Graziano is a small gangster who lives with his family in the mountains of Sardinia. There are rough customs, therefore the cohesion of the family is vital. When Graziano is in prison because of small trickeries, his brother is brutally murdered. Thereupon he breaks out and takes bloody revenge. Afterwards he is captured again, but can flee again. Accompanied by his cellmate, he first ends the blood feuds of the enemy families and begins to kidnap the children of rich city dwellers with a gang of loyal followers and release them again for ransom. With this money he helps the poor farmers in the mountain villages and has the mass of people behind him. He gains more and more popularity and slowly becomes a problem for the government because he has the farmers behind him. Finally Graziano gets the tip to kidnap the son of a supposedly rich mechanic. However, he is also only a poor worker and so it comes that the poor population also opposes Graziano, because he cannot release the son of the mechanic without ransom, because he does not want to show any weakness. This leads to a large-scale search in the mountains of Sardinia and the situation becomes worse. Terence Hill plays the leading role of the gangster Graziano Cassitta, who gradually loses control of the situation. The movie is based on a true incident. The gangster Graziano Cassitta, impersonated by Terence Hill, is based on the real bandit Graziano Mesina, who was in Sardinia in the 50s and 60s and who was in prison only a few kilometres from Set during the 1969 shooting. "The Tough and the Mighty" was only dubbed after Terence Hill's breakthrough as a comedian actor for the German market. That's why he didn't appear in German cinemas until 4.5 years after the Italian theatrical release. Graziano became a chattering slogan knocker, which completely turns the original atmosphere of film upside down. In addition, the film was shortened for the German market by about 9 minutes. Terence Hill is spoken in the German version by Thomas Danneberg. The film was published in Germany under the title Verflucht in alle Ewigkeit on VHS. This is currently also the only available German version of the film, because it has never been shown on German television before and there is no DVD or Blu-ray of the film either. Unfortunately it doesn't look any better internationally. Apart from an Italian VHS from the year 2004, no other releases are known. Don Backy can be seen in the role of Miguel Lopez. He is a very popular singer and songwriter in Italy. He also sings the title song of the movie "Ballate (per un balente)". The song was released as a single in Italy at that time. A soundtrack album does not exist until today. Frank Wolff, an old acquaintance from the Spencer/Hill universe, plays the role of Spina. In 1967 Wolff played the head villain Bill San Antonio in God forgives... I don't!. The director and one of the screenwriters of the film is Carlo Lizzani, who had already made a name for himself as a director of crime films with a flair for Italian social topics. He can be seen as a reporter in a short scene. Three years later he shot Black Turin with Bud Spencer, another crime film that fits exactly into this scheme. The original title of the movie is "Barbagia (La società del malessere)". Barbagia is the name of the mountain region in the north-east of Sardinia where the plot of the film takes place. "La società del malessere" means "The Society of Malaise". "La società del malessere" is also the title of Giuseppe Fiori's novel, which inspired the script. Giuseppe Fiori also advised the scriptwriters on the dialogues. The film was shot in Sardinia.

Data di uscita:

23.09.1969 Italia Prima proiezione 22.09.1970 Svizzera Prima proiezione Italienische Synchro mit dt. und frz. Untertiteln 01.02.1974 Germania Prima proiezione

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