One of a few westerns that Bava would be involved with throughout his career, the film follows the titular Roy Colt (Brett Halsey) and his outlaw partner, Winchester Jack (Charles Southwood). After an argument, Roy decides to leave his life behind and start over, this time going legit. He winds up taking a job as the sheriff of Carson City and ultimately winds up in possession of a map revealing the location of some Native American treasure. Of course, everyone wants a shot at this map and Colt has to uphold the law and protect the peace, all the while dealing with a prostitute (Marilu Tolo) accused of murder and a gang of murderous bandits lead by a man known only as 'The Reverend' (Teodoro Corra).

On the surface, Roy Colt And Winchester Jack is little more than a simple Italian spoof of Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid with a few nods towards Leone's films thrown in for good measure. Bava does show a knack for comedy here, however, and a few inspired shots (cactus forming horns behind a certain character or the sun coming through the eye of a bleached skull) remind us who is behind the camera. Some fun slapstick comedy and oddly placed poop jokes makes the picture enjoyable enough in a goofy sort of way but the script doesn't exactly set the world on fire.

Brett Halsey, returning after his stint in Bava's earlier Four Times That Night, is charming enough as Roy Colt but Charles Southwood is too hammy to help things much. Marilu Tolo is easy on the eyes and plenty fun to look at. She's quite decent in her supporting role, and Teodoro Corra is actually quite good as the malicious bandit leader stealing a couple of scenes throughout the movie.

Unfortunately the film looks pretty drab when contrasted against many of Bava's other films. While much of this obviously has to do with the fact that the film looks like it was shot outdoors on location, it's likely that given the fact that Bava wasn't really all that into making westerns that the director just wasn't as inspired as he had been and would be again on other films. It's a film that is certainly worth a look for western fans or established Mario Bava fans but not particularly the best place to start for those new to the director or the genre.

Video:

Kino offers up Roy Colt And Winchester Jack on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer framed at 1.85.1 on a 25GB Blu-ray disc. Taken from a new 2k scan of the original 35mm negative and it looks good, if not perfect. While this is perfectly film-like in its presentation, there's some minor damage evident throughout and in some scenes the colors do look a little flat. Still, this is a noticeable improvement over the previous DVD releases from Image and then later Anchor Bay Entertainment. Detail is solid, texture is good and the image is free of noise reduction or edge enhancement. Skin tones look accurate and black levels are okay.