Chris Haskell I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. From the title song on I felt like it was trying hard to find it's place within this competitive genre, but was misguided. All the ingredients are here for this to be a fantastic Spaghetti Western, but I think it took itself too seriously. There is some basic comic relief with his best friend and the score is OK, but makes the movie feel more like an American Western than it's Italian compadres. The lead female villain is pretty fantastic, but overall I think there are better movies within the genre. If you are into watching gun fights there is a pretty solid one that lasts quite awhile near the end of the movie.

MARIO GAUCI This is one of several of American actor Mark Damon's European ventures; he worked in various genres (such as historical epics and horror films) but also did a number of Spaghetti Westerns – including Sergio Corbucci's light-hearted RINGO AND HIS GOLDEN PISTOL(1966; originally bearing the similar title JOHNNY ORO) and the politicized KILL AND PRAY (1967), where he actually played the villain; even so, I don't feel he exudes the ruggedness which is part and parcel of this stylized subgenre! Despite interesting credentials (incidentally, the widescreen German print on the budget DVD I rented omits the opening titles completely…so that the sequence where they ought to be merely shows Johnny Yuma wandering aimlessly on his horse!) – director Guerrieri, co-scriptwriter Fernando Di Leo – this is a minor genre effort, hindered more than anything else by a not very compelling plot line (drifter Damon battles sultry aunt Rosalba Neri and her gunman lover Lawrence Dobkin for an inheritance); unsurprisingly, the latter ends up befriending the hero and is ultimately himself deceived by the femme fatale.The film is undecided whether it wants to be serious or approach the genre with tongue-in-cheek (hinted at by the presence of a greedy Mexican bum who aids Damon throughout) – though sentimentality over the murder of a child who has harbored the wounded hero (as often happens in this type of film, the latter receives a thorough beating only to re-emerge a stronger person for the finale) suggests something deeper may have been intended. The Mexican pueblo in which the tale unfolds supplies the requisite Western atmosphere, but also proves the ideal setting for the climactic gunfight. The score by Nora Orlando isn't bad and, yet, the lyrics to the title song seem to have been hastily scribbled down – having little to do with the action proper of the film!

lazarillo This is a very decent, if somewhat obscure, spaghetti Western. It lacks a famous-name director like Sergio Leone or American male stars like Clint Eastwood or Henry Fonda, or even Cameron Mitchell (the lead is the journeyman European actor Mark Damon), but it has one principal strength--Rosalba Neri as the sexually voracious villainess. Neri today tends to be labeled as a "scream queen", casting her into category with a lot of more modern-day American bimbos with little talent beyond taking off their clothes. Neri, however, was a very good actress, even if she was usually dubbed into English. She had a ten or fifteen year career under her belt before she started regularly stripping off in the last few years before she retired in the early 70's (and even though she was in thirties by then and didn't have the benefit of modern-day plastic surgery, she managed to outshine the present-day "scream queens" even in that department).More importantly though, she was actually in good movies now and then--and this is one of them. Neri plays the young widow of a wealthy man (whose murder she herself no doubt arranged). She finds out that her late husband left his fortune to his gunfighter nephew, Johnny Yuma (Mark Damon), so she beguiles her various lovers and her sleazy brother into trying to murder him. The plot gets a little confusing at times, but you never lose interest when Neri is on the screen. She is deliciously evil and quite sexy, even though she only strips for her parrot(!) and not the viewer in this early role. Check it out if you like spaghetti and saucy Italian actresses.

Chris_Casey This wonderful little film has all of the elements that made the Spaghetti Western so exciting and fun: GREAT music (by one of the few..if not the only..female composer to work in the genre, Nora Orlandi), EXCITING action sequences (and very vicious ones for the day!), and BEAUTIFUL scenery and sets (all in Almeria, Spain, of course). It also has a very good story with a nice tragic romance edge to it. The actors do marvelous jobs--with truly standout performances from Lawrence Dobkin and Rosalba Neri (in the most vital role for a female in a Spaghetti Western..outside of Cardinale in Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West"). Without posting any spoilers, let me just say that this movie contains one of the best endings of any film I have EVER seen!