The previous poster commented that this movie was not available in Widescreen.There's at least 2 ways to get this in Widescreen. I've got one on the 'Quality' label - it's a 2 movie set on one disc. The other movie is some William Shatner film. I was pretty shocked to see it in widescreen considering the package was only $5.00.The 2nd way is on the 'Legends of the West' 8 Movie Collection. I'm pretty sure that's widescreen as well.Slow movie that drags on. The theme song repeats all the way throughout the movie. Don't remember if there was more than one actual song played throughout it's entirety.This movie is really only for Blaxploitation/Fred Williamson completests.

I remember seeing this movie years ago, and my memories of it were that it was a pretty decent western. So when I got the chance to see it again I took the opportunity. Sadly, time had faded the negative things about this movie.To be sure, there are a few positive things I can say. Williamson is an imposing figure, dressed in black. The scenery, often covered in packs of snow, is impressive. Combining the scenery with the musical score makes for some haunting sequences.But most of the movie doesn't work. To begin with, the characters. Williamson's character isn't well developed; he doesn't have that many chances to speak, or have an opportunity to make a character. The bad guys are even thinner characters, all of them seemingly alike.There is also a lot of poor direction. Take the scene with the rattlesnake, for instance. There should be some tension and suspense with such a deadly animal, but there is NO feeling at all! It's presented in the dullest way possible, a feeling that keeps coming up in the rest of the movie.Although some of the music is haunting, the low budget of the movie means that the same bars of music are played over and over, which becomes annoying. But a bigger problem (and the main problem I had with the movie) is that this movie is VERY slow and padded. Although it runs only about 82 minutes, a good chunk of this could easily been taken out with a snappier pace and some wise editing. Though this would probably resulted in a running time not qualifying for a feature-length movie.One last thing I would like to bring up: The pan-and-scanning of this widescreen movie is TERRIBLE. You can't properly read the opening and closing credits, and when there is more than one character on screen, one of them is often cut off (sometimes ALL of the characters are chopped offscreen!) This movie needs to be seen in its full widescreen glory, but since the movie is now in the public domain, it seems very unlikely anyone would spend the expense to release this movie on DVD restored.

I agreed completely with Robiep's review. I too saw it/ own it on DVD. I got it in a 20-movie "Mean Guns" westerns 5-DVD set. It was a sight-unseen purchase which has turned out to be a VERY good purchase. A lot of rare "gems" were in this movie set. And Joshua I felt is Definitely a excellent Fred Williamson film & western! Fred Williamson is an amazing actor & writer. Many have said that "Joshua" is not an "original" plot or idea. While that may be true, (Some of the scenes we have seen in many a western) I felt they were handled from every original angles. ***SPOILER ALLERT***The "rattlesnake" scene is hilarious!!

********SPOILER************Fred Williamson's Joshua is your basic Vengeance themed Spaghetti Western. This one is about a black civil war veteran who returns home to find his mother has been murdered by a gang of white thugs. He sets out to track them and extract his vengeance. Although it is well-mounted and beautifully photographed, the film is lacking in about every other respect. It is basically without plot with no twists or turns other than the obligatory hero gets shot and recovers scene. There is little character developed, almost no dialog, a couple scenes that make absolutely no sense and that do not advance the story in any way. There is no intimacy in this film with any of the characters. Isela Vega plays a farmer's wife whom the gang kidnaps and repeatedly rapes. By the end of the movie she has developed an unexplained and unexamined relationship with the head of the Gang. The fetching beauty is totally wasted in this movie in a thankless role.This is a cynically scripted film that asks very little of the viewer other than to watch Mr. Williamson awkwardly ride a horse across the countryside. Ken Maynard, he is not.One feels that had Williamson developed his characters and plot more he might have had something here, although the vengeance themed Western has been done ad infinitum with two much better examples being Nevada Smith with Steve McQueen, and Last Train from Gun Hill with Kirk Douglas. By the end of this contemptuous movie, the viewer doesn't really care about any of it.