Giuliano Gemma was par excellence the action film Italian actor.He had plenty of go and French users do remember his part of Nicolas Calembredaine in the "Angélique" saga;but he was also featured in peplums ("I Titani"), exotic adventures ("Sheherazade") and mainly spaghetti westerns,often credited as Montgomery Wood;he became more ambitious in the seventies with such works as Comencini's "Delitto D'Amore" and Zurlini 's "Il Deserto Dei Tartari" .But a character actor he is not;he is better at other things and he is pretty good (and credible) as a sheriff;the villain is successfully portrayed by French Serge Marquand.The subject is borrowed from too many American westerns of the two precedent decades ,but it's made with care,with a good cinematography using the wide screen tastefully .The screenwriters display a good sense of humor: the priest,scaring the dumb Mexicans (it may pass for racism ) with Jehovah's wrath which will strike them if they don't repent.The blacksmith's trick is really a good idea the cattle thieves could take up.And the "wanted" word ,sung every ten minutes when the hero becomes the wrong man ,is typically European.This is an action-packed movie,with never a dull moment;it does not mark a milestone in western history,but it's good Entertainment.

Although "Wanted" is not a classic of its genre - the spaghetti western - it does provide enough good stuff to be a perfectly good example. For starters, there is a good gritty feeling here. There is some good background scenery, for starters. A lot of the movie was obviously filmed during the winter, and the cold, mud, and visible breath of the actors gets to your bones. Actor Giuliano Gemma makes for a good hero, one that you'll hope gets to clear his name by the end. In fact, there are some tense moments that will make you wonder if indeed he'll be able to. And if you are looking for action, this spaghetti western delivers it in spades - lots of gun battles and fist fights are on display.This is not a perfect spaghetti western. For starters, it's oddly paced. It takes over a half an hour for the protagonist to find himself in his dangerous predicament. And at one hundred minutes in length, the movie is overlong; it could have been cut by ten to fifteen minutes. But if you are a spaghetti western fan like myself, the positive attributes of the movie more than make up for its shortcomings.

"For A Few Extra Dollars" director Giorgio Ferroni's Spaghetti western "Wanted" qualifies as a lively little shoot'em up about a lawman struggling to exonerate himself. "Grand Canyon Massacre" composer Gianni Ferrio furnishes Ferroni with a memorable orchestral western theme, and "A Bullet for the General" lenser Antonio Secchi makes everything appear larger-than-life. The austere Spanish mountains substitute splendidly for their far western counterparts. The artistic widescreen compositions look picture postcard beautiful, and the lighting has a soft-brown leathery look. The producers have made sure that all the sets look authentic. Although this may be a low-budget horse opera, the producers haven't scrimped on set design and production. Basically, this oater looks like a traditional American western about a lawman pitted against an elaborate gang of cattle rustlers. Nobody sports a poncho and collects bounty on men. This was Ferroni's third western, and he doesn't let the action bog down into vast stretches of dialogue. Scenes of hand-to-hand combat are adequately staged and there is a good shoot-out on the trail between an army of Mexican bandits and our heroes in a fleeing wagon. Our hero is a crack shot with a six-shooter, and "Wanted" generates a double-digit body count before its 107 minutes concludes. For the record, Ferroni even shows our hero reloading his revolver on two occasions. The look, the outfits, and the sets mimic American westerns. "Wanted" departs in one crucial respect from American westerns because it contains a surfeit of violence with its high body count. The bullet-riddled victims in gunfights pirouette and fall down with flourish when the lead hits them in the tradition of the Spaghetti western.Roman actor Giuliano Gemma, who rose to fame on the "Ringo" westerns, does a good job as an innocent but wrongly accused sheriff framed for a murder he didn't commit. No sooner have the opening credits run than a mysterious assassin tries to bushwhack the heroic sheriff. The lawman plays possum until he sees his assassin leave. Sheriff Gary Ryan (Giuliano Gemma of "Day of Anger') interrupts an election controversy in Greenfield when he reports to Mayor Gold (Daniele Vargas), with his credentials as town sheriff. Ryan's appearance thwarts the mayor's plan to make Lloyd the sheriff. Ryan manages to escort a fortune in gold from one town to another. Suddenly, he falls out of favor with the mayor and his cronies. Ryan is accused of gunning down an unarmed man who started an argument with him. An unidentified hombre outside the room shoots the man down. After the authorities take Ryan into custody, Billy Baker (Benito Stefanelli of "Blood for a Silver Dollar") helps Ryan escape by smuggling a revolver into the jail cell. Serge Marquand makes an effective villain out to kill Gemma. Conspiring with him is Mayor Gold (Daniele Vargas of "The Stranger Returns") of Greenfield, Gold and he is thoroughly evil. In one scene, Gold batters a semi-conscious man on his death bed to death. Ryan rides to Mexico to find Jeremiah Prescott. Prescott shows Ryan how the rustling is done. Earlier, Gold has paid Jeremiah to create a brand that would not stand out after the skin was removed. Jeremiah forged modifications to all the neighboring brands so anybody's brand can be compromised. Not long afterward, Lloyd's men kill Jeremiah while his daughter watches in horror. Later, Ryan is captured on the trail by Lloyd and his gunmen. Happily, our hero is cleared when an eyewitness changes her testimony. Lloyd hightails it after this revelation and roughs up Mayor Gold. The villainous Lloyd takes a woman hostage and uses her to escape from Ryan, but she thwarts his plans. At fadeout, the hero and heroine are in each other's arms, and the villain is groveling in a pig pen."Wanted" ranks as an above-average Spaghetti western.

As a teenager growing up in Somalia, my father brought me to see this movie (Wanted) for a treat. It was an open-air cinema, the Southern Cross was above us and as Padre Carmello gave refuge to Gary Ryan, the moon eclipsed. I was torn between looking at the screen and looking at the sky for I didn't want to miss the actions in the movie and the spectacular phenomenon of the eclipse.I am now in my late forties and my wife purchased the video from Cinecity in Netherlands on the Internet for my birthday. I couldn't believe my luck at being able to see this great movie again.The only difference is that this time is in English with Greek subtitles when before I watched it in Italian.In short, Gary Ryan, the new Sheriff of Greenfield falls for a trap and finds himself locked up under false testimony by Cheryl, the woman who owns the biggest hotel in Greenfield. Eventually he finds a way out to struggle against all odds for justice The other fascinating things about the movie are the names of the locations such as New Face Rock, Devils Cliff etc, inspired by nature.Here are some impressive lines: "What I think doesn't mean much unfortunately, proof and testimony are the only languages that the law recognizes" by Judge Anderson of Greenfield "Unreasonably risking your neck is against Gods law" by Padre Carmello. "He could be almost anywhere looking for some place to hide, alone hunted by the law and society-Wanted" by Martin Heywood (the Professional Gambler. "Pray your last, coward" by Fred Lloyd.Exciting story line, beautiful scenery, good camera works, especially the angles and moreover, the score is not short of Ennio Morricone. I would recommend to any Spaghetti fan.