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    Ian Jane
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  • Man With No Name Trilogy, The

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ID:	384166
    Released by: MGM/Fox
    Released on: 6/1/2010
    Director: Sergio Leone
    Cast: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach, Klaus Kinski
    Year: 1964/1965/1966
    Purchase From Amazon

    The Movies:

    A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS:

    The lead role in Sergio Leone's A Fistful Of Dollars was originally offered to Henry Fonda and then to Charles Bronson but would eventually wind up making Clint Eastwood a household name. A lose remake of Akira Kuroasawa's Yojimbo (Kurosawa and company successfully sued the filmmakers for copyright infringement), the international success of the film would kick start the Spaghetti Western phenomena into high gear and result in dozens, if not hundreds, of imitators over the next decade and a half.

    In the film, Eastwood plays Joe (better known as 'The Man With No Name' though never actually referred to by that handle and credited as 'Joe' in the credits of the film), a rough and tumble cowboy who rides into the small desert town of San Miguel, close to the border of Mexico. After making short work of four tough talking gunmen, he wanders into the saloon where he makes Silvanito (Jose Calvo of Giovanni Grimaldi's In A Colt's Shadow), the bartender, who tells him about the problems that the town has to deal with. It seems that two well to do families from the area are at war with one another and are slowly but surely tearing the town apart with their feud. These two families, the American Baxters and the Hispanic Rojos, could care less about who gets in their way and it's because of their behavior that so many men have wound up dead.
    Joe, smart sonuvabitch that he is, figures he can work one side against the other if he plays his cards right and not only save the town a whole lot of grief, but earn himself a healthy sum for services rendered in the process. This works for awhile but soon things go wrong and after a few nasty and violent incidents, he's going to have to showdown with the only remaining member of the two clans left with any clout, Ramon Rojo (Gian Maria Volonte who Leone would later cast again in For A Few Dollars More made just the next year).
    Shockingly violent and grim compared to the American westerns of the same time period, A Fistful Of Dollars was, while not the first Spaghetti Western, certainly the most influential one up until that time.

    Financed by German, Italian and Spanish investors and made for an international audience the film capitalized on Eastwood's good looks and rising star (it was made during his time off on Rawhide) to create a new kind of anti-hero, one which would be imitated time and time again. Joe is only out for himself and while he doesn't go out of his way to hurt anyone, he certainly doesn't turn the other cheek when someone wrongs him. He's out for himself and he has no qualms about letting anyone know that. He's hardly the traditional cowboy type played by John Wayne in so many John Ford films in the years before.
    The look of the film backs this up. Whereas before we'd expect the west to look clean and serene and beautiful and scenic, here the events take place in a rough and beaten up town set in and amongst a harsh and unforgiving desert. You won't see anyone singing 'Happy Trails' in this arid landscape, made obvious by the type of people who inhabit it. When Eastwood's character is the hero, you know you're surrounded by scoundrels, as he's hardly an angel himself.

    The 'borrowed ideas' from Kurosawa's Yojimbo are obvious, but by changing the time and place where it all takes place Leone was able to put his own unique spin on the story and really make it his own film, rather than a half assed Kurosawa remake. The two directors had very different styles and as such, made very different films despite the obvious similarities inherent in the material in terms of story structure and plot devices.

    While Leone would only get better from here on out, A Fistful Of Dollars is an amazing film when you take into account how fast and for how little money the film was made. As an action movie, it's fantastic - it flies by at a rapid pace and provides ample opportunity for violent action and tough guy posturing. In comparison to the film's that Eastwood and Leone would later make both together and apart, it was a foreshadow of the greatness to come and the humble beginnings of an amazing body of work.

    FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE:

    The unexpected and unprecedented box office success of A Fistful Of Dollars catapulted Clint Eastwood to stardom and spurred into production less than a year later a sequel to capitalize on his new found fame. The result was a darker, funnier, and all around better film in the form of For A Few Dollars More, the second collaboration between Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood but this time with the undeniably fantastic screen presence of Lee Van Cleef (though Leone originally wanted Lee Marvin, and for good reason) to play off of as well.

    Monco (Eastwood) is a bounty hunter out to make a few quick bucks. He doesn't care about anyone else, he's completely self serving and to be honest, a bit of a bastard. He rides into El Paso on a mission to bring in a bandit named El Indio (Gian Maria Volonte) so that he can take home the sizeable reward being offered for his capture. A second bounty hunter, a former army man named Colonel Mortimer (Van Cleef), has got the same idea and as such has his eyes on the very same prize as Monco.

    Indio, on the other hand, has got a good sized gang of bandits at his command, and they intend to take down a bank and make off with the contents. This very same gang will prove a little harder to deal with than both Monco and Mortimer originally anticipated, and they strike up a rather unusual relationship together in order to deal with the problems that a gang of homicidal bandits cane pose.

    Everything that Leone showed us he was capable of in A Fistful Of Dollars is let loose in this second film. The scope is more epic, the close ups more extreme, the comedy is darker, the dialogue is sharper, and the violence is harsher. Leone perfected his technique in this film and every shot is composed so carefully and with such technical precision that even if there were no audio track to provide dialogue effects or background music, the film would still be a masterpiece simply on the strength of the visuals alone. Thankfully, however, the audio mix is just as strong as the look of the film. Morricone had really hit his stride by this point in his career and his score strengthens every single frame of film that it's used in.

    Everything about this second film is more confident than the first movie. Eastwood is sharper and more relaxed, literally oozing cool out of every pore of his body despite the fact that he's stuck out under the hot desert sun for the bulk of the film. Lee Van Cleef gives one of his finest performances (considering his track record in westerns, that's saying something, because he truly is 'the man') and is as sneaky in act and deed as he is in appearance. Leone uses his oddly rodent like features to great advantage, really playing up on his striking features to give his character a larger than life aura, something that he'd play with even more in the third film, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. Gian Maria Volonte returns to the fold again, perfectly cast as the sinister El Indio, playing the part with a maniacal glee that becomes, at times, quite infectious. Aside from the three leads though, you can't talk about the film without mentioning Klaus Kinski's turn as the lunatic hunchback or Luigi Pistilli's role as Groggy.

    Looking at the 'behind the camera' credits for the film reads more or less like a roll call for the finest contributors to Italian genre cinema. Fernando Di Leo (Milano Calibro 9) contributed to the script and acted as a second unit director alongside Tonino Valerii (Day Of Anger). Massimo Dallamano (What Have You Done To Solange?)handled the cinematography while Bruno Nicolai (All The Colors Of The Dark) aided Ennio Morricone with the musical score. In short, the excellent cast was in fine company.

    While, like its predecessor, it was shot fast and cheap (look for a few anachronisms and technical goofs throughout the film), For A Few Dollars More proves to be an exciting and ambitious film that succeeds not only on its gorgeous visuals but also on its stellar cast and fine crew. Leone would go on to bigger and better films with his next two films and prove himself as the king of the Italian west, but For A Few Dollars More stands as the film where he really and truly hit his stride. Maybe it was due to the fact that he was offered a better cut of the profits this time out, maybe he just wanted to make a better movie, maybe he was having more fun, or maybe it was all of the above but Leone really turned it up with this one and the result is one of the most enjoyable and, dare I say it, 'fun' films of the Spaghetti Western craze.

    THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY:

    The third and final film in the 'Dollars' Trilogy' takes what Sergio Leone showed us he was capable of in A Fistful Of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More and perfects it. If his first two westerns are the bastard offspring of Akira Kurasawa and John Ford, then The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is where he made the genre his own and really perfected his technique. While he would repeat this technical achievement in his later Oncew Upon A Time In The West (possibly even surpass it depending on who you ask) The Good, The Bad And The Ugly still remains a slicker and inexplicably cooler picture that rightfully holds its place as one of the finest films ever made.

    Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach (The Godfather Part III) play two gunfighters who form a temporary partnership during the era of the American Civil War. Tuco (Wallach) has a record a mile long and is wanted in pretty much every county. Blondie (Eastwood) turns him in to collect the reward money only to spring him at the last minute so they can move on to the next town and repeat the scheme.

    When the get into an argument, Blondie leaves Tuco in the desert, but Tuco swears revenge, tracking him down to take his life for betraying him. While in the desert, Tuco finds that a soldier on his deathbed has given Blondie the location of a sizeable treasure - $200,000 in Confederate gold. Little do Tuco and Blondie know though that a man they'll soon dub with the moniker of Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef) is also looking for this same treasure and is hot on their trail.

    The first ten minutes of the film are completely without dialogue - all we hear are sound effects and Ennio Morricone's amazing score. The rest of the film, while far from silent, isn't overly dialogue heavy either. Leone instead shows off his ability to let the pictures do the talking instead of the characters, and here actions really do speak louder than words. The three main characters at one point or another through the duration of the story represent both good, bad and ugly aspects of humanity and are played out as larger than life, almost super human. How else could it be, if these men are simply average and bound by the same laws we are, that Tuco and Blondie could blow up the bridge in front of hundreds, if not thousands, of enemy soldiers?

    Eastwood shines as the anti-hero lead in the role that solidified his rising star in Hollywood. He plays his part with a consummate cool rarely rivaled - squinting his way through the story without any obvious hesitation. Eli Wallach, as the rat bastard Tuco, is equally good in his part. He's a true scumbag but you can't help but feel for the guy during the Mission scene where he confronts his brother, Father Ramirez (Luigi Pistilli). He does an amazing job of bring both a sense of disdain and a sense of pathos to his role. Lee Van Cleef as Angel Eyes Sentenza is as good if not slightly better than his two co-stars are. He's a cold, calculating man who can and will do what it takes to bring in the gold. In the role he was born to play and is probably best remembered for, the actor who never really got his due shines like a diamond in the rough. He's snide and smarmy and his on-screen relationship with Eastwood is often imitated but never duplicated.

    No matter how great the leads in the film are though, deserving of equal billing are of course the trademark Leone visuals. Extremely wide angels zoom into tight ocular close ups of the characters, building tension and piling on the style. Unorthodox close ups such as a shot of a man's spurs against the bar he's standing at or a medium close up of the back of Eastwood's head as he talks to a secondary character give the film a truly unique and carefully constructed look. The camera at times could almost be a participant in the action - it documents everything in such a way that once again we get the feeling that we're watching the story of three men who are something more than human.

    The story, while simple at first glance, is actually quite dark when you think about it. There are no truly good characters in the film, aside from Tuco's brother, but even he shows the chinks in his armor when he gets mad at his brother, rather than forgiving and forgetting as his religion should have taught him to do. While Blondie may be pointed to as 'The Good,' he screws over the other characters and isn't above shooting someone if the money makes it worth his while. Throw him into the mix with the obvious antagonists of Tuco and Angel Eyes and set them against a backdrop where a country is killing itself in a civil war and this is hardly a feel good movie - yet it is not without a strong sense of black humor. All three leads have got a few good one liners (Tuco's 'If you have to shoot, shoot… don't talk!' being one of the more famous ones) that keep things from getting too downbeat, even if at times it seems that they should be.

    And of course, one can't even think of the film without instantly conjuring up the sounds of Ennio Morricone's score. While the opening theme may be the most recognizable cue in the film, just try to not get chills down your spine when The Ecstasy Of Gold plays during the climatic and inevitable showdown. Morricone had only really been scoring films for roughly five years when the film was made (though he had already worked with Leone twice before). Even without the decades of experience he has now, the already prolific composer was still able to turn in one of the finest pieces of film music to ever come out of Italy or for that matter, anywhere. The wailing, the guitar strings, the unusual percussion bleed raw emotion into whatever scene they're designed to enhance, demonstrating why Morricone is often referred to as 'the Maestro.' The otherworldly qualities of the score also lend it an almost supernatural feel in spots - raising these men up a notch or two and filling their actions with a sense of importance by way of music that almost seems to be speaking for them at times.

    This newly restored edition adds eighteen minutes of new footage into the version of the film that we've previously had on home video here in North America. This footage was originally included in the 1966 Italian theatrical release but trimmed from the film for its 1968 North American release. These eighteen minutes represent the newly dubbed scenes that have been the topic of much debate (see the audio section for more details). In a nutshell, here's what's new:

    -A scene where Tuco reunites with his old hoodlum friends and talking them into joining him on his quest to kill Blondie is included.

    -We see Angel Eyes searching for information on Bill Carson at a Confederate Army camp. He finds out that Carson has either died on his way to Glorietta, or he's been captured and tossed in a POW camp.

    -We see Tuco wash his feet in a bucket of water in the desert, right in front of a parched Blondie's sun-beaten face.

    -Just before Tuco and Blondie show up at the Catholic Mission, Tuco, in disguise and claiming to be Bill Carson, stops at a Confederate camp and asks for help. He is turned away.

    -On their way out of the mission, Tuco and Blondie discuss the best route to take.

    -After leaving the POW camp and on their way to the cemetery, Blondie and Angel Eyes stop to rest for the night at the side of a river. Some of Angel Eyes's thugs show up.

    The majority of the added footage enhances the already pessimistic view of the war going on around the three central characters, and it also fills in some of the blanks. It isn't as much of a shock when Angel Eyes turns out to work be a Confederate, and we already know he's on the trail of the gold, which is also explained better. It fleshes out the film as a whole and sheds some light on some of the more questionable aspects of the characters and their motives in the last half of the film.

    Video/Audio/Extras:

    Each of the three films is presented in its original 2.35.1 anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer. The transfer for The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is identical to the single disc release that came out last year, so the DVNR that bothered some viewers has been carried over but that film, like the other two in the set, still looks noticeably better than it did on standard definition DVD. Yes, there definitely could have been more care in the restoration department and yes, there are spots where the overzealous scrubbing of grain results in some waxy complexions and details disappearing, but it's not all that bad. Colors look good, detail in many scenes is very strong and there's way less compression obvious here. You won't have any problems spotting edge enhancement in spots, especially on TGTBATU, but most fans know that already. How do the two earlier films fare? Reasonably well, actually - better even than the third film in the series in some ways. There's less obvious digital scrubbing in the first two films and look just a bit more like film and less digitally tweaked. There's no doubt that the films could and should have looked better than they do here, but the good does outweigh the bad (and the ugly too - bad joke, sorry).

    There are English language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mixes supplied for each of the three films, but there are an array of dubs and alternate tracks included as well: A Fistful Of Dollars also includes the English mono track, a Spanish mono track and a French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound track with subtitles provided in the same three languages; For A Few Dollars More contains English and Spanish mono tracks and subtitles in both of those two languages; The Good, The Bad And The Ugly contains English and Italian mono as well as Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound tracks in German, Spanish, French and Portuguese while providing optional subtitles in Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Cantonese, Mandarin, Thai and English SDH.

    So yeah, take your pick between the original mono mixes, in lossy standard definition, or lossless 5.1 DTS-HD tracks, there's no lossless mono option provided, unfortunately. That said, the DTS-HD tracks are pretty decent. Dialogue is never hard to understand and the levels are well balanced. Much of the action comes from the front of the mix but Morricone's classic scores are spread out rather well throughout the soundstage and swell up from the rear channels to add plenty of mood and atmosphere.

    A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS:

    First up for extra features is a commentary by Christopher Frayling. Those who have heard his commentaries before know that this man truly knows his stuff. Having written Something To Do With Death, the definitive Sergio Leone biography, there's probably no one out there who knows more about the late, great director's life and times than Sir Frayling does. Frayling packs this track with all manner of information from details of pre-production and casting problems to trivia regarding certain cast members and what they've been up to since the film was finished. Frayling, for his book, got to talk to a lot of the people involved in the film and so he has no shortage of things to say about A Fistful Of Dollars and how it would go on to impact the rest of Leone's career, and subsequently Eastwood's as well. Frayling did a great job on the group commentary on Paramount's Once Upon A Time In The West two disc set and does an equally great job flying solo on this release.

    Fox/MGM have also included an all new featurette with Frayling entitled The Christopher Frayling Archives: A Fistful Of Dollars. This eighteen minutes documentary is a piece in which the noted Spaghetti Western historian and Leone biographer shows off some great pieces of memorabilia from his very extensive collection. Here we see the original script, some posters, lobby cards and even some records. For movie memorabilia collectors, this is a pretty cool segment.

    After that we move on to a documentary on the making of the film entitled A New Kind Of Hero. This is a twenty-two minute look behind the scenes, once again with Frayling as our tour guide, that delves into a lot of great technical information on how Leone shaped his vision of the American west and how the technology available to him on a limited budget (the movie was made for roughly $200,000.00, low even by the standards of 1964) came into play while he was trying to do so. Though it does cover some of the same ground as the commentary track does, there's not too much cross over and this is a very interesting look at Leone's working process early on in his career and it makes for an interesting comparison when you read up on how his later films came into shape.

    An eight minute featurette with Clint Eastwood entitled Two Weeks In Spain gives the man with no name himself a chance to spill his guts about the film. He talks about his experiences on set, how it was sometimes difficult to communicate, why he took the role and how it worked for him.

    A second documentary entitled Tre Voci is up next. This one clocks in at eleven minutes and it examines the English language version of the film by interviewing the three men responsible for making that happen - Alberto Grimaldi, Mickey Knox, and Sergio Donati. All three men have got some interesting stories about some of the director's eccentricities and bizarre working methods, and once again it makes for an interesting companion piece to the feature film on disc one.

    The additional prologue scene that was shot for television is included here along with some insight from Howard Fridkin, who just so happened to record it on Betamax when it was broadcast and as such has the only known copy of it in existence. Taking that into account, it's no wonder that it looks like its in pretty rough shape, but it's great to finally have a chance to see it, even if it is completely out of place in the film. This prologue was to take place before the opening credits sequence and has Harry Dean Stanton a lawman who sets a body double for Clint Eastwood free so that he can, in return for his freedom, take care of two problem groups, thus giving Eastwood's character stronger motivation for events that would take place later on in the film.

    The Not Yet Ready For Primetime featurette is a six minute segment with Monte Hellman who talks about his involvement in creating the aforementioned prologue for television broadcast. Hellman doesn't seem to proud of his work here, and he tells some amusing stories about how it came to be and about how Clint Eastwood told him he didn't remember filming it (which makes sense, because he didn't).

    Rounding out the extra features are five minutes worth of location comparisons, ten different radio spots for the film, a still gallery featuring roughly thirty promotional images, a trailer, and a double bill trailer.

    FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE:

    Once again, MGM has tagged Christopher Frayling for another fascinating commentary that is part film analysis, part Leone history and part trivia track. He's not once at a loss for words and he makes some interesting comparisons here between this film and some of Leone's later works within the western genre. Frayling gives plenty of detail on the rushed production history of the film, the producers wanted to turn it over as quickly as possible to cash in on the success of the first movie, as well as some of the strange details relating to Leone's shooting structure, or lack thereof. Some of the more interesting bits of the commentary relate to the way that Leone cast many of the local gypsies as banditos in the film, to give it a more authentic look and feel and some of the problems that were inherent in Leone's decision to do so.

    Frayling gets in front of the camera for another exclusive extra entitled The Christopher Frayling Archives: For A Few Dollars More. Like the similar piece on the first disc, this nineteen minute piece is a chance for Frayling to show off more of his extensive collection.

    Up next is a twenty minute documentary entitled A New Standard. This is a lengthy and informative discussion with Frayling on some of the themes and ideas that Leone pioneered in the film. He discusses the marijuana use in the film and how it worked or didn't work within the context of the movie as well as a lot of the more subtle religious symbolism that's there if you want to look for it. He puts the film into context against the time it was made and against Leone's other movies and this makes for a very entertaining and informative segment that thankfully doesn't crossover with the commentary track too much at all.

    Back For More is a seven minute video interview with Clint Eastwood in which he talks about how Leone's sense of humor put many of the cast members at ease on the set. He also goes into quite a bit of detail on how Leone influenced the films that he himself would later direct, and why. It's nice to see Clint talk about Sergio as fondly as he does here, and it's also quite interesting to hear his reasons for not making Once Upon A Time In The West (Charles Bronson ended up in the lead and I honestly can't see how anyone could have played it any better than he did in that movie), a film which many consider to be the finest western ever made.

    Just like on A Fistful Of Dollars, we get a Tre Voci segment that once again brings together Alberto Grimaldi, Mickey Knox, and Sergio Donati. The famous story of how Morricone's score, which was completely finished before filming even started, was played on set to get performers in the mood at Leone's request. They also talk about how the dialogue was written specifically to play to Eastwood and Van Cleef's strengths not only as tough guys, but as comedic actors too. The humor is turned up a bit in this film compared to the first movie and the interplay between these two actors is a big reason why.

    Up next are five minutes worth of alternate scenes that were chopped or excised from the final cut of the US version of the film for one reason or another. The scene where Eastwood's character is named, the scene with Indio laughing hysterically, and the scene where Eastwood and Van Cleef are beaten were all presented differently and they're shown here in their alternate forms.

    Rounding out the extra features are twelve minutes worth of location comparison footage, twelve radio promo spots, the excellent theatrical trailer, the double bill trailer, and a still gallery of roughly forty images.

    THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY:

    The first extra is a feature length running commentary by film historian and author of Clint Eastwood: A Biography, Richard Schickel (who recently directed The Eastwood Factor for Warner Brothers). Given the authors resume, it's no surprise that much of the time spent on this track is dedicated to Eastwood, but it's all in context. There is a wealth of excellent information to be gleaned by listening to this track, if you can get used to Schickel's monotone speech patterns. This can be more difficult than it may sound, as he doesn't sound enthusiastic at all about his subject, despite the fact that as he's talking, he is relaying a lot of great anecdotes, behind the scenes information, and technical facts. It's admirable that Schickel was able to come up with so much information about the film and unfortunate that it was presented in a more exciting manner. He spends a lot of time describing and detailing Leone's sense of style and composition but could have gone into more detail about the historical context that the film is set in and some of the history surrounding it. All in all though, this is an interesting commentary even if the delivery leaves something to be desired. Frayling supplies a second commentary track for this feature, supplying his typically strong balance of facts, trivia, thematic elements and biographical information and insight.

    Moving on, the next extra we find is entitled Leone's West and is a making-of documentary that runs just under twenty-minutes in length. The focus of this piece is on the arduous process of getting the film made and the impact that it had on American cinema. Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Alberto Grimaldo (producer), Mickey Knox (translator), and the aforementioned Richard Schickel are all interviewed on camera, lending their own individual experiences and memories. Leone's West is a well rounded and interesting look back at the making of the film and at what went on behind the scenes and serves as a nice primer and introductory piece.

    Clocking in at twenty-three minutes in length The Leone Style documentary is a detailed look at Leone's all too short film career. By taking a look at Leone's body of work, the featurette gives an interesting perspective on his unique talent for creating intensely visual and flamboyant films that draw the viewer into the action in a way that has barely been rivaled since. His use of wide angles contrasted with close-ups of his characters' eyes was something that had never really been seen before and it makes for interesting analysis. Plenty of clips from his films are used to exemplify how good his films always looked, and Leone fans will most certainly enjoy this piece that looks back the cinematic legacy he left behind.

    Next up is The Man Who Lost the Civil War - a documentary about Sibley's Campaign, run by the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. Morgan Sheppard narrates this fourteen-minute segment that gives a brief but informative history lesson which puts the film into a historical context relating to actual historical events that many of us may be unfamiliar with. Henry Sibley had some seriously grandiose ideas, and some equally grandiose failures when he tried to live them out.

    Reconstructing The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is a documentary that focuses on the audio re-recording process that the film went through before this DVD was released. Anything and everything you could want to know about how the 5.1 mix was created for this featurette and how the redubbing process went is revealed here in this piece which runs approximately ten minutes. For anyone interested in film restoration, this segment is worthwhile and contains quite a bit of technical but fascinating information.

    The last of the documentaries is entitled Il Maestro: Ennio Morricone and The Good, the Bad & the Ugly. If you couldn't tell by the title, it takes a look at Morricone's immeasurable contributions to the film by way of his now world famous and instantly recognizable score. This piece gives us a little bit of background information on Morricone, his relationship with Leone, and the way that his music enhanced the film. Variety critic Jon Burlingame provides most of the details such as his tendency to play back some of the score on set during filming to get the actors in the mood.

    Aside from the documentaries, there are two deleted scenes included here that are not in the extended cut of the film. The first one, The Extended Tuco Torture Scene, is a longer cut of the sequence in the film where Tuco is being tortured. Damage to the original elements prevented the inclusion of this scene into the restored film. The second scene is entitled The Socorro Sequence - A Reconstruction and is a montage of film, storyboards and still with text overtop that recreates the scene in which Eastwood's character went to bed with a lovely young lady. Because this scene never reached completion it obviously could not be included in the film. The original theatrical trailer and some spiffy animated menus round out the disc nicely.


    The Final Word:

    While the transfers may not be perfect nor is the audio reference quality, there's enough of a noticeable increase in quality over the standard definition releases to make this very much worth the upgrade for fan's of Leone's holy trinity. The films themselves stand the test of time incredibly well and are seemingly more influential than ever before and while it would have been nice to see a few more exclusive extras and better picture quality, what's here is still quite good and the movies remain outstanding.
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      Directed by Jess Franco, The Bloody Judge (or, Night Of The Blood Monster, as it is going by on this new release from Blue Underground) isn't quite the salacious exercise in Eurotrash you might expect it to be, and while it
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:07 PM
    • Phase IV (Vinegar Syndrome) UHD/Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Saul Bass
      Cast: Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick, Alan Gifford, Robert Henderson, Helen Horton
      Year: 1974
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      Phase IV – Movie Review:

      Saul Bass’ 1974 sci-fi/thriller Phase IV is an interesting blend of nature run amuck stereotypes and Natural Geographic style nature footage mixed into one delicious cocktail of suspense and
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:02 PM
    • The Bounty Hunter Trilogy (Radiance Films) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Radiance Films
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Shigehiro Ozawa, Eiichi Kudo
      Cast: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Minoru Ôki, Arashi Kanjuro, Bin Amatsu, Chiezo Kataoka
      Year: 1969-1972
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      The Bounty Hunter Trilogy – Movie Review:

      Radiance Films gathers together the three films in Toie Studios’ Bounty Hunter Trilogy, starring the inimitable Tomisaburo Wakayama. Here’s how the three movies in this
      ...
      03-13-2024, 11:30 AM
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