HERE WE GO AGAIN, EH PROVIDENCE?

 

At the beginning of this month I examined the goofy comedy Euro Western LIFE IS TOUGH, EH PROVIDENCE? Today I'll look at its sequel HERE WE GO AGAIN, EH PROVIDENCE?, originally released in 1973. 

The second Providence film is far more ridiculous and outlandish than the first, and that's saying something. Once again the Charlie Chaplinesque Providence (Tomas Milian) and his rough-and-ready partner (Gregg Palmer) engage in various wacky schemes to enrich themselves. (In the version of LIFE IS TOUGH that I saw, Gregg Palmer's character was called The Tennessee Kid, and in this movie he's called The Hurricane Kid.)

HERE WE GO AGAIN is so bizarre that it really is more of a surreal fantasy than a dopey Western. It has a production design that resembles a cross between CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG and THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES. The entire intent of HERE WE GO AGAIN was apparently to enlarge and outdo the silly antics of LIFE IS TOUGH. 

The writers of HERE WE GO AGAIN seem to have gone the "Everything but the kitchen sink" route. This film has a rather elaborate can-can routine that segues into a brawl, a slapstick sequence set on an ice rink, a kung fu battle, and a scene where Providence and his buddy are saved from being executed by a firing squad due to......bird droppings. In LIFE IS TOUGH Providence traveled around in a tricked-out Wells Fargo coach, and here he cavorts about in a zany locomotive-like device that doesn't have to run on rails. This vehicle has even more unique gadgets, and it's driven by Providence's Chinese manservant who is called "So Long" (groan). 

The movie also includes a hot-air balloon, a bank built from giant Lego blocks (I'm not making this up), plenty of corny dialogue, gags that were better used by the Looney Tunes gang, TV commercial parodies, and characters breaking the fourth wall. There's a lot going on in HERE WE GO AGAIN, but none of it is particularly entertaining or amusing. (I must admit I did laugh out loud once, at a line of dialogue concerning the Red Baron.) 

Tomas Milian is even more in a silent-movie comedian mode than he was in the first Providence film--his pants are way baggier, and his ties have gotten more clownish. Milian also gets a song-and-dance routine of his own. Unfortunately his broad mugging becomes very irritating. 

HERE WE GO AGAIN, EH PROVIDENCE? was directed by Italian genre veteran Alberto De Martino. Among the De Martino films I've covered on this blog are THE BLANCHEVILLE MONSTER and OPERATION KID BROTHER. Those films are way. way better than HERE WE GO AGAIN--it appears that De Martino decided to go totally off the rails and throw a bunch of stuff up against the movie screen to see what would stick. As in the first Providence film, the music score is by Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai, and it's just as weird as everything else in this movie. 

The best way I can sum up HERE WE GO AGAIN, EH PROVIDENCE? is to state that it's one of the strangest films I've ever seen. There's nothing wrong with being strange, at certain times.....but this movie offers nothing else.