Silver Saddle

Along with Gemma, the film also starred Sven Valsecchi, Ettore Manni, Gianni De Luigi, Cinzia Monreale, Licinia Lentini, Donald O'Brien, Aldo Sambrell, Philippe Hersent and Geoffrey Lewis.

Snake is a colorful character who claims that the story of the "silver saddle" and the boy who avenged his father's death is well known and that he wishes to join Blood in his travels.

She tells Blood that she is being extorted by a man called Shep, who collects the money on behalf of a Mexican bandit named Garrincha (Aldo Sambrell).

Blood is hesitant to take the murder contract, but accepts the offer upon recognizing the name of the land baron who had swindled his father years before.

Thomas, Sr. discusses the search with Turner, who is revealed to be the ranch foreman, and is decided by the land baron that Roy Blood is the kidnapper and posts a $5,000 bounty.

Thomas, Jr. is eventually spotted by Turner while visiting the whorehouse and Blood takes him to the San Jacinto monastery located several miles away.

Thomas, Sr., against the advice of the sheriff, agrees to pay the ransom and sends out a messenger named Fletcher (Donald O'Brien) to deliver the money to Garrincha's camp.

Garrincha was also part of the plan, Thomas, Sr. staging a false kidnapping and ransom payment to avert suspicion from himself, and had intended to kill Turner as well as Margaret once he married her.

With an original story written by screenwriter Adriano Bolzoni and financed by the Italian studio Rizzoli Film Productions, Fulci went to work on what would be his final spaghetti western.

The film's screenwriter Adriano Bolzoni was also a top Italian writer, best known for his collaboration with Ernesto Gastaldi in Sergio Martino’s Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972).

This was his final role in a feature film and, after a guest appearance in the 1979 television miniseries Orient Express, retired from acting altogether.

Cinzia Monreale had been in a few romantic comedies before her appearance in Silver Saddles although the director of her first film, Franco Rossetti, had written the screenplays for Johnny Oro (1965), Texas, Adios (1965) and Django (1966).

This was the first major film role for Licinia Lentini, appearing alongside fellow Italian sex symbol Agnes Kalpagos, and was cast in the female lead despite being relatively inexperienced.

Philippe Hersent was a veteran actor with a career spanning forty years and had supporting roles in such films as La Garçonne (1936), The Giant of Marathon (1954), Scipio the African (1971) and Conversation Piece (1974).

Principal filming took place in Almería, Spain under the direction of longtime Fulci collaborator cinematographer Sergio Salvati throughout 1977 and into early 1978.

Silver Saddle was shown throughout Europe during the next two years, and was especially popular in West Germany, Austria and Hungary with a recorded attendance of 887,413 for the latter country.

The film's soundtrack, composed by Franco Bixio, Vince Tempera and Fabio Frizzi, came out that same year and featured "Two Hearts" by Ken Tobias which later became a popular tune.

It has generally had mixed reviews by both fans and critics, being praised in Thomas Weisser’s Spaghetti Westerns: The Good, The Bad, and The Violent (1992) and panned in Stephen Thrower’s Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci (2002).