This is an original Belgian-format release poster for Johnny Yuma, the 1966 Italian spaghetti western - printed horizontally on a 22 by 14 inch sheet, nothing like the tall American one-sheet for the same film. Across the top it reads COSMOPOLIS-FILMS, with "presente" in a little script underneath. The artwork is a lone gunfighter standing dead-centre on a desert road under a huge white sun, with the title JOHNNY YUMA built right into the design - a revolver worked into the J, a rifle worked into the Y. Along the bottom: Eastmancolor / Deltavision 70, "Regie: Romolo GUERRIERI" (French for "directed by"), and the cast in a row - MARK DAMON, LAWRENCE DOBKIN, ROSALBA NERI, LUIGI VANNUCCHI.

It is a nasty little revenge plot even by spaghetti western standards. Samantha Felton has her own husband murdered, only to find his nephew and heir, Johnny Yuma, riding in to claim what's his. She hires a gunslinger named Carradine to kill him off - and when she tries to double-cross Carradine too, he switches sides on her, sabotages her water out in the desert, and leaves her to die of thirst. Romolo Guerrieri directed - the working name of Romolo Girolami; Fernando Di Leo was among the writers alongside Sauro Scavolini and Giovanni Simonelli, and the director himself under his birth name. Italo Zingarelli produced; Nora Orlandi wrote the score.

Mark Damon, who plays Johnny, has a life story wilder than the film. Born Alan Harris in Chicago in 1933, he won a Golden Globe as New Star of the Year opposite Vincent Price in Roger Corman's House of Usher (1960), then headed to Italy at around 28 to star in westerns having never actually ridden a horse. This film and Ringo and His Golden Pistol, both 1966, came out of that run. He didn't stay in front of the camera - he left acting in 1975, joined an Italian distributor, and founded Producers Sales Organization in 1977, later running Vision International and MDP Worldwide. He's the man behind selling Das Boot, The NeverEnding Story, 9 1/2 Weeks, Monster, and Lone Survivor internationally - obituaries called him "the king of Cannes." He died in Los Angeles in May 2024, at 91.

Lawrence Dobkin (1919-2002), billed right under Damon, plays Linus Jerome Carradine - not a bounty hunter, but Samantha's former lover, a hired gunslinger with real history with the widow. Off screen he was an Emmy-nominated actor and a working TV director; he directed Star Trek's first-season episode "Charlie X," then came back decades later in front of the camera to play Kell on The Next Generation. Rosalba Neri, born 1939, plays Samantha; in 1971, credited as "Sara Bay," she played Tania in the cult favorite Lady Frankenstein. Luigi Vannucchi plays Pedro, sometimes credited as Louis Vanner.

One more thing worth knowing: "Johnny Yuma" wasn't a new name to American audiences in 1966. Nick Adams had already played a Civil War veteran by that name on ABC's The Rebel (1959-61), with Johnny Cash singing the theme song. Whether the Italians had it in mind or not, the same name landed twice on two very different continents. And the sheet's own process line, Deltavision 70, sits right next to the fact that the film's Italian distributor was a company called Delta - hard not to notice.

I'm holding a small stack of these, unused archive stock - bright color, cream paper margins, and the light handling normal for vintage stock.

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