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Truly Dreadful Film

Let's be realistic.

A Major Disappointment

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The great Mario Bava will always be best known for his Gothic horror and Giallo films, but he was a very versatile director (like most Italian directors around the time) that made many films in genres outside of horror, and Roy Colt and Winchester Jack is his attempt at making a film within Italy's popular Spaghetti Western genre. This film is not widely liked amongst Mario Bava's fans and it's not hard to see why - the film really doesn't feel like a Bava film at all as it features none of his trademarks and the plot also has a lot of problems and elements that don't work. The film takes obvious influence from the greatest of all the Spaghetti Westerns; The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and focuses on the race to claim some buried gold. The main characters are a pair of outlaws named Roy Colt and Winchester Jack. They were once in a gang together, but Roy left to find honest work and ends up becoming sheriff of a small town. A bank owner there has some gold buried and after Jack and his gang steal the map, Roy heads out on their tail. A corrupt reverend and a devious Indian girl also join the party...The film is obviously not meant to be taken seriously and Bava packs it with comedy. It has to be said that a lot of it completely misses the mark and isn't funny - but there are some laughs, and scenes such as the one that takes place inside a Brothel in "Wimpy City" work simply because it's so surreal. As the title suggests, this is a character driven western and the leads are both well designed and well acted by American actors Brett Halsey and Charles Southwood. Their relationship is one of the key elements of the film and the way they interact with each other is generally entertaining. The biggest highlight of the film for me was undoubtedly the beautiful and seductive Marilù Tolo who plays the Indian girl and steals every scene she's in - I would even go as far as to say that this film would not have worked without her in it. The only character that doesn't work too well is The Reverend, who is more irritating than amusing. There's some good fighting in the film - plenty of gunfights and fistfights and at eighty five minutes, there isn't really time for the plot to get boring. Overall, on the grand scheme of things; this is not a particularly good western or a particularly good Bava film - but it's entertaining enough and I did enjoy it.

Roy Colt and Winchester Jack (1970) * 1/2 (out of 4) Spaghetti western directed by Mario Bava about two outlaws (Brett Halsey, Charles Southwood) trying to find a treasure. Outside some nice cinematography this film is pretty much a wasted effort for everyone involved, especially the director. I'm a fairly big fan of Bava but this here certainly ranks down at the bottom of his filmography. The film goes for way too many laughs, which is okay if any of them were actually funny. In the end the film is basically a rip of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly as well as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. There are a few good moments but not enough to make it worth watching.

Now that this is available in a beautiful letterboxed, subtitled DVD, ROY COLT AND WINCHESTER JACK can be enjoyed by anyone who wants to see it. Is it worth seeing? Well...what you have is basically a lowbrow Eurowestern comedy that belongs on the same shelf with STING OF THE WEST and IT CAN BE DONE AMIGO. The various supporting players are colorful, and there are two strong American leads in the charismatic Brett Halsey and the engaging Charles Southwood. Though hidden under a lot of makeup, Marilu Tolo is as sexy as ever. I've never found Italian western comedies to be that worthwhile (or western comedies in general, BLAZING SADDLES excepted)--for me, most of the best qualities of westerns are lost when they are played for laughs. There are a number of laughs in this film--Halsey and Southwood both play comedy well--but the viewer should be warned that the laughs are on a Bowery Boys/Police Academy-level. I like that kind of comedy, but you may not. The reason this film was reissued is that it was directed by Mario Bava; however, had I seen the film without knowing that, I would never have guessed. Bava scholars can no doubt find similarities, but I would not consider his direction a major element here (see my review of RINGO DEL NEBRASKA, one of Bava's two other westerns). Overall, this is an enjoyable Eurowestern comedy, with excellent and creative production design (now THERE is a Bava quality!) and good performances, but I don't really consider it essential, only for the serious Eurowestern fan or the Brett Halsey fan (of which I'm one).

Typical Italian western, made at the time when producers wanted to cash in on the success of Sergio Leone's IL BUONO, IL BRUTTO, IL CATTIVO. Plot about three gunslingers (Halsey, Southwood and Corrà) is clearly a rip-off and nowhere as funny or clever as the Eastwood western; too often it resorts to low-brow comedy. Some typical directorial touches, nice photo-graphy (by Antonio Rinaldi) makes film worth watching for Bava completists. Nice score by Piero Umiliani.