is an entertaining and amusing Macaroni Western starred by the notorious Italian couple , Hill and Spencer , pre-Trinity and Bambino . Likable Terence Hill and stocky Bud Spencer team up again as the valiant and enjoyable duo . The agreeable crew makes a new adventure movie plenty of fist-play , action , shootouts and entertainment . This fun Pipperone Western deals with our intimate friends in Far West , they're two bank-robbers , the blue-eyes and sympathetic Terence Hill as Cat Stevens and a grumpy and goofy Bud Spencer as Hutch . Then appears Cacopoulos (Eli Wallach) , a cunning thief who arranges to save himself from being hung on a fake charge , as he breaks out and steals Cat Stevens (Mario Girotti or Terence Hill , Massimo Giroti'son ) and Hutch Bessy (Carlo Perdesoli or Bud Spencer) a lot of cash and he also robs their horses . This results in a merry pursuit and Stevens and Bessy turn into unwilling allies in Cacopoulus' vendetta against the people who double-crossed him and accused him to get their loot back . Cat Stevens and Hutch unite Cacopoulus , after that , the trio joins forces with a circus artist (Brock Peters) taking on nasties . Nevertheless , the cruel baddie is still alive and seeks avenge , he is a relentless saloon owner (Kevin MacCarthy of Invasion of the body snatchers) and supported by ominous hoodlums .
This funny story contains crossfire , the usual slight fights and a little bit of action , pursuits and circus spectacle . The humor is based on physical and personality differences of the starring , as Terence Hill is the sympathetic and brave hero and Bud Spencer is the corpulent and hunk man . The movie contains gun-play , action Western , bloody spectacle and fist-fights . The film isn't always good , sometimes is fresh and diverting and on a couple of memorable occasions , it's frankly delicious . Terence Hill as a two-fisted gunslinger and Spencer as a bouncing hunk are good but still not personified the Trinity hero characters . Later on , the 'big time' duo of Spaghetti Western with humor such as ¨They call me Trinity¨, ¨ Trinity is still my name ¨ and sequels as ¨Troublemakers¨ were run out and for that reason were transfered in modern era film , playing the police/action genre and adventures as ¨All the way boys¨ also titled ¨Plane crazy¨ ; after that , they starred the successful ¨ Miami police series ¨, which belong the followings : ¨Crime Busters¨ , ¨Superfuzz¨ and ¨Supercops in Miami¨. However , being the great American actor Eli Wallach from ¨Actor's Studio¨ who steals the show as Cacopoulus , a similar role to Tucco he performed in ¨The good , the bad and the ugly¨ . At the picture appears customary Spaghetti secondaries who played ordinary characters as villains in numerous Spanish/Italian Western as Livio Lorenzon as Paco Rosa , Steffen Zacharias as Harold , Rick Boyd as Drake's blond henchman , Bruno Corazzari as Charlie , Frank Braña and Riccardo Pizzuti ,habitual secondary in Hill-Spencer films . The movie is finely photographed by director of photography Marcello Masciocchi , and of course is shot in Almeria , Spain, location where were filmed hundreds of Western in the 60s and 70s . Evocative as well as atmospheric musical score by the usual Carlo Rustichelli , conducted by Bruno Nicolai , ordinary collaborator to Ennio Morricone .
The motion picture was regularly directed and produced by Giuseppe Colizzi . Giuseppe directed a trilogy starred by Hill and Spencer as Cat Stevens and Hutch Bessy respectively . The first , superior and the best outing was ¨Dio Perdona..¨ with Frank Wolf and Jose Luis Martin ; this second installment also titled ¨Four gunmen of Ave Maria¨ or ¨Ace high¨ with the great Eli Wallach and more camp tendencies ; and the third is ¨Boot Hill¨ with Woody Strode , Eduardo Ciannelli , George Eastman , Alberto DellÁcqua and Romano Puppo . A bit later on , Colizzi again directed Hill and Spencer at an adventure movie titled ¨Più Forte, Ragazzi!" or ¨All the Way Boys" or "Plane Crazy" , USA title . Giuseppe subsequently realized another buddy movie ¨Joe and Margherito¨ with Keith Carradine and Tom Skerrit , being his last movie a real flop titled ¨Switch¨ , starred by Annie Belle , until his early death at fifty years old . The flick will appeal to famous pair fans , in fact , this was the second teaming of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer .
