With a title like Yellow Hair and the Fortress of Gold, you would be forgiven for thinking you were in for a sword-and-sandal actions flick, especially given the popularity of that revived sub-genre in the mid 80's. But surprisingly this one turns out to be a hybrid of the western and adventure genres, so you have to at least acknowledge that it is at the very least coming from a slightly different direction to most. Its director Matt Cimber had made a film the previous year for Crown International Pictures called Hundra, which was a feminist fantasy adventure of sorts. The star of that one, Laurene Landon, returns here in the role of the title character Yellow Hair. She and her brother, the Pecos Kid, are whites who were raised by Apaches. They take on a tribe of mysterious Mayans and an army of Mexicans in their quest for gold.
I thought it was really interesting that this one opens in a theatre with the audience anticipating the feature we are about to watch. All the main characters are introduced with their names on screen, after that we crack on into the action, with the film-within-a-film thing returning at the end with a cliff hanger which shows scenes from next week's instalment (scenes that obviously were never returned to). I guess this could be considered under the bracket of the Paella western given its Spanish origins and filming location. It also stars a few familiar faces from Italian/Spanish westerns, including Aldo Sambrell who appeared in every instalment of Sergio Leone's 'Dollars Trilogy', needless to say in this one like those he plays another bad tattie, in this case a mute henchman. But I think what stood out most to me about this one was the whole story thread about the lost civilisation, who lived underground and carried out weird and sinister rituals – this stuff I guess must have been inspired by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, although both movies were admittedly released the same year so it may just be a coincidence. Whatever the case, I thought this one had enough oddness about it to give it pass marks. Don't expect anything great but you will at least get something slightly different.
