Le dollar troué

Definitely not a full fledged "Spaghetti Western". "Blood for a Silver Dollar" does have some anti hero elements, but not enough to distance itself from a more "Americanized oater." When Giuliano Gemma sneaks up behind a bad guy, and before shooting lights his cigar for him, I was suddenly take back to "For a Few dollars More." The dubbing is especially terrible in this film, the action is mostly concentrated towards the finish, and character development sorely lacking. Another weak point would be the main villain being not menacing enough. There are moments of enjoyment dealing with Confederate weapons, and a couple weak attempts at humor. "Blood for a Silver Dollar" will never be confused with a Leone Western, but is totally watchable, mostly because Gemma is so easy to like and root for. MERK.

Confederate soldier Gary O'Hara (Guiliano Gemma) and his brother Phil are released from a prisoner of war camp following the end of the civil war, the barrels of their guns removed by their captors. Gary returns home to his wife Judy (Evelyn Stewart) whilst Phil is not ready to live such a quiet life and heads off west.

Gary soon decides to follow his brother to the town of Yellowstone, and to find work to support his family. On arrival, his combat prowess is soon put to practice, which brings him to the attention of local banker McCory (Pierre Cressoy). McCory offers him a ranch and money if he can kill local outlaw Blacky, which he agrees to do. Gary is taken to the local saloon and advised that Blacky is the man at the bar with his back to him. On confrontation, Blacky turns around, firing his gun - and revealing himself to be Phil O'Hara. McCory and his men open fire, leaving both brothers dead.

By a stroke of good fortune, Gary survives the ambush, his life saved by the single silver dollar in his pocket. He sets out to discover why McCory wanted Blacky dead, and to aid the local villagers that are suffering at the hands of a group of marauding bandits. Meanwhile, Judy O'Hara travels to Yellowstone in search of her husband, and soon finds herself in the unwelcome company of McCory.

As with Gemma's role in his two Ringo films, the character of Gary O'Hara would sit quite comfortably in an American made western. This is no bad thing, and he does always make for a likable hero. The same point could be levelled at the film in general - it is a likable flick, with a true old American western feel. That said, Ferrio's enjoyable whistled score clearly sits within the euro-western genre, and it does share a level of violence with its fellow Italian movies.

The story itself has a few clichés (for one thing, a fair few screen characters have been saved over the years by an inanimate object conveniently placed on their person) but does that really matter? Clearly not. And there are some great scenes, particularly both the opening (great gun-play as the brothers are released) and final sequence. From a personal perspective, I was also intrigued to note a great visual likeness between Evelyn Stewart and my own girlfriend!!! Not that that should be of any real relevance to this write up.

In summary, this is one of those nice easy to watch movies (legs up on the sofa, with a wine or beer for company), and certainly worth a few silver dollars of anyones money.

Quite a good spaghetti western. Interesting performances by all concerned together with some fine photography and direction. The theme song is worth a mention as well - very haunting. Fans of the genre should try to catch up with this one.

Handsome, charming former stuntman Giuliano Gemma is once again in good form as he plays Gary O'Hara, a former Confederate soldier in the post-Civil War era. Looking for employment, he comes to the isolated town of Yellowstone, and gets hired for a job by local fat cat McCoy (Pierre Cressoy). He survives the ensuing ordeal to learn that McCoy lied to him, and that the supposed bad man he was hired to roust was in fact his brother Phil (Nazzareno Zamperla). Saved from certain death by a strategically placed silver dollar, he goes about seeking justice.

"Blood for a Silver Dollar" is just good, straightforward entertainment, complete with gunfights, stunts, twists and turns, a lovely leading lady (Ida Galli as Garry's wife Judy), and appealing widescreen photography. It doesn't reinvent the genre, but it tells a diverting story in capable fashion for a fairly well paced 91 minutes. Certainly a lot of the pleasure derives from Gemmas' casting, and he's an engaging hero as always. Cressoy is one of those classic characters who you can just sense is going to be sneaky and corrupt, and other supporting actors like Franco Fantasia (as the sheriff) also do fine work.

Gary takes plenty of lumps before the tale is done. While we're not in much doubt that he'll rise up righteous and kick some ass, it's good that he doesn't always necessarily have the upper hand, keeping things at least fairly interesting.

Seven out of 10.

While "Blood For A Silver Dollar" is far from the worst spaghetti western made, I have to admit that all the same it failed to rouse me - and I usually LOVE spaghetti westerns! It felt interchangeable from the countless spaghetti westerns I had seen before watching it. I think the main reason for that is the script. The story doesn't contain any surprises - you'll always be one step ahead of the hero and the other characters from seeing the same situations in other spaghetti westerns before. Apparently because of this, Giuliano Gemma and the rest of the cast don't seem able to bring any life to their clichéd characters. Behind the camera, director Giorgio Ferroni does manage to give the enterprise an acceptable look, but can't generate that much excitement, in part due to the fact there's little action. Recommended only for those who have never seen a spaghetti western before in their life.