ROY COLT AND WINCHESTER (aka: Colt e Wincester Jack)

(director: Mario Bava; screenwriter: from the story by Mario di Nardo/Mario di Nardo; cinematographer: Antonio Rinaldi; editor: Olga Pedrini; music: Piero Umiliani; cast: Brett Halsey (Roy Colt), Charles Southwood (Jack Winchester Jack), Marilù Tolo (Manila), Teodoro Corrà (The Reverend), Lee Burton (Winchester’s lead henchman), Bruno Corazzari (Reverend’s lead henchman), Mauro Bosco (Berenstein), Giorgio Gargiullo (Banker, cripple), Isa Miranda (Mamma Lizzy); Runtime: 85; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Luigi Alessi; Image Entertainment; 1970-Italy-in Italian with English subtitles)

“Not only doesn’t work—it stinks.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Italian horror maestro Mario Bava (“Black Sabbath”/”Blood and Black Lace”/”Black Sunday”) strays from his usual genre fare to try his hand at a spaghetti Western/comedy and comes up with sauce all over his face. In plain Italian, this cartoonish try at emulating a buddy film like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid not only doesn’t work—it stinks. The acting by the stars is leaden, the script by Mario di Nardo is inane (in fact, it was so bad that Bava chucked the script and went for the ad-lib) and the crude humor never registers as funny.

The tale involves two gunslingers, Roy Colt (Brett Halsey) and Jack Winchester (Charles Southwood), who dissolve their partnership with a drag-out fistfight and as rivals are seeking a buried treasure and the favors of a fickle and materialistic Indian prostitute Manila (Marilu Tolo). Colt has been appointed sheriff of Carson City by crippled banker Sammy (Giorgio Gargiullo), mainly to protect his gold shipment. Teodoro Corrà plays the besotted reverend, who in actuality is a dynamite-tossing Russian outlaw in priestly garb and the one the banker fears will rob his gold. When a treasure map is uncovered and split among a number of parties, they realize it’s buried at the Indian burial ground and I guess we’re supposed to care which of these oddballs gets there first.

REVIEWED ON 6/25/2007 GRADE: D

Dennis Schwartz: “Ozus’ World Movie Reviews”

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