Scott LeBrun 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.

Leofwine_draca A solid spaghetti western outing, with James Woods look alike Giuliano Gemma in one of his many leading roles for the genre. ONE SILVER DOLLAR shows influences from Sergio Leone's A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, not least in the title, but also in the opening animated drawings accompanied by a tuneful whistling on the soundtrack. However, the plot is different enough and complex enough to be totally interesting. There are good production values and well-staged scenes of action, with never a dull moment. Plenty of fist-fights, beatings, shoot-outs, and show-downs highlight the movie and its near classic stuff here.Gemma - not one of my favourite actors, I have to admit - is solid enough to be a hero, and charismatic with it. He's well supported by the ever-lovely Ida Galli as his loving wife Judy, and French actor Pierre Cressoy as the slimy villain McCory. The film even manages a couple of moving scenes along with all of the excitement, including the moment when innocent farmer Donaldson is shot dead by the traitorous sheriff, or the bar room scene where the two brothers unknowingly kill each other (or so it seems), a set-up by McCory. The ending has a huge body count as O'Hara just goes around wiping out every single villain in the town, and Giorgio Ferroni is careful to have lots of imaginative twists and minor turns in the plot, as well as plenty of surprises like guns turning out to be empty, coins saving people's lives, and friends suddenly becoming enemies and vice versa. Good genre material.

FilmFlaneur Although not as good as Gemma's best Italian Western Day of Anger (Giorni dell'ira, I (1967)), One Silver Dollar is still enjoyable. It's a relatively early euro oater, mimicing more closely than do later productions the conventions of the American originals, and displaying few or none of the gothic cynicism and elements of parody which invaded the genre as it became more established. Gemma plays O'Hara, a ex-confederate soldier whose return to peace time life is marred when he encounters a band of crooks intending to take over a town and buy up homesteaders. After accidentally shooting his own brother, O'Hara struggles to put an end to the criminal's schemes, as well as extracting his wife who has now fallen into clutches of the ruthless gang. Directed as ‘Calvin Jackson Padget', Ferroni's film is very effective, even if the plot is hardly original. Now and again the film suggests things to come, especially in the second half when the put upon O'Hara is by turn fooled, left for dead, beaten up, and even has his mouth filled with salt in order to make him talk – all casual cruelties startling in the context of an otherwise fairly genial ‘bad-guys-stealing-homesteaders-land' plot. Gemma is a lithe, physical hero, but a scene or two opening out his character, especially in the light of his brother's murder, would have been welcome. Hidden underneath the narrative is some discreet play with masculinity and honour: O'Hara has to make do with an emasculated six shooter, whose barrel has been sawn off by his yankee captors while the bonding between old Confederate comrades, and their ongoing humiliation, is another recurring theme. The main titles theme is one of those instantly memorable whistle mottos which are a hallmark of the genre, although on disc the sound is a bit thin and appears to be sourced from a mono master. The Australian produced DVD features the American dub in a slightly faded widescreen print. Its only through the trailer, also included, that one gets a sense of how effective the original language version would have been. Many recent Spaghetti releases include a subtitled version and this is certainly the most desirable package.

unbrokenmetal The revenge story of this movie has got an unusual twist, because the hero (Giuliano Gemma) shot his brother himself! However, that was an accident as he was hired to shoot a gunman named "Blackeye" (in the German dubbed version, good for some laughs elsewhere) and little did he know... He was supposed to die in that shootout himself as well, but a dollar coin in his pocket stopped the bullet. Later he becomes a member of the gang that now rules the town, trying to find out who is the boss responsible for all this. Shot in 1965 when spaghetti western was still fresh, this is a simple yet very entertaining movie although not a typical example for the genre, as it lacks the cynicism and ritualism of the later Django movies. But I hope no-one considers these to be necessary ingredients for a good western? Voted 7/10.