Roy Colt and Winchester Jack (1970)

Really Surprised!

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Don't listen to the negative reviews

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

The outlaws Roy Colt (Brett Halsey) and Winchester Jack (Charles Southwood) are frequently fist fighting, disputing who the boss of their gang is. Roy Colt decides to leave the gang and find a honest job; he saves the crippled banker Samuel (Giogio Gargiullo) from a hit man and the old man hires Roy to work with him. Meanwhile Winchester Jack rescues the Indian girl Manila (Marilú Tolo) that is arrested by two bounty hunters; she stays with him, charging to have sex with Winchester. When the bandit Reverend (Teodoro Corrà) finds that Samuel owns a treasure map, he teams up with Winchester Jack and they steal the map from Samuel. But Roy Colt is assigned sheriff by Samuel to chase Reverend and his henchmen and retrieve the treasure. Roy Colt betrays Reverend first and Winchester Jack later, while Manila leaves Winchester Jack to stay with Roy Colt, in a greedy mouse-and cat game of betrayals while hunting the hidden treasure. The comedy "Roy Colt & Winchester Jack" is a parody of the western movies that is silly most of the times but has at least three hilarious scenes: when Manila asks Winchester Jack to marry her or pay ten dollars to have sex; when the clients sees who is dancing in the cabaret; and when the cuckold Winchester Jack sees Manila with Roy Colt and the cactus forms a pair of horns ("cornuto") in his head. This movie entertains and maybe fans of western genre might like it more than I did. I prefer Mario Bava's works in the horror and thriller genres. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): Not Available

While this comic Spaghetti Western was nowhere near as bad as its low reputation amidst the director’s canon would seem to suggest, it can’t possibly hold a candle to Sergio Leone’s classic THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (1966) – and it would be puerile for anyone to attempt comparisons of this sort! It’s the last of Bava’s three such genre efforts but, actually, the first I’ve watched; I used to think that he was constrained within the number of relatively low-brow peplums he made, but even those showed greater commitment – and vigor during the action sequences. Here we get plenty of brawling and shooting, to be sure, but the handling throughout is decidedly sloppy…as if Bava, rather than be inspired by these traditionally ‘big’ moments, wanted to get such genre requirements out of the way! That said, despite utilizing a wide variety of locations in its plot about two rival outlaw gangs’ quest for gold, these don’t seem to have stimulated the director’s trademark compositional skills; even worse, the comedy element comes across as heavy-handed most of the time, resulting in a flat and drawn-out film (even if it runs for a mere 85 minutes)! Brett Halsey (from Bava’s FOUR TIMES THAT NIGHT [1969]) and Charles Southwood don’t exactly generate fireworks in the title roles and, in fact, the best in the cast are Marilu' Tolo as Winchester’s spirited (and shrewd) Indian girl and Teodoro Corra' as The Reverend, the atypically buffoonish baddie – a Russian émigré who still can’t get over the cold of his native land. Isa Miranda (who would work again with Bava when he treaded more familiar ground in BAY OF BLOOD [1971]) appears as the brothel Madame in what is perhaps the most slapsticky and forced set-piece in the entire film.Hardly memorable in itself, there are still a few mild highlights in this reasonably agreeable, innocuous yet patchy genre offering: the spastic gunman at the beginning, the obviously fake snake which menaces Winchester (reminiscent of the one in Fritz Lang’s THE Indian TOMB [1959]), the exploding villain, and the final shot with the heroes’ feet up in the air as they engage in yet another fisticuff. Piero Umiliani’s lively score certainly contributes to the film’s characteristically light touch.

Now that this is available in a beautiful letterboxed, subtitled DVD, ROY COLT AND WINCHESTER JACK can be enjoyed by anyone who wants to see it. Is it worth seeing? Well...what you have is basically a lowbrow Eurowestern comedy that belongs on the same shelf with STING OF THE WEST and IT CAN BE DONE AMIGO. The various supporting players are colorful, and there are two strong American leads in the charismatic Brett Halsey and the engaging Charles Southwood. Though hidden under a lot of makeup, Marilu Tolo is as sexy as ever. I've never found Italian western comedies to be that worthwhile (or western comedies in general, BLAZING SADDLES excepted)--for me, most of the best qualities of westerns are lost when they are played for laughs. There are a number of laughs in this film--Halsey and Southwood both play comedy well--but the viewer should be warned that the laughs are on a Bowery Boys/Police Academy-level. I like that kind of comedy, but you may not. The reason this film was reissued is that it was directed by Mario Bava; however, had I seen the film without knowing that, I would never have guessed. Bava scholars can no doubt find similarities, but I would not consider his direction a major element here (see my review of RINGO DEL NEBRASKA, one of Bava's two other westerns). Overall, this is an enjoyable Eurowestern comedy, with excellent and creative production design (now THERE is a Bava quality!) and good performances, but I don't really consider it essential, only for the serious Eurowestern fan or the Brett Halsey fan (of which I'm one).

(aka: ROY COLT AND WINCHESTER JACK)I'm amazed at the review written below.In fact, I'm not even gonna bother repeating the plot since this ranks about as bottom of the barrel as CAPTAIN APACHE. In fact, this is one of the worst spaghetti westerns that I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of 'em. AND this is also *the* worst Mario Bava movie I've seen yet. Bava should have stuck with horror films because if this is typical of the three westerns he directed, then I don't even wanna bother seeing the other two. The dialog is awful and the jokes are lame and flat. It looks like Bava shot this one in less than a week. I did like the Reverend (Teodoro Corra) blowing himself up with the stick of dynamite at the end since that was the only time I laughed.If you like to see comedy mixed with the spaghetti western genre, then go with Terence Hill and Bud Spencer in the TRINITY series they did. Or even Terence Hill in ACES HIGH (1969) or MY NAME IS NOBODY (1973). Now those are pretty funny spoofs.Bear in mind too that the anamorphic widescreen DVD by Image uses only an Italian language print, so there's no overdubbing. It's all subtitles with no extras beyond a short Bava bio. I'll bet the only reason they bothered to release it on DVD was because Mario Bava directed it. Otherwise it would have been condemned to spaghetti oblivion.3 out of 10-