Navajo
Joe
Corbucci knows
the Western, and films it to advantage. Scalphunters take over the saloon (staffed
with Venetian showgirls), the banjo player crawls out in a fast one-second handheld
POV shot.
Navajo Joe leaps down
to unhorse a man, a camera on its side picks him up on the ground, both rise together
(another one-second handheld shot).
A long shot
represents him as a genius loci.
Gone too far, the
villains are dismissed. The man from Esperanza clues them in to a government
grant.
Joe steals the
train from them, commandeers a sheriff’s badge and defends the unarmed town.
The conclusion,
in which the scalphunters are done down every one, varmints all, presents a
source of wealth to the nation.