Lucio Fulci's "Sella D'Argento" aka "Silver Saddle" of 1978 is the last, and in my opinion the least interesting out of three Westerns directed by Fulci (not including his co-directing of Julio Buchs' "A Bullet For Sandoval" of 1969). "Silver Saddle" is definitely not a bad or boring Spaghetti Western, it is actually a fairly good movie, and Giuliano Gemma plays the lead very good, but I personally expected a little more from a Fulci Western, particularly after great "Tempo Di Massacro" aka "Massacre Time" of 1966 (with the great Franco Nero in the lead), and the moving though sadistic "Quatro Dell'Apocalisse" aka. "Four Of The Apocalypse", which was maybe no Spaghetti Western masterpiece, but which I personally liked a lot.
"Silver Saddle" starts out very good, when little Roy Blood witnesses the murder of his father by a henchman of the powerful Barrett Clan, and subsequently subsequently shoots the murderer and takes his saddle, which is adorned with silver. Grown up, Roy Blood (Giuliano Gemma) has become a deadly gunslinger, who still uses the silver saddle. After befriending a crook named Two Strike Snake (Geoffrey Lewis), Roy obtains an opportunity to kill the patriarch of the Barret Clan, and therefore ultimately avenge his father's death. When Roy hides where he suspects his arch enemy, however, a little boy shows up instead. Some thugs try to assassinate the kid and Roy keeps them from doing so by shooting them all...
...and at this point things started to bother me. Cute little kids in bigger roles may work fine in many movies, but they do certainly not belong into a Spaghetti Western directed by Lucio Fulci. The little kid was probably intended to be 'cute' and/or 'funny', but, I'm sorry to say this, I just found the little brat annoying as hell, and although he even admittedly is funny in some points of the film, the whole movie could have been a lot better without him.
Nevertheless, "Silver Saddle" is entertaining in most of its parts. A Spaghetti Western enthusiast, I have utmost respect for Giuliano Gemma for his performances in such films as "Day Of Anger" or "The Price Of Power", but I have never numbered Gemma among my favorite Spaghetti Western actors, since he hardly ever embodied the typical antihero, but was more of a typical 'good guy' in most of his films. Nevertheless, Gemma fits perfectly in some roles, and one has to say that his performance in "Sella D'Argento" is very good, and I could hardly imagine anybody else playing the role of Roy Blood. Geoffrey Lewis also delivers a very good, funny performance as Gemma's buddy Snake. The supporting cast furthermore contains two truly great Spaghetti Western regulars, Donal O'Brien, who only has a small role, and Aldo Sambrell, who once again plays a thuggish Mexican bandit. The locations are good, the score is OK, I especially liked Snake's theme, the only parts I didn't like about the soundtrack were the parts with the singing.
All said, "Silver Saddle" has its flaws, they should especially have left the little kid out and there is a lot of other unnecessary and silly cheese throughout the film, but apart from that it is an enertaining if disappoining Spaghetti Western, with a fair amount of action and violence in it. As a Spaghetti Western enthusiast I found it to be an enjoyable time-waster, fans of Giuliano Gemma should give it a try. Don't expect too much though.
