Prepare a Coffin! (Preparati la bara!) (translated)

Preparati la bara! (“Prepare Your Coffin!”) is a 1968 Italian spaghetti Western, released abroad as Django, Prepare a Coffin and in some markets as Viva Django. Directed by Ferdinando Baldi, it brings back the gunslinger Franco Nero played in Sergio Corbucci’s Django. It runs about 91 minutes, and Baldi wrote the script with Franco Rossetti.

This time Django is played by Terence Hill, although the part was first meant to go to Nero again. Producer Manolo Bolognini had also produced Corbucci’s original film. Alongside Hill, the cast includes Horst Frank, George Eastman, José Torres, Pinuccio Ardia, Andrea Scotti, Luciano Rossi, Guido Lollobrigida, Alberto Dell’Acqua, Franco Balducci and Adriana Giuffrè.

The score has had a life of its own: a piece called “Last Man Standing” was sampled years later in Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”, and Nicola Di Bari sings the title song, “You’d Better Smile”. The film was shown in the spaghetti Western retrospective at the 64th Venice International Film Festival. In Germany it circulated as Django und die Bande der Gehenkten, Viva Django and Django – sein Haß ist tödlich, with a shortened, redubbed cut released as Joe, der Galgenvogel; in France it is known as Trinita, prépare ton cercueil !