Review

  • This film essentially takes place somewhere in the American Southwest with a marauding gang of bandits, led by a man named "Lupe Rojo" (Armando Calvo), terrorizing the surrounding area. Eventually, his crimes become so frequent that a bounty is put on his head for $5000-dead or alive. The scene then shifts to the small town of Richmond with a mysterious man by the name of "Shenandoah" (Anthony Steffen) walking into the local saloon with a fistful of dollars and being invited to play poker with some of Lupe Rojo's thugs. Naturally, considering the caliber of men he is dealing with, a fight breaks out with Shenandoah managing to fend for himself quite nicely. Having now proven his mettle, Shenandoah further ingratiates himself with the outlaws by saving one of them during a bank holdup a little while later and is subsequently allowed to join them at their secret hideout. What these bandits don't realize, however, is that Shenandoah has his own reasons for joining this gang and money is of no real importance to him. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this movie was produced during a time when the Spaghetti Westerns were first coming into prominence and as a result it pretty much laid down a template which was followed by other films of this sort. As a result, the plot may seem a bit standardized for this movie through no fault of its own. Be that as it may, while I don't consider this film to be one of the best in this particular sub-genre, it passed the time fairly well and I have rated it accordingly. Average.