Seven Dollars on the Red (1966)

Until about the half way point I was aiming to write unmitigated critical things about this. The main issue being that it’s very sloppily produced with little regard for continuity. There are basic issues such as seemingly arbitrary transitions between grassy and desert landscapes (which many Spaghetti Westerns also suffer from) but also more general plotting issues. The story concerns Johnny Ashley (Anthony Steffen) who’s wife is murdered and son kidnapped by bandits (let by Fernando Sancho) in the opening scene. He resolves to try to track down his son, and at some point it is announced that many years have passed with basically no visual cue (i.e. seasonal landscapes or anything else of the sort). The observant viewer will later notice that a few characters have bits of grey hair added, but the differences are small. A young woman saloon owner (Loredana Nusciak) is introduced and implied to be an old friend of Steffan’s but is clearly far too young given the years that have passed. In general it’s a reasonably simple story made unnecessarily hard to follow due to the lack of thought that’s gone into it.

After the half-way point, however, it picks up a bit and we get to enjoy some of the family melodrama seen in Steffan and director Alberto Cardone’s other film together, $1000 on the black. Steffan’s son has by this time grown up (Spartaco Conversi, acting under the unconvincing “English” name Spean Convery) and is now following in his bandit adoptive father’s footsteps and planning to rob the local bank. Interestingly, only small elements of good are shown in the son – enough to keep the viewer hopeful but not enough to offer a real chance of him redeeming itself.

In many ways it’s a bit of a disappointment: there’s an interesting story there that could have been excellent but which is let down by sloppy film-making. I’m not sure I really recommend it, but the second half went some way to redeeming the film.

The English dub shown on Movies4men was fuzzy in places but the picture was pretty good. I imagine the Koch DVD is similar quality (but don’t know…)