All the Way, Boys

Plot

Salud (Bud Spencer) and Plata (Terence Hill) eke out a living as bush pilots in South America. Beside carrying a few passengers and a small amount of cargo, their most lucrative activity is in faking aircraft crashes, on behalf of Salud's brother (Alexander Allerson), who will be able to collect the insurance money.

Flying over the Andes on another flight, the two pilots crash for real in the middle of the piranha-infested jungle. In a native village, they meet Matto (Cyril Cusack), an old man who takes Salud to see a mountain and tells him the story of three friends who killed themselves. There, the duo find an emerald mining operation run by the unscrupulous Mr. Ears (Reinhard Kolldehoff). Ears dictates prices on the black market, uses thugs to keep out competitors, and keeps his workers as slave labor.

Plata and Salud decide they will confront Ears, using aircraft to deliver their goods, and offering the natives a much better life. Wanting to fly Matto to Salvador, where he would live in a modern city, Plata and Salud take the old man and his dog along with them, but he passes away on the flight. Plata finds a large emerald tied to a cord that Matto wore.

In Salvador, the two inept crooks try to cash in on their find, but end up in jail. After a successful breakout, the pair find themselves pitted against the ruthless Ears, but in the end, right prevails.

Production

... All the Way, Boys! was shot in Colombia, including scenes set at the Medellín airport. The aircraft that were utilized were: Beechcraft Model 18, Boeing 727, Boeing-Stearman PT-17, Cessna 182 Skylane, Cessna 310, Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina, de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver, Douglas DC-3, Douglas DC-6, Douglas DC-8, Hawker Siddeley HS 748, Lockheed L-188 Electra, Lockheed T-33 and Piper PA-24 Comanche.

Reception

In trying to reach a more international audience, the original 120-minute Italian version (... Più forte ragazzi!) of ... All the Way, Boys! was re-edited into a 90-minute version and re-dubbed into English with dialogue and post-synchronization by Gene Luotto. The resultant release did not receive positive reviews, with film Historian Howard Hughes noting that ".. the resultant incoherence doesn't help the sluggish narrative."

Jim Craddock in Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever said, "The "Trinity cast up to no good ... crash-land a plane in the Andes, in the hope of finding slapstick, but found none."

Awards

... All the Way, Boys! won the Golden Screen award at the 1973 Golden Screen, Germany and the Silver Ribbon for Best Score (Migliore Musica) by Guido De Angelis and Maurizio De Angelis from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists, 1973.