Long Live Your Death

Long Live Your Death (aka Don't Turn the Other Cheek!)
Wild East DVD Cover
Directed by	Duccio Tessari
Produced by	Carlo Lizzani Ernst R. von Theumer () Mickey Knox
Written by	Massimo De Rita Günter Ebert Dino Maiuri Juan de Orduña
Starring	Franco Nero Eli Wallach Lynn Redgrave
Music by	Gianni Ferrio Ennio Morricone
Cinematography	José F. Aguayo
Edited by	Enzo Alabiso
Distributed by	International Amusements Corporation (US)
Release date	December 1971 (Italy)
Running time	103 minutes
Country	Italy/Spain/West Germany
Language	Italian

Long Live Your Death (aka Don't Turn the Other Cheek!, originally titled Viva la muerte... tua!) is a 1971 Italian/Spanish/German international co-production spaghetti western/ action comedy film directed by Duccio Tessari. The film is mostly a send up of "political" Spaghetti Westerns (also called Zapata Westerns), like A Professional Gun and Compañeros.

In priestly disguise, the con artist Orlowsky learns from a last confession about a village where a treasure is hidden. He seeks out the Mexican bandit Max Lozoya, who knows more about its precise location – (part of) the instructions is tattooed on his ass.

At the same time, the Irish journalist Mary O'Donnell wants to fire up the revolutionary cause and bribes sheriff Randall to have the Mexican revolutionary El Salvador escape prison. Even though El Salvador is dead, the sheriff accepts, haggling up the price). It turns out that he has a scam going, where he takes money to let prisoners escape and then kills them to get a reward – and the prison warden gets half of the taking. They choose Lozoya for the escaping hero (as he is to be executed anyway). Randall is further elated when he finds the ”priest” with Lozoya, because Orlowsky is his cousin, which he blames for his handicap, some affliction of the back so he must wear an iron support under the clothes to be able to walk upright. So Orlowsky is locked up for later torture to death.

As it turns out the plans of the sheriff fail. The warden goes in to release Lozoya, and once they are in the corridor, the bandit knocks the warden out and helps Orlowsky to escape. It's no easy feat; Lozoya is out of shape and when he's being given a boost up by the rear over a wall, he doesn't like it. When they run into Mary, Orlowsky presents Lozoya as El Salvador and himself as his military advisor, and a confused Lozoya just goes along with it. Later it turns out that she recognised Lozoya from the beginning, but went along with it, something that gives further credit to Orlowsky’s accusation that she is a journalist – "someone that creates an idol and then destroys him" – out to start an uprising just to get a story.

Initially, Lozoya takes advantage of his ”El Salvador” identity solely to mobilise assistance in his play against Orlowsky. In a tavern, he frames Orlowsky for a watch theft so he can escape and talk to Mendoza alone and find the other half of the treasure map so he can have the cash for himself, but a fight breaks out, leaving Lozoya cornered in a well. Orlowsky arrives to save him, but not before punishing him by leaving him to struggle to stay on the surface first. Soon, Lozoya is forced to give the information to the treasure by dropping his pants, displaying the instructions to Orlowsky. But when Randall and the soldiers kill his sister Lupita and her boy he gets a genuine revolutionary motive. Heaving a trembling breath, he vows "to kill as many regulares as there are hairs on my sister's head.” This trail of vengeance leads to general Huerta and the two partners organise an uprising against his garrison, while Mary is obliged to put her virginity on the line in order to distract the commander (she tells him, ”There is more than one way to kill a woman”). However, the attack sends him running away in his underwear before she has had to go all the way.