The Man From Nowhere aka Arizona Colt is a spaghetti western with solid performances from a great cast. The main players are Giuliano Gemma and Fernando Sancho, both of whom are great in this film, as always. Sancho, always the villain, is even more ruthless than usual in this outing. The lovely Rosalba Neri, another familiar spaghetti western face, also makes an appearance in the movie.

Gemma, as Arizona Colt, can be likened to Bugs Bunny having some fun being the foil to Fernando Sancho and his gang of Elmer Fudds, but that doesn't make this a comedy western by any means. While there are many amusing parts, the body count is high, and there is a strong element of revenge.

The music score is very good, with lots of spaghetti style, and the movie is filmed and directed well. The story takes some time to pull you in, but it does, and it is a good one.

I am giving this one 7 stars mainly because I don't think it is as good as Gemma's Ringo movies, but that having been said, I still highly recommend this film. It has a lot going for it.

Gordon (Fernando Sancho) and his bandits attack a prison to free all the inmates, because they need more men to rob a bank. One of the ex-prisoners declines the job offer, though. Arizona Colt (Giuliano Gemma) chases a murderer (Nello Pazzafini) for a reward of 500 dollars - and a night with the daughter of the saloon keeper!

"Arizona Colt" proves once again that the spaghetti western heroes were not bound by morality. The protagonist is only into money and women, but somehow he remains sympathetic. Classic moment of cynicism: Gordon tells how his father many years ago said: "Son, when I'm dead, my golden watch will belong to you", and 5 seconds later, the watch did belong to Gordon! Fernando Sancho is perfect as always to play the leader of the bandits. Gemma is a different type of actor than the stone-faced Clint Eastwood imitators of the genre, thus his movies are usually more enjoyable and original. The music is quite close to the rather epic style of the Ringo films, but written by Francesco de Masi this time.

Five minutes into this film, the Man from Nowhere reveals himself to be from Arizona, rendering the title meaningless, and thus begins yet another Italian-style Western. It's a corker!

Our hero is Arizona Colt, and he's a smug as Johnny Yuma. He's also slightly sinister too, or at least I thought so. He cheats at cards with innocent folks, and will only find Rosalba Neri's killer if he can get to shag her sister! Did I say Rosalba Neri? I sure did! She's in this one too, but she gets murdered fairly early, because she's the attractive, sexually liberated one (plus she has dark hair, which makes her evil, or something).

I'm getting ahead of myself, however. This one involves Gordo, a bandit whose recruitment method involves massacring loads of prison guards, breaking out all the prisoners, and giving them the option of joining his gang or being shot! He's planning on robbing a town of all it's gold, but he didn't count on Arizona Colt not joining his gang and having no intention of getting shot. Indeed, Arizona proves to be a bit of pest as he's always where Gordo doesn't want him to be (although he doesn't stop either the town being robbed or Rosalba Neri being killed as he's in the saloon having a pint).

On the morally shaky promise of getting it on with Neri's blonde, and therefore virginal sister, Colt sets out to bring Gordo to justice, but instead ends up getting shot full of holes. This sets the film up for the big gunfight and a very cool head to head battle between Arizona and Gordo in an undertakers.

Although the film seems to follow the same plot as about 400 other Italian Westerns, this one's pretty fast paced and has a lot of shootouts (the town seems to have an endless supply of men to take on Gordo's gang). There's also plenty of that Italian quirkiness, when Colt spells out 'no' in dead bodies as a message to Gordo, and if you like Westerns where the bad guys laugh for minutes at a time for no reason whatsoever, then this is the film for you.