PLOT
A black soldier who fought in the Civil War returns home only to find out that his mother was murdered hours ago by a gang of bandits who also kidnapped a white man’s wife.
COMMENTS
I’d just like to start by saying that this ain’t no John Ford film.
Now that that’s out of the way, the real question is: how bad is it?
Before I answer that, I should give some context—because I have history with this movie.
I first watched “Joshua” when I was a kid. At the time, I was sufficiently impressed that it left a mark. Though as an adult, all I remembered about it was that it was super violent.
For years, I tried to find this movie, but I couldn’t remember its title (only that it was the main character’s first name), let alone the actors who played in it. Then one day I saw “Joshua” listed somewhere... likely on YouTube. Western with a black lead, bam! That was it. It all came back to me.
I watched it a second time in 2016... And you know what? I’d totally forgotten about that. Tells you something right there, doesn’t it?
Of course, I only realized this after I watched it a third time. Whoops.
There won’t be a fourth.
Does that tell you how bad it is?
Maybe not.
It is kind of relative, honestly.
Well, okay, maybe not.
It’s complicated.
I think part of it is nostalgia, hanging on to a cherished memory—or wanting to, rather than seeing it crushed into oblivion. That happened once already (with the atrocious Indiana Jones clone “Hunters of the Golden Cobra”).
But it’s not just that. Because... Well, there’s absolutely no redeeming factor where “Golden Cobra” is concerned. But here?
Maybe I should start at the beginning.
And I should warn that there will be spoilers. I usually prefer to avoid them, but this movie... I mean, I honestly can’t recommend it to anyone, so I’m not going to bend over backwards, especially when I have things to say about the ending itself.
So consider yourself warned.
Still here?
Good. Let’s move on, then.
The first thing that needs to be said about this movie is that it has no plot. I mean, sure, the guy’s mom was murdered and now Josh wants revenge. But that’s pretty much it. That sums it ALL up. This could have easily been a 15 minute film. They just drag it out. In fact, Joshua keeps meeting characters that bring exactly nothing to the plot (what plot again?) and are obviously there just to add some length to the script.
The second thing that needs to be said is that the dialogues are... how can I put this... lacking. Especially in scenes focused on the bandits.
Before I get into that, I should explain about the woman. She doesn’t have a name, by the way. At least, if she does, it’s never mentioned once. But let’s call her Sally, it’ll make my life easier.
So Sally (played by Brenda Venus) is Sam’s wife. Who’s Sam, you ask? Good question. We don’t really know. Oh, yeah, he’s Sally’s husband. That’s it.
Okay, that’s mean. We know a little bit more. He lives in the same house with Martha—that’s Joshua’s mother (and yes, she has a name, go figure). The most likely explanation is that Martha works as a maid for Sam and his wife, but it’s never clarified. Not that we’re given any time to get to know them better anyway. Within 8 minutes, Martha is killed, Sally is, well, you can guess, and Sam is left for dead. Boom.
All this because of Sally, by the way. She’s kind of cute and makes all five bandits drool—yes, there are five of them, forgot to mention that, didn’t I? So they want a piece of her, and the hell if they have to kill to get some tail. They don’t seem to care much whether she consents or not either.
Hey, this is the wild west. A totally different world, you know?
So, the bandits take the woman with them so they can have more fun with her, whenever they want.
Which brings us back to the dialogues.
Here’s a snippet:
Guy #1: “They’ve been back there a long time. She sure must be something.”
Guy #2: “Yeah, she sure must be something.”
Repeat ad nauseam (with slight variations).
It’s important to note that Sally is always screaming and struggling and trying to push them off her. Why is it important? You’ll get it in a moment, trust me.
So Joshua sets off after the killers, with vengeance on his mind. Eventually, the bandits notice they are being trailed.
Pete: “Jed, there’s somebody tracking us.”
Rex: “Maybe it’s a lawman.”
Jed: “It’s a black man. There ain’t no black lawmen.”
Here’s the problem. Joshua is so far from them that you can barely see his horse... and Jed can tell he’s black?
Whaaaaat?
Those are some damn good eyes.
Also—though this is a minor point—the bandits start off with 5 horses, one each. That’s what they have when they arrive at Sam’s house. The next time we see them (when Josh is tracking them) the woman is riding with Jed (the band leader)... and they have two extra horses behind them—or donkeys? Honestly, it’s hard to tell. Sometimes they look like horses, sometimes they look like donkeys! Go figure. Either way, this could possibly be explained: they could have simply stolen the donkey-horses from their victims, though this is never shown let alone said.
I should mention the music. My first reaction was: hey, this is a pretty cool soundtrack. Except... There are basically two themes running throughout the film, with only a few (small) variations here and there. It gets old fast.
And now we get to the bar scene. There are two parts to this. First when the bandits get there. It’s in a town and they for some reason figure the black man won’t follow them there (he already killed two of them by this point, so they’re starting to freak out).
So they’re sitting at the bar and Sally is smiling and laughing and fawning over Jed and... Wait, what?
I think we have ourselves a serious case of Stockholm Syndrome, folks. I mean, yeesh. And from this point on, there’s no turning back. Without any explanation, Sally becomes a willing accomplice rather than a victim. Not that she really does anything aside from smiling and being friendly with her abductors, but you get the idea.
Meanwhile, Joshua meets Maria while heading toward the town. A sexy Mexican woman who dares to point a gun at him. Don’t worry, it doesn’t last long. She gets distracted pretty quickly by three guys who come riding in and nicely ask Josh to get the hell out of Dodge. They’re keeping the girl, though. Uhm, okay.
And you know what? Joshua is fine with that. Sure, why not. So he goes back to his horse, but freezes when the men tell him he needs to go back in the direction he came from. Now that isn’t going to cut it for him, because he needs to go forward, not backward. And forward is the town, where his prey have holed up.
So, of course, it ends up with everyone shooting. Oh, and Maria sides with him. Of course she does. She’s nobody’s property, after all!
The fun part here is that they’re out in the open and there are like a dozen guys shooting at them (yeah, the three who rode in initially had friends hiding in the bushes... who would have guessed?). And you know what? Not a single bullet touches them. Not a one. How freaking cool is that?
Uh huh.
Oh, but wait, it’s not over!
Our good friend Josh finally makes his way (in one piece) to the bar. This is the second part. And THIS is THE scene that I most remembered from my childhood.
And you know what? It wasn’t anywhere near as good as I remembered it.
Shocking, I know.
Still, it is the best scene in the movie. I suppose that says something... I just don’t know what, ha!
Not anywhere near as violent as I remembered either, by the way. In fact, the whole film is kind of tame in retrospect. I guess, as a child, you perceive violence differently.
So there’s another shooting, though none of the bandits are there at the time. It’s just some of the locals who take a disliking to him. Problem is, Josh gets wounded.
Oh, now you get hurt.
Sheesh.
I have to mention the weather. Really. I promise, this is going to be good.
So they’re in the desert, right? It’s dry. Hot. All the usual stuff you’d expect in a western.
When the bandits arrive near the town and decide to go there, we start seeing snow all around them—even in some of Josh’s scenes.
Well, okay. That’s fine. I can deal with that. You can have snow in the desert, it’s not unheard of. It must be winter, right? Right?
Nope.
A few scenes later (when Joshua meets Maria and gets shot on by those men) we’re back in a snowless plain. And yet, this is also near the town.
Wait! Better yet. When he walks into town, there’s... wait for it... NO SNOW!
Huh.
Alright, alright. So the snow scenes were a goof. We can pretend it never happened. No problem. Everyone makes mistakes.
Buuuuuut...
Remember how Joshua got hurt in the bar?
So he rides out on his horse and a little bit later falls off into the snow and...
WAIT!
What?
Snow again?
What the...
Alright. Keeping my calm here.
So he falls in the snow, trembling. By the looks of it, the guy is going to freeze to death. At least that’s what it feels like. He’s in really bad shape.
Two seconds later, a posse of townfolks sent by the bandits to kill our hero arrive at the spot. We know it’s the spot because Joshua’s horse is right there. But Joshua himself? No sign of him.
The guys are startled, look all around, and...
Wait, what is that? The snow is moving and the muzzle of a gun pops out. Noooo... it can’t be. The filmmakers can’t be that crazy, can they? I mean...
Sure enough, Joshua jumps out of the snow and shoots all of the men dead. And hey, he looks mighty fine now, too.
So wait. Let me see if I got this straight. He was about to freeze to death, yet found the strength to dig a hole, hide inside, heal from his wounds, then kill all those guys? All this in the matter of seconds? Let’s be generous and say minutes?
Well, okay then.
But I’m being mean again. He is limping. So he’s still wounded after all. Just nowhere near about to die.
At least, you wouldn’t think so until a few minutes later, when he falls off his horse again. And in case you’re wondering, the snow has disappeared once more—ain’t that something?
Shortly after comes Maria with two of her Mexican friends. The two men look at the black man and shake their heads. They’re pretty sure he’s dead and won’t be getting up again.
Still, out of the kindness of their hearts, they take him to the woman’s place. She takes care of his wounds and, look! He wakes up. He’s still weak, though. In fact, when he tries to get out of bed, she holds him down and warns: “You’re gonna need more time than that.”
Okay. That makes sense. He was hurt pretty bad, after all...
Next thing she says: “Maybe after a good meal you’ll be stronger.”
And look at that, she was right!
He eats and, sure enough, bam! He’s back on his feet as if he’d never been hurt at all. Who would have thought food could heal you so fast? Just beans, too. I want me some of those, please!
I really need to say something about Maria. While Josh was feverish and delirious, she stripped out of her clothes and lay in bed with him. How creepy is that? It’s not like there had been anything between them before that could explain this. It feels more like a totally random thing. She’s fully clothed when he wakes up, too. But then, after he eats, we see her naked again, and in bed. This time she talks to Josh, asking him if he’ll come back to her when he’s done. He just leaves, without saying a thing.
Not much of a talker, that guy, by the way.
And now we get to the grand finale...
Oh boy, do I have things to say about that mess.
After killing two more of the bandits, he follows Jed and Sally to a cave. The two shelter inside and Joshua gets a super genius idea. No, really.
He climbs on the roof of the cave, ties some dynamite to a rope, then slides it through a hole into the cave... but just high enough that Jed can’t reach it.
Told you it was genius.
Except...
Man, there are so many things wrong with this plan.
First off, Joshua seems to have forgotten one important detail: the woman is a victim. Sure, she’s been cavorting with the enemy, but our hero is not supposed to know this. All he was told was that it was Sam’s wife and that she was taken against her will. But that’s okay. He’ll just blow her up, who cares?
The second problem is that while the dynamite is too high for Jed to catch it, he could easily have shot the rope to make the dynamite drop to the floor, and then throw it out the cave.
Luckily for Joshua, though, Jed is not very bright. In fact, so much so, that he starts shooting toward the entrance of the cave, even though Josh is still ABOVE his head.
But... but... Josh ducks the bullets?
What?
It’s obvious he’s still on the roof of the cave, but through some twisted voodoo trick, the bullets go through the entrance, fly up, make a U-turn, and miss Joshua while he dances around.
Whatever.
And, finally, what you’d expect to happen happens.
Joshua gets down, aims, shoots the dynamite, and BOOM!
No more Jed.
And no more Sally.
Sad, that.
Oh well.
So now that the torture is over, you might be wondering why I hesitated to call this movie bad? Heck, you might be wondering how much worse than this “Hunters of the Golden Cobra” could possibly be? (I’ll say this: it’s epically bad. Maybe someday I’ll tell you more about it).
Well, the answer can be summed up in two words.
Fred Williamson.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, he’s not the best actor in the world. Not by a long shot. But... he’s good. Heck, he shines compared to the rest of the cast. He has presence. He’s poised, resolved, obsessed. He doesn’t talk much, as I’ve mentioned before, and it works well for the character.
Even that couldn’t save this nonsensical mess of a film, but it holds together because of him.
So there’s that.
And, of course, nostalgia.
On a side note, Williamson also wrote the screenplay, and I wish he hadn’t.
It is what it is.
So have you ever watched this movie? What did you think of it?
What is your favorite western?
Share your thoughts in the comments! I would love to hear them.
CREDITS
Directed by Larry Spangler
Written by Fred Williamson
Produced by Larry Spangler
Music by Mike Irwin
Edited by James E. Nownes
Starring Fred Williamson as Joshua, Calvin Bartlett as Jed, Brenda Venus as Sam’s wife, Isela Vega as Mexican woman, Stonewall Jackson as Pete, Neil Summers as sheriff, Stacey Newton as 5th bandit, Bud Stout as Rex, Henry Hendrick as Sam, Ralph Willingham as Weasle, Kathryn Jackson as Joshua’s mother.
Produced by Larry Spangler Productions / Po’ Boy Productions
Distributed by Lone Star Pictures
Released in December 1976
Running time: 83 minutes.
Genre: Western / Blaxploitation
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Text (c) 2023 by Alex S. Garcia.
Header: screenshot of the film’s title card.