7 dollari sul rosso

At the very beginning of the film, there is a little prologue that is all written in Italian--and so I had no idea whether or not this was important. I saw the film on a disc that included: 7 Dollars on Red / Apocalypse Joe / Bounty Killer / Minnesota Clay. Perhaps if there are other versions out there that they will have captioning for the portion. As for the rest of the film, like most Italian westerns we get here in the States, it's dubbed.

"Seven Dollars on the Red" begins with a group of bandits slaughtering a household. A young boy is left unharmed and the bandit leader decides to adopt the kid. Little does the bandit know that the boy's father was not home and vows to do everything he can to find the boy. But, everything is not good enough and years pass--and the nice kid slowly evolves into a vicious jerk just like his foster dad.

If you are looking for an Italian film of the quality of a Sergio Leone or even a Sergio Carbucci film, then keep looking. This one is actually a bit funny, since the guns didn't even use blanks--and the actors had to pretend that the guns were firing something. However, the gun sounds were added later and it comes off as kind of funny seeing the men jerking the guns even though nothing is coming out (even a blank will appear out of the barrel the same as a normal bullet). Plus, they also seemed to have tried to save money by eliminating blood--making the bullet-riddled bodies oddly clean and without bullet holes. The film also has only fair music--nothing particularly haunting or memorable about the tunes. The bottom line is that the Italians made hundreds of westerns--some good, some bad and some ugly. I'd rank this among the ugly--kind of cheap but reasonably entertaining if you are looking for just a time-passer.