 |
| The real ones |
When in 1970's the movies with
Terence Hill and
Bud Spencer were so popular, particularly in Europe, the Italian filmmakers begun to produce more movies in their style. They couldn't get the real actors? Never mind. There were plenty of former spaghetti western cowboys, who were able to step in
Hill's shoes. And what about
Bud Spencer? There's just a need of a huge bearded man. Sometimes fat, sometimes not. Notable clones were:
 |
| Bilbao is the one in the brown jacket |
Fernando Bilbao, who was a stuntman and appeared in a few movies directed by
Antonio Margheriti, including titles like "
Hercules Against Karate" and "
Manone il ladrone", a clone of
Spencer's Flatfoot (Piedone lo sbirro).
 |
| Polgar in the middle |
Tommy Polgar did his
Bud Spencer clone in "
Return of Shanghai Joe", also starring
Klaus Kinski.
 |
| Huerta and Reed pretending being Spencer and Hill |
Cris Huerta, known as a bad guy from serious spaghetti westerns, suddenly started to act his
Bud Spencer in movies like
"Robin Hood, Arrows, Beans and Karate", which is surprisingly a western, co-starring comrade
Dean Reed as the
Terence Hill type.
There were more movies based on the success of
Spencer and Hill. But the best known duo of clones and the one with most movies were
Paul Smith and
Antonio Cantafora, a.k.a.
Michael Coby.
 |
| Smith and Spencer |
We all know
Smith from his later movies.
The Midnight Express, The Salamander, Red Sonja, Maverick... He was in almost everything in the 80's. But he started his career in Israel, where he was noticed by Italian producers, who saw his resemblance with
Bud Spencer. And
Smith really looked like Spencer, and unlike
Bilbao, Polgar and
Huerta, he was charismatic and knew how to act.
 |
| Coby and Hill |
Antonio Cantafora played bit parts in several genre movies before - he was in
Mario Bava's Baron Blood, he was in
Margheriti's And God Said to Cain, he played a Mexican bad guy in
Black Killer (both movies starring
Klaus Kinski). He changed his name to
Michael Coby, joined
Smith and together they made five movies -
Carambola, Carambola's Philosophy: In the Right Pocket, We Are No Angels, Kid Stuff (a.k.a. Convoy Buddies) and
The Diamond Peddlers. The first two movies were directed by
Ferdinando Baldi (
Texas Adios, Forgotten Pistolero, Blindman), the last two by
Giuliano Carnimeo (the
Sartana series,
The Case of the Bloody Iris, They Call Him Cemetery) and the Angels movie by
Gianfranco Parolini (the
Sabata series, the first
Sartana movie,
Five for Hell).
Kid Stuff and
The Diamond Peddlers are in Italian called
Simone e Matteo, un gioco da ragazzi, and
Il vangelo secondo Simone e Matteo - the two movies are telling stories about two stupid guys going from one trouble to another. When the two movies were in late 70's and early 80's released in Czechoslovakia, the titles were translated -
Simone and Matteo became
Šimon and Matouš. The movies with the real actors,
Terence Hill and
Bud Spencer, were released at the same time, but only a few of them, and the Šimon a Matouš movies were apparently even more successful here, so that the people started to call the real
Spencer-Hill films "Šimon a Matouš", believing, that Simone and Matteo were played by
Spencer and Hill and not by their doubles! The confusion was so big that on some pirate VHS was the western
Ace High, starring
Hill, Spencer and Eli Wallach, called "
Šimon a Matouš na divokém západě", meaning "Simone and Matteo in the Wild West". Many people confuse the actors even today.
But even in the USA the distributor wanted to confuse the audience, so that
Kid Stuff was released under the title
Convoy Buddies, trying to exploit the success of
The Smokey and the Bandit movies. The actor's names were changed once again -
Paul Smith and
Michael Coby became Bob Spencer and Terrence Hall (sic)! When
Paul L. Smith found out about this, he succesfully sued the distributor for changing the name deliberately.
Of course the movies' style comes out of
Spencer-Hill ones, but they are even more infantile. I have watched four of them - the
Carambola movies were once enough, the
Simone and Matteo movies... well, I have watched them as a kid plenty of times. I probably wouldn't watch
Kid Stuff again, but with the second one, I watched it again after many years a few days ago and it didn't hurt that much.
