Dinamite Jim
Tags: violence

Plot synopsis:
Dynamite Jim starts off with a fun opening credits photo montage of characters from the film. It tends to center on the sexy female cast members of Rosalba Neri & Maria Pia Conte.The film starts with Civil War union soldiers purchasing a shipment of gold from a Mexican banker. This banker is, of course, unethical and hires outlaw Slate (Aldo Sambrell) to follow the shipment and steal it back. We are then introduced to our hero Jim (Luis Dávila) who is playing poker and entertaining married women in a saloon. To get away from the women's husbands, Jim escapes on the pinto pony that belongs to the man hired by the Union Army to get the gold shipment to its destination.As Jim arrives in another town, he is targeted by a second group of crooks headed by Pablo (Fernando Sancho) who mistakenly recognize him as the gold courier by the horse he is riding. After escaping an attempt on his life that results in Jim running around town in only his underwear, he meets up with the beautiful Union Army agent Margaret played by Rosalba Neri. She also believes him to be the official courier and shows him where the gold is hidden and what the plans are for its transportation.Pablo & his gang pose as circus performers and steal gold hidden under the stage in the saloon. Margaret accuses Jim of being in on plot to steal gold when the real courier shows up in town. Pablo & his gang find out that gold is fake so they capture Jim and are about to torture him with a sombrero filled with hornets when Slate & his gang of outlaws show up. Huge gunfight occurs and Jim is able to get away.Margaret tells her lover, a Confederate Captain, a story about her husband dying in the war. When an undertaker show up with a coffin, everyone quickly figures out it contains contains the missing gold. Slate's gang go the bathhouse to confront the undertaker & a fist fight starts with all the men wearing only towels.Pablo & his gang steal the coffin with gold from the church & replace it with a real coffin with the dead body of the undertaker. The banker & his hired gang headed by Slate ambush Margaret as she tries to leave with the casket. They open it to reveal the dead undertaker. Soldiers show up & come to her rescue & kill the gang.As Pablo rides out of town with coffin filled with gold, Jim hides under the wagon. Jim beats up Pablo who ends up crashing down hill and gets killed when the coffin falls on him. The casket is empty with no gold inside. Jim then realizes that the coffin itself is made of gold. Jim & the women end up in Paris rich & happy.

Review: Paella/Spaghetti/Butifarra Western co-produced by Spain/Italy , being professionally directed by Alfonso Balcazar. The film begins with Civil War union soldiers purchasing a shipment of gold from an astute Mexican banker in exchange of a lot of money . This crafty banker hires a bunch of bandits headed by Slate (Aldo Sambrell) to follow the shipment and rob it back . We are then introduced to our stalwart Dynamite Jim (Luis Dávila) from title role who is playing poker and entertaining married women in a saloon . To escape from the women's husbands, Jim flees on the horse that belongs to the courier contracted by the Union Army to get the gold shipment to its destination . As Jim arrives in another small town , he is targeted by a second outfit of robbers led by Pablo (Fernando Sancho) who mistakenly recognizes him as the gold courier by the horse he is riding . After getting away , there takes place an attempt on his life that results in Jim running around town in only his underwear , he then meets up at hotel with the beauty Margaret (Rosalba Neri) who has murdered to receptionist (Víctor Israel) . Along the way, he faces off new thieves , a rare grave-digger (Manuel Muñiz , Pajarito) , a Confederate traitor (Miguel De La Riva) , a cunning lover called Lupita (Maria Pia Conte) , double-crosses , tramplers and a lot of twists and turns . Acceptable though middling tortilla Western in which a drifter resolves a conflict among nasty robbers that want to take a gold shipment and the Union Army that attempts to transport it . All in all, this film is predominantly a Spanish film rather than an Italian one. It's a two country co-production but is clearly dominated by the Spanish contingent and the traditional leanings of the Spanish producers of the time have their stamp on the entire proceedings. The Spanish westerns of this era were far more likely to try and emulate their American source material than cultivate a distinctive style of their own the way the Italians were doing but their product, if you like traditional westerns remains watchable . Dynamite Jim starts off with a colorful opening credits photo edition of characters from the film , it tends to center on the protagonists , Luis Davila , nasty Aldo Sambrell , brawler Fernando Sancho and sexy female cast members of Rosalba Neri & Maria Pia Conte . Passable Butifarra Western realized in traditional style with a screenplay written by Jose Antonio De La Loma and the same filmmaker Alfonso Balcazar , including amusing dialogue , silly situations , plot twists and turns . Italian-Spanish co-production filmed in Cataluña , full of familiar faces , action , exaggerated characters , crossfire and lots of shots . The film packs comical elements , tongue-in-cheek , thrills , shootouts , high body-count and and results to be quite entertaining . It's a middle-budget film with ordinary actors , technicians , decent production values and average results . There is plenty of action in the movie , guaranteeing some shoot'em up or stunts every few minutes . It's an exciting western with breathtaking showdown between starring Luis Davila and his enemies Aldo Sambrell and Fernando Sancho , adding some thrilling scenes when they use a machine gun . Sympathetic acting by Luis Davila who takes on a band of crooks , unethical banker & his gang, and he then decides that he wants to get his hands on the gold also . Davila starred during the sixties and seventies several action films as well as Chorizo or Paella Western such as ¨Relevo para pistolero¨, "Doc, Hands of Steel" , ¨Viva Carrancho¨, ¨Tumba para Forajido¨ and "Pancho Villa" , some of them directed by Alfonso Balcazar . Furthermore , there appears ordinary secondary of Spaghetti/Paella Western as Spanish players : Miguel De La Riva , Gaspar 'Indio' González , Victor Israel , Jose Maria Caffarel , as well as Italian actors as Rosalba Neri , Osvaldo Gennazzani and Giovanni Scratuglia , among others . Special appearance by Spaghetti idol , Fernando Sancho as an outlaw , a customary Mexican bandit , he is terrific , he subsequently would play similar roles in other Spaghetti . The picture well photographed by Victor Monreal , though is necessary a fine remastering because the film-copy is washed-out . Mostly filmed in atmospheric scenarios on location in Fraga , (Huesca) , similar to Almeria , and a Western village located in ¨Spugles De Llobregat¨ , it resulted to be the location where were shot lots of Westerns produced and directed by Catalan people as Alfonso Balcazar , J.J. Balcazar , Jose Antonio De La Loma , Juan Bosch , Xavier Marchal , Manuel Esteba , Ignacio F. Iquino , and Julio Buchs , among others , because Almeria was too far and the Fraga landscapes bear remarkable resemblance . There are many fine technicians and nice assistant direction and adequate production design by the usual Juan Albert Soler , he creates a good scenario . Very enjoyable musical score by Nino Fidenco , including catching songs at the beginning and the end .This motion picture was professionally directed by Alfonso Balcazar , though with no originality ; he managed to make a fluid and agreeable SW , though mediocre . Alfonso alongside his brothers Juan Jose Balcazar and Francisco Balcázar produced and directed a lot of Chorizo or Butifarra Western , most of them starred by Jorge Martin or George Martin , Luis Davila , Daniel Martin or Robert Woods ; such as 1972 The return of Clint , 1972 Judas... ¡Toma Monedas! , 1968 Sartana no Perdone or Sonora , 1967 With Death on Your Back, 1966 Dinamita Jim , 1965 Doc , Manos De Plata , 1965 Viva Carrancho , 1965 Five Thousand Dollars on One Ace . Rating : 5 . Average .. Average western with above average Rosalba Neri. The plot about smuggling gold and double crossing thieves is old hat, and Dynamite Jim is one of those laid back, sarcastic quipsters. In the middle, playing off all sides, is Rosalba Neri's character Margaret. She gets to wear a couple of nice dresses and look pretty great, and while the role is hardly taxing, it's all good fun for Neri watchers. She's out for herself and wants the gold anyway she can get it. It's a decent role and she manages to stay alive past the 30 minutes mark. Fernando Sancho is second billed but has few scenes. Some of the fight scenes ( as well as Jim's one liners ) have comic sound effects added The is minimal violence and no blood during shootouts. The full screen video I saw looked like 16 mm and had muffled audio, and was brutally cropped and panned and scanned. Not ideal in the A/V dept.but could have been worse, and 2.35 widescreen remastered DVD would be a far nicer way to evaluate this one. Rosalba's star would far brighter the same year in JOHNNY YUMA, but this is also well worth a look for fans of the Euro goddess Neri. Below Average Spaghetti Western. Stolen bullion, machine guns, and shifting tactical alliances between the good, the bad, and the fat constitute some of the Spaghetti western tropes in Spanish writer & director Alfonso Balcázar's rapid-fire but incomprehensible western comedy "Dynamite Jim," with Luis Dávila, Fernando Sancho, Rosalba Neri, Maria Pia Conte, Fernando Sancho, and Aldo Sambrell. The prolific Balcázar and José Antonio de la Loma of "4 Dollars for Revenge" collaborated on the scatter-shot screenplay about Union gold being transported from Mexico through Confederate occupied territory. The action unfolds with a couple of Union cavalrymen and their colonel riding to a rendezvous with a treacherous Mexican banker who admires the signature of Abraham Lincoln as he hands over about a million dollars in gold ingots to the North. Meantime, the Colonel gives confidential information to a lone rider, Clint Sherwood (Marcello Selmi of "Invasion 1700"), about his contacts and his destination. Sherwood is understandably nervous because he must transport the gold through Confederate lines. No sooner has the Colonel and his men left the meeting than the banker tells a trigger-happy pistolero, Slade (Aldo Sambrell of "Navajo Joe"), that he wants him to steal the bullion back from the Union. Slade catches somebody eavesdropping on his conversation with the banker and shoots him without a second thought. The corpse smashes through an overhead window and plunges into the room. Slade and the banker are both concerned about their respective reputations. Throughout these scenes, we are shown another interloper, a sombrero wearing Hispanic, Pablo Reyes (Fernando Sancho of "A Pistol for Ringo"), playing a guitar and listening to anything of interest. This isn't the last time that we see the shifty Reyes. The narrative shifts to an American border town where an icy-cool gambler, Dynamite Jim (Luis Dávila), buys off an unhappy poker player and then has to shoot the gun out of his hand when the dastard tries to shoot him after he leaves the table and is walking away. Dynamite Jim is as handy with his revolver as he is with his women.Unfortunately, "Seven Guns for Timothy" lenser Víctor Monreal's colorful widescreen cinematography has been pared down to full-frame fiasco, so everything looks extremely cropped. Composer Nico Fidenco's zany orchestral soundtrack score isn't one of his more memorable efforts, but "Dynamite Jim" isn't one of the best examples of the Spaghetti westerns. Some of the actors don't know how to properly handle firearms, and the hardware isn't always technically accurate for the era. An ill-fated clerk ascends to our hero's hotel room with a late 19th century Colt's revolver. When it enters, he is clutching an 1873 single-action .45 Colt Peacemaker model with the barrel cut down. This unfortunate man is promptly murdered by the ubiquitous Reyes who leaves the dead man floating in the bath tub of Dynamite Jim's room. Reyes scrambles under Jim's bed to keep from being seen when Jim enters his room. Cavorting about in his underwear, Jim shoots at Reyes as the portly Mexican leaps out the window moments before an explosion tears apart the room. Like just about all Spaghetti's, "Dynamite Jim" contains a protracted scene where the villainous Sancho mows down the opposition with a machine gun that has a muzzle like a pepper shaker and an ammunition belt that never advances in the weapon. Indeed, it looks like Sancho is jiggling himself to make it appear like the machine gun is actually firing! Most of the acting and costumes are abysmal, and the dubbed dialogue is as corny as it gets. The opening credits sequence resembles something that would have been in the 1960s' spy farce, and a free-wheeling sense of light-hearted comedy dominates the plot. Luis Dávila conducts more like a well-barbered James Bond than an unshaven Man with No Name. Nothing about this oater is serious, despite the fact that it boasts a huge body count. "Dynamite Jim" amounts to a comedy of errors. Of course, Aldo Sambrell is ideally cast as a slimy villain.