“…otherwise we get angry!” turns 50, the almost metaphysical poetics of friends/rivals Bud Spencer and Terence Hill – Corriere.it

2024-03-30 07:07:18

by Filippo Mazzarella

In 1974, a film that became legendary was released in theaters, directed by Marcello Fondato. With an amazing soundtrack

In 1974, Terence Hill and Bud Spencer had already appeared together in seven films: Giuseppe Colizzi’s spaghetti western trilogy «God forgives… not me!» (1967), «The Four of Ave Maria» (1968) and «The Hill of Boots» (1970); the very famous diptych (still a spaghetti western) by EB Clucher alias Enzo Barboni «They called him Trinità…» (1970) and «…they continued to call him Trinità» (1971), with sensational box office receipts, the less fortunate and (not very) Salgarian «Il corsaro black” (1971) by Vincent Thomas (i.e. Lorenzo Gicca Palli) and above all “…stronger guys!” (1972), again by Colizzi.

If the latter was the film that definitively separated them from the now waning Italian rereading of the frontier myth, proposing them as an action comedy couple finally immersed in the contemporary and which defined their “dynamic” peculiarities once and for all [«Hill astuto scavezzacollo, Spencer gigante buono e un po’ sempliciotto», P. Mereghetti], the release – on March 29, 1974 – of their eighth collaboration «…otherwise we’ll get angry!» by Marcello Fondato (with the title characterized by ellipses for the fifth time: another small record of the duo) definitively projected them into the popular imagination even outside their homeland borders (it was their greatest commercial success abroad, thanks above all to the takings in Germany and Spain).

Friends/rivals and car racing enthusiasts, the skilled mechanic Ben (Bud Spencer) and the reckless truck driver Kid (Terence Hill) win ex aequo a rally race during which they did not fail to exchange rudeness. Since there is a shiny red “dune buggy” with yellow tops up for grabs that they can’t share, they decide to compete in a unique race to be held in the amusement park bar next to Ben’s workshop: the car will in fact go to the one of the two who will have drunk more beer and eaten more sausages. The “duel”, however, is ruined by the arrival of the gang of hitmen of the “Boss” (John Sharp), a shady real estate businessman intent on demolishing the amusement park, who not only destroys the place but is also responsible for the car fire contention.

That same evening, Kid and Ben go to one of the restaurants on the “Cape” to ask to be compensated with a new “dune buggy” (predicting that they will “get angry” if they are not granted; hence the joke in the title); and the man would also be willing to satisfy their request, were it not for the decision of the “Doctor” (Donald Pleasence), psychologist and – bad – advisor to the boss, to assign his right-hand man Attila (Deogratias Huerta) to do forcefully that the two withdraw from their purpose. Not at all willing to give up, the friends repeatedly humiliate Attila and the “Doctor” decides to eliminate them by hiring an American killer of few words, Paganini (Manuel de Blas), destined like Attila to fail.

The psychologist then convinces the “Boss” that the couple’s occult mentor would be the old Geremia (Luis Barbero), a former cook who was once employed by the boss and who now helps Ben in the workshop; but when the old man is brutally beaten by the thugs, the two’s fury is unleashed. After having demolished the restaurant of the “Chief”, the latter, having won, will hand over to them two “dune buggies”, one each: but everything will return to square one when Ben’s car goes up in flames again due to Kid. And the two will compete again for the only one left by playing “beer and sausages” again.

In addition to the aforementioned almost innocent and certainly childlike complementarity of character of Spencer and Hill, a trump card of all the couple’s subsequent films and in particular of the wild diptych set in the United States “The Two Superfeet Almost Flat” (1977, by EB Clucher) and «Pari e dispari» (1978, by Sergio Corbucci), the summits of their «chemistry», the mechanism of «…otherwise we get angry!» is based on a sort of even specious ossification of an “action” comedy which has a dual and ancient root: on the one hand the tradition of slapstick (as demonstrated by numerous sequences; from the initial devastation of the amusement park bar – characterized by the frenzy of Terence and Bud’s imperturbability – to the silent cinema crescendo of the brawl in the gym), on the other hand the craving for repetitive accumulation and surreal ideas typical of catastrophic cartoons in the style of Tex Avery or Looney Tunes.

In this sense, Fondato (who unfortunately never directed a film by the duo again, but only the unexpectedly mediocre «Charleston», 1977, one of many, like Piedone’s minisaga «lo sbirro», starring solely by Spencer), he is perhaps the director who was best able to capture the almost metaphysical and to some extent even fairy-tale poetics of the union between the Sganassoni symphony, the desire for devastation and the always latent rivalry/jealousy of the couple, here also often left free to provide “integrative” intuitions to the screenplay: like the famous “bom bom bom bom bom bom bom” (we know you’re singing it in your head) from the firemen’s choir rehearsal sequence, officially recognized as Spencer’s invention during filming.

But another fundamental element of «…otherwise we get angry!» is the soundtrack, composed by Oliver Onions, or rather the brothers Guido and Maurizio De Angelis, already in some way “partners” since the time of the second Trinità and authors of five other subsequent soundtracks for the duo (as well as twelve film scores which featured only Bud Spencer). It’s impossible to imagine the film without the song “Dune Buggy” (see above: you’re whistling it, right?), which became a radio hit across half of Europe and, thanks to its catchy melody and fast-paced rhythm, has become a classic of film-related music. Italian of the seventies.

Peculiarities that have often made historians of our popular cinema use the term “unrepeatable”, at least until 2022. That is, until the eponymous and inexplicable “reboot” (but partly also remake and sequel) with Edoardo Pesce and Alessandro Roja as Ben and Kid’s sons. A fearless but inexorably unsuccessful operation a priori, signed by the mysteriously prolific ex-YouTubers Antonio Usbergo and Niccolò Celaia (aka YouNuts!). Which had no other merit than that of rekindling nostalgia for an exceptional era and for one of the most extraordinary and brilliant couples of audience favorites of all ages.

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March 28, 2024 (modified March 30, 2024 | 08:07)

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