Bud Spencer and Terence Hill slapped each other long before they met
Although Bud Spencer had appeared in movies before, it wasn’t until he signed his first contract abroad (God forgive me, I don’t) that he gave up his sports career and moved to the US in 1967. It was on the set of this film that he grew a beard and created and adopted the stage name Bud Spencer.
At the time, it was fashionable to choose an English-sounding stage name to make Western-style films easier to sell. He was named Bud because of his height, and he chose the name Spencer out of respect for one of his favorite actors, Spencer Tracy.
Here he also met Terence Hill, and it was revealed that they appeared together in the 1959 film Hannibal in Italy, then both under their original names. Since they didn’t have a scene together, it’s unlikely that they’ve met before. When filming began on God Forgives, I Don’t, a fight scene was being prepared for the western film in which Spencer and Hill fell together on the riverbank.
Hill recounted at Spencer’s funeral that he moved like a nimble cat and dealt multiple blows to his partner, until he finally had to knock him down with one big punch. For a long time, they thought about a particular way of hitting. Spencer’s idea was to land one on Hill’s shoulder, knocking out his teammates instantly.
Hill didn’t find that very funny, so he combined it with the fact that he lifted his foot first after the hit and only then fell down. Hill had previously witnessed pigeons being shot in the Piazza delle Muse, and according to him, they also fell this way as a result of being shot. Bud Spencer has used this popular and legendary punching technique in several other fighting movies.