The Cruel Ones: The madness of a lost cause RELEASED IN 1967 and directed by Sergio Corbucci, "Hellbenders" (Italian title: "The Cruel Ones") stars Joseph Cotton as Colonel Jonas, an unrepentant Confederate who led a regiment called The Hellbenders during the Civil War. Lee surrendered and the war's over, but not for Jonas and his three sons. They ruthlessly rob a Union convoy in the Southwest carrying $1 million. The money is placed in a coffin and disguised as the dead husband of Jonas' "daughter" (María Martín), really just a booze-guzzling saloon girl he hired to play a widow in case t...