Rider on a Dead Horse

According my records, I never saw any movie starred by John Vivyan, the story is simple, but striking at least, the cast are summarized in few characters only, however all them colorful, here including a beauty Chinese girl Ming Kwai (Lisa Lu), three gold prospectors after found a substantial portion of gold on a Indian reserve at desert, they share the gold, suddenly the greed leader Barney Senn (Bruce Gordon) kills his black partner Taylor (Charles Lampkin) to great astonishment of the other partner Hayden (John Vivyan) as they had enough gold for themselves, henceforth Hayden tries figure out when and where he'll be the next to die, meanwhile the Apaches realize their presence and start pursuing them, Hayden plans misleading the Indians and run away thru the rock ground without horses, due the heavy gold bags he also decides buries the gold to return later, when they foil the Apaches once more Barney shot in Hayden that even wounded dragged nearest at railroad on construction, Ming Kwai finds him fell in the ground, she helps Hayden taking him to a little tent, they make a deal, if Ming Kwai takes care him and recovers his gold he'll pay a travel to her to San Francisco, get ready to a lot of upcoming surprise to next, unusual B-Western notwithstanding the low budge, really enjoyable!!!

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First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD-R / Rating: 6

i saw this baby first run and liked it so well that i told my old high school buddy about it and we went to see it and he loved it too! it kind of set the stage for the later spaghetti westerns i think. it was in an abstract form that sort of reminded me of the Day of the Painter which won the Cannes Film Festival in the late 50's. i always enjoyed John Vivyian in his TV series Mr.Lucky as the offshore gambling boat owner. It was similar to Peter Gunn in its "coolness". i always enjoyed The Untouchables where i think the co-star of R.O.A.D.H. played the role of Frank Nitti. oh well, either you will like this movie or you wont.

To be candid, I did not find RIDER ON A DEAD HORSE a bad oater at all, even if I saw no significant dead quadruped.

With a beggining vaguely reminiscent of TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, it opens with a gold greed-prompted murder by evil man Senn (Bruce Gordon) who thinks nothing of shooting poor Sam Taylor so he gets to ride lifeless the horse called Whitey that carries some meaning for lovely feisty Chinese import Ming Kwai, at least in Oriental dreams.

Sounds confusing, right? Yes, and yet there is some logic to the mad action: under pressure from Apaches, Senn and apparently the better man on sight Hayden (Vivyan) - the ultimate ineffective - bury the gold they mined under a rock and, predictably Senn shoots Hayden, who somehow reaches a Chinese railroad male workers' unit where he is saved by Kwai, a female prostitute.

Still confusing? Join the club.

Kwai proves quite capable of survival, even after Senn has hired Fry (Kevin Hagen, who looks and acts a little bit like Dan Duryea, but comes nowhere near in thespian quality) to capture and hang Hayden, who Senn diabolically blames for Taylor's murder.

Fry likes operating with dynamite which he uses in a variety of ways and places, much to the Apaches' chagrin. Consistently ammoral, nonsensical at times, RIDER rides off into the sunset with a happy interracial ending.

Better than expected cinematography by Frank Phillips helps a lot, though the landscapes do not exactly rate breath-taking. The dialogue by Longstreet occasionally beeps above the flatline, but somehow I remained interested to the end. 7/10.

I saw this movie when it came out. It was a black and white western.

Can't remember the plot, except that Bruce Gordon (who had acted as a mafia guy in the Untouchables) was the villain, and John Vivyan (with a marvelous chin, similar to that of Kirk Douglas) was the hero. And they were fighting about gold or something, and Lisa Lu, (a Chinese girl who had been imported to build the railroads[!]) kept getting between them, and at various times in the movie had pulled a knife on both of them more than twice. I laughed every time she pulled her knife... I don't remember if she had a speaking part or if she just had a knife pulling part.

This film was unintentionally one of the funniest I have seen.

Rider on a Dead Horse is directed by Herbert Strock and adapted to screenplay by Stephen Longstreet from a story by James Edmiston. It stars John Vivyan, Bruce Gordon, Kevin Hagen and Lisa Lu. Music is by Fairlane - with title song by Millard Woods - and cinematography by Frank Philips.

It's a great title, the sort of title that would be more suited to a Spaghetti Western, sadly the film is very poor. Plot revolves around two gold prospectors on a collision course after the one kills another member of the original gold digging trio, and promptly puts the word out that the other man did the dirty deed. Into the mix comes a Chinese girl and a bounty hunter. Et voila!

In among the "greed is bad" fable, there's some interesting attempts at racist observations here, where the colour of a persons skin - and the attitudes to such - is desperately trying to make a point. Unfortunately the whole is badly performed and is quite frankly dull as dishwater. Some of the goofs are laughably bad, the musical score is atrocious, like it was composed by some rinky-dink pot head, and there's one of the best fake dives in a fight ever. What action there is is just about passable as entertainment, with a dynamite offensive against the pesky Apaches briefly raising the pulse. But by the time that arrives, and the twist that comes with it, you would be forgiven for having fallen asleep by then.

This would have just about passed muster as a half hour TV episode, maybe a Rod Serling throw away for contract obligation. Poor on almost all levels. Nice black and white print mind... 2/10