Un Dollaro Bucato

One Silver Dollar
Le Dollar Troué / Ein Loch im Dollar / Blood for a Silver Dollar

Italy/France 1965
produced by
Adriatica Film, Corona Cinematografica, Dorica Film, Explorer Film '58, Fono Roma, Franco Roma
directed by Giorgio Ferroni (as Calvin Jackson Paget)
starring Giuliano Gemma (as Montgomery Wood), Pierre Cressoy (as Peter Cross), Franco Fantasia (as Frank Farrel), Massimo Righi (as Max Dean), Ida Galli (as Evelyn Stewart), Giuseppe Addobbati (as John Mac Douglas), Tullio Altamura (as Tor Altmayer), Andrea Scotti (as Andrew Scott), Nazzareno Zamperla (as Nick Anderson), Benito Stefanelli (as Benny Reeves), Franco Lantieri (as Frank Liston), Gino Marturano (as Jean Martin), Nello Pazzafini (as Peter Surtess), Bernard Faber
written by Giorgio Stegani (as George Finley), Giorgio Ferroni (as Calvin Jackson Paget), music by Gianni Ferrio

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Gary (Giuliano Gemma) and his brother Phil (Nazzareno Zemperla), former Confederate soldiers, return from a prisoner of war camp to find out that in their hometown, ex-Confederates are not too popular anymore. So Phil decides to head out West right away while Gary decides to stick around a bit, mainly to prepare his wife Judy (Ida Galli) for the move. Later he follows his brother to Yellowstone, leaving his wife behind to sell their house ... but in Yellowstone he realizes that Confederates are even less popular than back home - but eventually, rich banker McCoy (Pierre Cressoy) gives him a job to apprehend Blackeye, a local badman. However, the whole thing is just a set-up, McCoy actually wants Blackeye to shoot Gary, so he and his men can shoot him more or less legally in self defense - and so it happens, and what makes this event extra-tragic is that just before Blackeye shot him Gary had to realize Blackeye was acutally his brother Phil ...

Gary's and Phil's corpses are then left with some settlers from the South, who find out that Gary is not really dead - a silver Dollar has slowed down the bullet that hit him enough to fail to kill him - and nurse him back to health.

To not be recognized immediately, Gary shaves his beard and changes his appearance a bit and then starts to investigate against McCoy, the man who set him up. Soon enough, he finds out about McCoy's evil scheme - he first has Brad's (Massimo Righi) gang of outlaws destroy tghe local farmers crops and stables and then buys their land up for a fraction of their actual worth - and as a result hooks up with Brad's gang.

However, Gary is soon enough found out, tied up and tortured while McCoy and Brad are busy robbing the gold shipment for McCoy's rival bank and they even get hold of Gary's wife Judy and bring her to the outlaws hide-out - but Gary can free himself and retaliates, shooting all of the outlaws not presently busy holding up the gold shipment, then he sends Judy to fetch the Sheriff (Franco Fantasia) - big mistake as he soon has to find out since the Sheriff is actually in cahoots with McCoy. So Gary cooks up a nice scheme to play McCoy's men against the Sheriff's men, which actually works and soon enough all but McCoy have killed each other - thing is, McCoy now holds Judy as a hostage ... but for the big showdown, Gary has actually still one ace up his sleeve, his sawed off handgun with which it is impossible to aim and which the Union soldiers gave him back after his imprisonment was over in order to mock it. So all Gary does in the showdown is to make sure that McCoy gets hold of that gun ... and before oong, the tables are turned, and the good villagers of Yellowstone demand that Gary releases McCoy to them, so they can hunt him down and kill him like a wild beast ...

Ok Spaghetti Western, nothing great maybe, but very diligently directed (as opposed to later Spaghetti Westerns) and featuring an original and thought through script. What is missing here is a certain freshness that features prominently in many classics (and even not so classic films) of the (sub-)genre do feature, but that's not saying Un Dollaro Bucato is a bad film, especially if Westerns are your thing.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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