There’s a lot of butt cheeks in this movie.

Today I watched Blood Money, a very uniquely named film from 1974. Directed by Antonio Margheriti, this film also went by the name The Stranger and the Gunfighter owing to its spaghetti western roots.

If you’re an ass man this is your movie. The first ten minutes of this film are just a series of butt cheeks, photos of butt cheeks, butt cheeks on beds, butt cheeks near curtains. And nice butt cheeks too, which you can enjoy alongside the appropriately named Uncle Wang (Tung-Kua Ai) who loves butt cheeks so much that he uses a little handheld telescope to view the butt cheeks and the photos of the butt cheeks.

Lee Van Cleef plays Dakota, a man who rolls into town trying to find a vast fortune. The kind you’d attain by planting TNT on a big safe. Unfortunately after opening a series of locks containing pictures of butt cheeks, Dakota accidentally sets off a load and blows off his Wang. There’s probably a better way to word that sentence. With Uncle Wang dead, Dakota is arrested after finding out that there is no big fortune in the safe but even though he hasn’t stolen anything they decide he must be hung anyway. Also they’re giving him the rope.

Okay no more penis jokes.

Blood Money is a film I absolutely needed to see upon reading the genre; kung fu spaghetti western comedy. A comedy movie starring Lee Van Cleef? Can I see more of those butt cheeks now? There’s a lot of scenes of this film of people looking at butts and I’m completely fine with that. One thing that is funny is how easily Dakota accepts that they’re going to hang him. Damn dude, I know the wild west makes men cold but he is ready to die.

On the other side of the world Ho Chiang (Lo Lieh) finds himself and his family arrested by the local warlord on suspicion that they have stolen Wang’s vast fortune and are hiding it from him. Chiang proposes going out west to find the fortune to save himself and his family, and ends up saving Dakota in the process. The two go on a journey to find Wang’s fortune with nothing to go on other than the photos of the four women and their butt cheeks.

This movie is silly as all get out and I never thought I’d say that about a Lee Van Cleef movie. But we do get a scene where Van Cleef refers to a sake as a “women’s drink” and then spits it out from the strength. The two are pursued by Yancey Hobbitt (Julián Ugarte) who does a convincing Russel Brand impression. Hobbitt is an insane deacon who massacred people after the war and now goes around punishing people in the name of God. Several of the actors in this film also starred in Fangs of the Living Dead.

One problem with movies like this is that they’re hard to track down information. I’d love to tell you who played Classy K, or if I’m spelling his name right, but he’s not on the credits list. Same goes with the Native American fella who beats him. Dakota and Chiang go to the casino where Dakota uses his genius Chinaman to fix the matches and rob the casino blind using simple math. Dakota stares at a pair of butt cheeks for $100,000 through a plant, I wish I was joking.

This movie is hilarious, and maybe it’s just because I’m seeing Lee Van Cleef in a comedy and showing some emotion other than gruffness and contempt. Wang’s mistresses are absolutely gorgeous; Patty Shepard, Femi Benussi, Karen Yeh, Erika Blanc. Lee Van Cleef autographs Patty Shepard’s bare ass and did I mention how much I enjoy the asses in this film? There’s also a lot of slapstick comedy. Have you ever wanted to hear Lee Van Cleef cheerfully sing a drunken bar tune? I never need to hear that again.

That being said Lee Van Cleef is still an absolute badass. Julián Ugarte plays the bad guy quite well, the absolutely insane and sadistic deacon who ultimately only wants the treasure so he can open up a big church. It’s also pretty great when Ho Chiang starts kicking the crap out of the Native American guy after we watch him go pretty much uncontested the whole film. The two have a great fight at the end.

My biggest beef with this film is that like many other westerns from the era, it really feels its hour and forty minutes. It’s not boring, but damn is it long. I took some points off for terrible editing in using reversed footage in what was otherwise a great fight sequence.

Rating: A-