A FISTFUL OF ELY: RON ELY’S SPAGHETTI WESTERNS

Actor Ron Ely passed away not long ago. He was best known for playing Tarzan but in keeping with the theme of Balladeer’s Blog I’m taking a look at Ron’s Eurowesterns.

HALLELUJAH AND SARTANA … SONS OF GOD (1972) – Ron Ely played Hallelujah and Alberto Dell’Acqua was Sartana in this at best so-so Spaghetti Western.

For newbies to the more obscure level of Italo-Western heroes, Hallelujah (at left) was a gunslinging conman and gambler whose nickname came from his impersonations of clergymen as part of his grift.

Sartana, on the other hand, was a long-established Spaghetti Western figure who was portrayed by plenty of other actors during the 60s and 70s. Sartana was a pro bono vigilante when he wasn’t busy at card tables across the west.

Ron Ely’s Hallelujah was a combination of James Garner’s Bret Maverick depiction of a gunman-grifter with a heart of gold crossed with Terence Hill’s seriocomic gunslinger Trinity from his own trilogy of movies.

As for Alberto Dell’Acqua’s character, he was Sartana in name only and bore no resemblance to the figure as portrayed by Gianni Garko and others. The name Sartana was second only to Django when it came to a character’s moniker being used strictly for fan recognition, NOT true continuity.   

Hallelujah and Sartana … Sons of God featured the title characters crossing paths when they competed to steal horses from a group of cowboys who were bathing in a local body of water. Sartana got caught but Hallelujah escaped, only to save his fellow rogue’s life when the cowboys tried lynching him. 

Our main characters are still hanging out together when Hallelujah’s next man of the cloth scam leads to him being mistaken by an attractive widow (Uschi Glas) for the preacher intended to run the new church in Moonsville.

Ron Ely’s charming rascal gets the widow and her fellow congregation members to trust him and Sartana with the large (for the 1800s) sum of money they raised to build that church. Though Hallelujah and Sartana initially plan to just make off with the money at the first opportunity, they’re both too essentially decent deep down to go through with it.

While our heroes keep making excuses to themselves for why they aren’t simply taking the money and running, the good people of Moonsville get harassed by an outlaw gang led by El Lobo (Ezio Marano). The gang tries to drive all of the Moonsville settlers out of town so they can claim the fortune in ore lying underground. 

Hallelujah and his pal wind up defending the settlers from El Lobo’s gang despite themselves. We get gunplay, a LOT of fistfights and a clash of grifters when the outlaws try scaring away the people of Moonsville by hoaxing ghosts and a pack of wolves.

Like many an episode of Maverick, this tale ends with the rogues as reluctant heroes who just can’t go through with taking the townspeople’s money. With a LOT of rewriting, this film could have been like one of James Garner’s Support Your Local ___ movies. In this case Support Your Local Preacher. 

Anyway, the other Hallelujah movies were titled They Call Me Hallelujah, about him competing with Mexican Revolutionaries, bandits, a fake nun and a traveling Russian Nobleman for a fortune in jewels; and Return of Hallelujah, in which the title character and another Rogues Gallery of figures are warring over a priceless Aztec statue.

CRY OF THE BLACK WOLVES (1972) – This Eurowestern was made with German money and filmed in Italy. Rather than play a slick-talking rascal in this flick, Ely played the straight arrow Bill Robinson, an honest dogsled man in gold-crazed Alaska in 1903.

The script is adapted from Jack London and costarred Raimund Harmstorf as Jack Harper, Angelica Ott as Betty and Gila von Weitershausen as Frona. When tough guy Mike Williams steals Bill Robinson’s dogsled, Mike winds up dead.

Circumstances make it seem like Bill committed murder and he takes it on the lam. Among the men looking to bring him in are Jack Harper and the notorious Tornado Kid (Arthur Brauss). Eventually, Jack manages to snare Ron Ely but while escorting him at gunpoint through the frozen north and back to civilization for a hanging, our good-hearted hero saves Harper’s life multiple times.

Ultimately, the two men join forces against ruthless outlaws and the bounty hunters on Bill’s trail. The bad guys even resort to taking hostages in order to force Bill Robinson to surrender to them for death. The good guys come out on top.

Cry of the Black Wolves is a movie that had me rooting for it, but it’s a letdown and doesn’t even reach the levels of the already-mediocre Winnetou Eurowesterns. A scene of the bloody aftermath of a wolfpack attack on sled dogs might be too extreme for some viewers.

FOR RICHARD CRENNA AS THE SPAGHETTI WESTERN HERO RUBAL NOON IN THE MAN CALLED NOON CLICK HERE.   

FOR JEFFREY HUNTER AS THE TITLE CHARACTER IN THE SPAGHETTI WESTERN THE CHRISTMAS KID CLICK HERE.