Cowards Don't Pray (I vigliacchi non pregano) (1968)

[titoli]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061893/

http://www.spaghettiwestern.altervista.org/vigliacchi_pregano.htm

http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=3802.0


This could have been better if only the director had known where he was going to. It starts as a classic SW vengeance story, then it turns into something else as the lead (Garko) turns into a psycho. You always have the impression the story is taking a lead which then goes astray. Some scenes tend to repeat themselves and the movie is too long (the version I saw clocks at 107').
The score is competent and expensive: they put money into it.

[The Firecracker]

I'll have to see how long my version is, I hardly think it's 107 minutes. I never got the sense that it rambled. Thought this was top 50 (if not 40) material.

[Banjo]

Firecracker's Obscure SW's Review:-

"Cowards don't Pray" (aka taste of vengeance)

Garko stars (pre Sartana) in this dark and bleak spaghetti western.
Garko's wife is the victim of a rape/murder. He joins up with a friend to seek revenge. When Garko kills the men he believes to be his wife's murderers he becomes deranged by the blood shed and becomes a violent outlaw. Eventually his friend has to take him down.
This is a wonderful character piece with plenty of action. It succeeds in what "Day of Anger" and "Face to Face" TRIED to accomplish...a well done character change. The film takes the time to show you what is going on inside Garko's head throughout and you follow the character as he goes down to the "darkside", as it were. FTF and DOA accomplish this in a half-assed manner, they would rather show you the next big set piece then bother showing you the change of the characters.

While "Cowards dont pray" is no where near as good as FTF and DOA it still holds a big victory by showing you a very well made character piece.

The main problem with it is the direction is not very consistant. Some segments are shot beautifully while other segments suffer from the direction being very amatuerish. One or two of the action scenes arent very well put together and you dont really understand what is going on until the scene is over. perhaps this is my dvd copie's fault. It's not the best looking of transfers (the night scenes are a real pain in the ass to see what is going on) but it isnt horrible either.

The dialogue is sometimes laughably cheesy but that is to be expected in this genre so it didnt bother me. The acting is damn good. though I think Garko seems to overact a bit at times (think "Blood at sundown" and you'll get the idea) but for the most part he is very good and by the end of the picture you feel sorry for him even though he is a merciless killing machine.
Everybody else does a good job as well.

Most of the musical score is forgettable except for the main theme which has children chanting (this piece of music works well in a few scenes).


all in all...This is an above average entry to the genre. Were not talking top 20 material here...but top 50 out of my 120 sounds like a good place for it.

this is one of Garko's better films outside the Sartana series.
Right on par with "Vengeance is Mine" and "10,000 for a massacre".

Great film! go find this gem now!