7 Dollars on Red

The title of 7 Dollars on Red doesn't have much meaning, except the likelihood that it was trying to cash in on the popularity of Sergio Leone's "Dollar" pictures. This movie, from 1966 and directed by Alberto Cardone, is of far less quality.

The movie begins with Mexican bandits, led by a stereotypical Fernando Sancho, raiding a frontier house and killing its inhabitants, including a beautiful young woman. He spares the life of a baby boy, whom he takes and raises as his own son.

The boy's father, Anthony Steffen, returns home to find his wife dead and son missing. He spend the next twenty years looking for vengeance, killing bandits whereever he can find them.

In a nice twist, he and his son actually meet a few times, and save each other's life. But the son, Roberto Miali, is a hardened killer, and after Steffen kills Sancho, they face each other down in the street. Steffen realizes who the boy is, but Miali does not.

This film has only occasional spots of interest. There are a few very well done fistfights, but the gunplay is ridiculous. Many Spaghetti Westerns overdo blood, but there's hardly any in 7 Dollars on Red, as when someone is shot they clutch their chest and fall over, without a drop of the red stuff. I also found it amusing that the baby has grown up into a young man but no one else has seem to have aged.

Steffen made about 25 Spaghetti Westerns, and isn't a bad hero, even if he's no Clint Eastwood.