Ace High

Ace High (, literally translated as "The Four of the Hail Mary") is a 1968 Italian Spaghetti Western film directed and written by Giuseppe Colizzi and starring Terence Hill, Bud Spencer and Eli Wallach. The film is the second in a trilogy that started with God Forgives... I Don't! and ended with Boot Hill. Plot The first film in the trilogy, God Forgives . . . I Don't, ended with Cat and Hutch driving away in a wagon in which they possessed the gold from a train robbery by Bill San Antonio, who had apparently died in a dynamite blast. Ace High begins with Cat and Hutch arriving in El Paso, where they unsuccessfully try to claim the bounty for Bill from his last earthly remains – Bill's boots and hat - even though they have no body or body parts. Failing that, they go to bank manager Harold – whom Bill in the first film disclosed as his partner in setting up the robberies – and announce themselves as Bill. After using physical force they are received and "convince" him (using force) to issue them a cashier's check to be paid out in gold. The banker visits condemned man Cacopoulos, who is to be hanged the next day, and offers to help him escape if he restores the money. That night, the deputy is knifed by two men, who let Cacopoulos out. He takes the dead man's gun and shoots the two, then pours himself a footbath and tests the dead men's boots to find a pair that fit. He then pays a visit to the bank manager and reminds him that he and two others put him in jail for 15 years, and on his release framed him for murder with a stolen knife - the same one that was used to kill the deputy. Consequently, he wants guarantees that he will not be tricked again. Harold throws the knife, but Cacopoulos swings the chair so it strikes the back, then swings back around and shoots the manager, adding that it is guarantee enough. Dressed as a peon on a donkey, Cacopoulos meets Cat and Hutch and robs them. They follow his trail south to Mexico and encounter people to whom he has given money – and a high wire performer Thomas and his assistant that he offered money to. They catch up with him in a village during a fiesta (that he has paid for). While Cat is lured away looking for him elsewhere, Caco, playing a joke on Hutch, appears before him and, in a quieter place, tells him about Harold and the other two "friends" who shot his horse so he got caught after a bank robbery, and then framed him for murder.