During the American Civil War, a trio of criminals are given a reprieve from execution and instead are given a dangerous mission to find a corrupt army general and retrieve the gold he has stolen. A gang of Mexican bandits enter the scene and complicate matters further.I would have to consider this one as a better than average spaghetti western. There's nothing precisely very original about it or anything but it manages to do a thing which is quite rare in these kinds of movies in that is successfully integrates a comic tone into its narrative without being annoying in doing so. Most westerns that attempt to use comedy aren't very successful at it and the spaghetti ones in particular are usually pretty dire, so it was a pleasant surprise to see a movie pull it off well. It's not all japery here though as the story includes a healthy amount of action and even a massacre, so it never forgets to cover its bread and butter elements too. Its well-paced as well with some decent performances, especially from Italian genre film regular George Hilton who appears as an ex-priest who has turned to crime. Nobody would claim that this flick breaks the mould as such but it does what it does with energy and some fun.

Probably the one factor that may attract western fans to "Red Blood, Yellow Gold" is the fact that one of the stars is Edd "Kookie" Byrnes from the television show "77 Sunset Strip". Whether you think that Byrnes will bring some campiness or not, most likely you'll be disappointed in the way the movie uses him. Nothing in the movie makes him stand out from the three other characters he's paired up with in this done-to-death plot (a search for gold). Even if you happen to be a spaghetti western fanatic, chances are you'll still be let down by this movie. It's slow-moving, with scenes that have little to no consequence, showing how padded this old plot is. Also, the last third of the movie is somewhat confusing, with various adversaries getting all mixed up in a way that makes you wonder who is who and what each person wants. Not the worst western made, but nothing about it makes it worth seeing.

Dynamite-loving ex-priest George Hilton, Edd "Kookie" Byrnes, and Mexican horse thief/whisperer George Martin both fight for and steal from the Confederacy. About to be executed for their thieving ways, they're given a reprieve in order to track down a renegade officer who killed some of his fellow soldiers and made off with a wagon full of gold and a Gattling gun.A fast-paced, rowdy adventure, this above average Italian western is a load of fun, especially George Hilton's character, who gleefully mixes piousness with his passion for blowing things (and people!) up. Hilton is truly a spaghetti western treasure!Things stay pretty light-hearted throughout, with a good mixture of tongue-in-cheek comedy, plot-twists, and great action sequences. I don't know about everyone else, but I thought it was pretty cool!It is claimed that one of the producers on this was a young Sylvester Stallone, a claim that seems a bit fishy. You never can tell though. If he did, he should have acted in it too. It sure would have been neat to see him before he was a star, shooting a six-gun in the Spanish desert!

George Hilton, Edd Byrnes and George Martin play 3 thieves who chase a much more successful thief: Major Lloyd (Gerard Herter) who stole a wagon-load of gold from the confederate army. As soon as he moves into the borderland, Mexican bandits are also attracted by the yellow metal. So much black powder was spent during the making of this movie, apparently, that you could make three westerns with it, but in between all the shooting and countless explosions, "Professionisti per un massacro" displays a certain sense of humor. It is a spaghetti western of the kind that likes to play with the rituals typical for the genre, using coffins and machine guns, and if you like this sort of thing, you'll find the movie easy to sit through... even if it is nothing surprisingly new.