Handsome, charming former stuntman Giuliano Gemma is once again in good form as he plays Gary O'Hara, a former Confederate soldier in the post-Civil War era. Looking for employment, he comes to the isolated town of Yellowstone, and gets hired for a job by local fat cat McCoy (Pierre Cressoy). He survives the ensuing ordeal to learn that McCoy lied to him, and that the supposed bad man he was hired to roust was in fact his brother Phil (Nazzareno Zamperla). Saved from certain death by a strategically placed silver dollar, he goes about seeking justice.

"Blood for a Silver Dollar" is just good, straightforward entertainment, complete with gunfights, stunts, twists and turns, a lovely leading lady (Ida Galli as Garry's wife Judy),and appealing widescreen photography. It doesn't reinvent the genre, but it tells a diverting story in capable fashion for a fairly well paced 91 minutes. Certainly a lot of the pleasure derives from Gemmas' casting, and he's an engaging hero as always. Cressoy is one of those classic characters who you can just sense is going to be sneaky and corrupt, and other supporting actors like Franco Fantasia (as the sheriff) also do fine work.

Gary takes plenty of lumps before the tale is done. While we're not in much doubt that he'll rise up righteous and kick some ass, it's good that he doesn't always necessarily have the upper hand, keeping things at least fairly interesting.

Seven out of 10.

A solid spaghetti western outing, with James Woods look alike Giuliano Gemma in one of his many leading roles for the genre. ONE SILVER DOLLAR shows influences from Sergio Leone's A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, not least in the title, but also in the opening animated drawings accompanied by a tuneful whistling on the soundtrack. However, the plot is different enough and complex enough to be totally interesting. There are good production values and well-staged scenes of action, with never a dull moment. Plenty of fist-fights, beatings, shoot-outs, and show-downs highlight the movie and its near classic stuff here.

Gemma - not one of my favourite actors, I have to admit - is solid enough to be a hero, and charismatic with it. He's well supported by the ever-lovely Ida Galli as his loving wife Judy, and French actor Pierre Cressoy as the slimy villain McCory. The film even manages a couple of moving scenes along with all of the excitement, including the moment when innocent farmer Donaldson is shot dead by the traitorous sheriff, or the bar room scene where the two brothers unknowingly kill each other (or so it seems),a set-up by McCory. The ending has a huge body count as O'Hara just goes around wiping out every single villain in the town, and Giorgio Ferroni is careful to have lots of imaginative twists and minor turns in the plot, as well as plenty of surprises like guns turning out to be empty, coins saving people's lives, and friends suddenly becoming enemies and vice versa. Good genre material.

I had the "pleasure" of watching this at a local cinema 45 years after it got made/released. I have to add that it was the German dubbed version I watched. Which added to the "party"/fun factor, because of the ridiculous dialog (not that I actually imagine that the real dialog is any better mind you).

While there are clichés abound and quite a few things could be seen as sexual innuendo (between men mind you),this seems to have been the (german) lingo back then. But again this was all adding to the fun factor. But not to the factor that would make this a really good movie of course. If you have a boys night in (no pun intended) and just want to lay back and watch some crazy Western movie, you could do worse!