Johnny Yuma

After some difficulty, Johnny Yuma arrives at his ailing uncle's ranch to take over day to day operations, only to find out that the old man has been murdered by his beautiful gold-digger wife and the woman's vicious brother.

Good production values, a likable performance by Mark Damon, and a breezy action packed script combine to make this an entertaining, if not exceptionally deep, above average addition to the spaghetti western genre.

Co-star Rosalba Neri is one of the hottest European babes ever to grace the screen. Here she's absolutely perfect as the cold-hearted user (and abuser) of weak men.

Damon and Neri appeared together in at least one other picture, The Devil's Wedding Night, a pretty good horror movie that's of particular interest for those of you that want to see what's underneath Rosalba's dresses.

A decent Spaghetti Western with a sympathetic starring, Mark Damon, versus an extremely villainess Femme Fatale, Rosalba Neri. It deals with a mean, greedy woman callled Samantha Felton : Rosalba Neri, who kills his wealthy hubby to take his inheritance. But the husband left his ownerships to a nephew, the resourceful Johnny Yuma : Mark Damon. Then the widow and her brother hire a hit man : Lawrence Dobkin, to kill him.

Above average Spaghetti Western with noisy action, thrills, fights , violence, crosses and double-crosses. It is an exciting Maccaroni Western with brawls at a saloon and breathtaking duels at a village, brief dosis of humor and surprising bursts of violence. Mark Damon performs a young gunslinger who unexpectedly inherites from his uncle and ultimately forms a steadily alliance with another gunfighter well interpreted by Lawrence Dobkin. At the beginning his long career Damon starred as an extra for US movies , and subsequently acting secondary characters and as main starring in Roger Corman films . Mark , then emigrated to Italy where played ordinary genres as Peplum and Westerns , as he interpreted : A train for Durango , Cry for revenge, Requiescant , Johnny Oro and this Johnny Yuma . Soon after , he moved into other film genres and playing good guys or bad guys in adventure movies as Lions of St Petesburg , Normand Sword , 100 knights , and Long Live Robin Hood , these parts often exploited his athletic physique and strong skills . Many years later , Mark Damon abandoned the interpretation and became a successful cinema producer by financing big hits . Here Rosalba Neri steals the show, she chews the scenary by playing a really baddie woman who will stop at nothing to get his purports. If the starring trío: Mark Damon, Rosalba Neri, Lawrence Dobkin are pretty good , the remaining support cast is acceptable , though unknown , I miss the agreable familiar secondary faces regular to Spaghetti Western sub-genre .

Special mention for the brilliant musical score, adding enjoyable leitmotif, in Ennio Morricone style by Nora Orlandi, including catching songs. As well as sunny and colorful cinematography by Mario Capriotti, shot in Elios Studios, Rome, Lacio and exteriors in similar lanscapes to Sergio Leone's Fistful of dollars, including Finca El Romeral, Cortijo El Sotillo, Almeria, Andalucia, Spain. The motion picture was well and originally directed by Romolo Guerrieri. This filmmaker was a good craftsman, directing various films about Italian sub-genres and exploitation films, such as : Post-nuke Sci-Fi : The Last Warrior, Poliziottesco or Italian Crime : Young, violent, dangerous, City under siege, Ring of death and Ravioli Western : 10000 Dollari per un massacre, Seven guns for Timothy, and Johnny Yuma. Rating 7/10, better than average. Well worth watching. The picture will appeal to Spaghetti Western fans.

This film essentially begins with a married woman by the name of "Samantha Felton" (Rosalba Neri) arraigning to have her wealthy husband killed in order to inherit his sizeable ranch and fortune. The problem, however, is that her husband had recently written to his nephew "Johnny Yuma" (Mark Damon) who has agreed to give up his life as a gunslinger in order to work on the ranch and eventually inherit a part of it on some future day. Not at all content with that idea, Samantha reaches out to another gunslinger by the name of "Linus Jerome Carradine" (Lawrence Dobkin) to help her out in that regard. But what she doesn't realize is that both Johnny and Linus have previously met under somewhat amicable circumstances, and both share a healthy respect for one another--and this complicates things to a certain degree. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was an interesting film due in large part to the involvement of several different characters with their own individual agendas. That being said, while it may not be the best Spaghetti Western ever produced, it's certainly worth a watch and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

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.

Johnny Yuma sure is smug. I think that's what might put people off this film a bit (cos it sure ain't Rosalba Neri). Johnny's just inherited a ranch from his uncle, who's just died from sudden bullet to the back of the head, courtesy of Neri and her brother. They know Yuma's on his way, so they arrange for an ageing gunslinger to come and do the business on Yuma too.

Yuma's lightning fast with a pistol, however, and blasts his way through enough bad guys to populate a small African country. His got a Mexican sidekick too, and I was fairly surprised at the sudden change in tone halfway through the film, as both Yuma and his sidekick play the film for laughs, so when the bad guys start doing stuff like executing Mexican folk for no reason and at one point beating a child to death (!), I was thinking that perhaps they were making up this film as they went along. They also give Yuma a good beating at one point too, but it only temporarily takes that stupid smug grin off his face.

Rosalba Neri, as usual, is lush and great. She manipulates every man in the film, including Yuma (who thinks he's got her sussed out, but he's wrong). She's the best thing about the film and greatly helps where actor Mark Damon (Yuma) just yucks it up at every given opportunity. This is an overly violent western that's well worth a watch, especially the epic gun fight at the end and the way over the top killing of one of the bad guys – a bit of a jaw dropper, that bit.