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Released by: Blue Underground
Released on: May 26th, 2015.
Director: Luigi Bazzoni
Cast: Franco Nero, Tina Aumont, Klaus Kinski
Year: 1967
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The Movie:
Directed by Luigi Bazzoni in 1967, Man, Pride And Vengeance tells the story of an officer named Don Jose (Franco Nero) who meets and very quickly falls in love with Carmen (Tina Aumont), a Gypsy woman. As luck would have it, Don finds out that Carmen has also had a fling with his commanding officer and when he confronts him about it, things go south and Don winds up killing the other man. Carmen gets wind of this and insists that Don run off with her and leave Seville. In fact, she suggests he join up with a gang of thieves out to pull off a daring robbery.
Don agrees to this, figuring he can take the money from the robbery and run off with his beloved. Unfortunately for Don, there's the matter of Carmen's actual husband, a violent man named Garcia (Klaus Kinski) who doesn't take kindly to his wife cavorting about with other men.
As much, if not more, of a period drama than a typical Spaghetti Western Man, Pride And Vengeance is more interested in character development than shoot outs and chases. Nero does a fine job here in the lead. He handles the romantic side of the story well enough in terms of his acting ability and he's a handsome guy, you can understand why Carmen might be attracted to him. He also has good chemistry with the stunningly beautiful Ms. Aumont, who also does fine work here as the female lead. She really is a gorgeous woman and she plays the fiery part to perfection. More than just a pretty face, Aumont has got some seriously impressive acting chops and when given the right role, as she is in this picture, she can more than deliver. Of course, Klaus Kinski steals more than a few of the scenes he's in. His character is angry and dangerous and for those reasons he's a great casting choice.
The story itself, based on the novel Carmen by Prosper Mérimée, doesn't offer as much violence and action as the cover art and Spaghetti Western label imply but there are definitely moments in the second half of the film that will appeal to genre fans. Most of this involves Don Jose's obsessions with Carmen growing to dangerous extremes. Once the storyline gets there and the character has transformed, things move swiftly from period romantic drama into more intense, aggressive territory. Men will go to ridiculous extremes for love, Don Jose is no different in that regard.
Beautifully shot on Spanish locations, Man, Pride And Vengeance is a very attractive looking film. The costumes are colorful and nicely photographed while the dusty locations where all of this plays out add plenty of gritty, authentic atmosphere to the proceedings. Wrap it all up with a nice score from Carlo Rustichelli and this Spaghetti Western, as atypical and at times mellow as it is, turns out to be very much worth a watch.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Man, Pride And Vengeance debuts on Blu-ray from Blue Underground in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed in 2.35.1 and generally looking pretty good. Some of that weird scanner noise that has shown up on Italian film's transferred to Blu-ray is evident here, but it's minor and way less pronounced than it has been on other releases. Detail is typically pretty good if never reference quality while color reproduction is solid throughout. Depth is okay if never mind blowing while skin tones generally look nice and natural here. Not a perfect transfer, but certainly a very decent one.
Audio options are offered up in Italian or English language DTS-HD 2.0 Mono tracks with subtitles available in English, French and Spanish. There are no real problems here - both tracks are clean, clear and properly balanced and there are no obvious issues with hiss or distortion to note.
Extras start off with an audio commentary from film journalists C. Courtney Joyner and Henry C. Parke. Obviously neither were involved in the making of the film so this is more of a historical/critical take on the movie than the standard making of style talk. These guys know their stuff though and it's an interesting discussion that covers the different aspects of the story, the more dramatic elements of the plot, the shooting locations, the casting, the look of the film and quite a bit more.
We also get a half hour long featurette entitled Luigi, Vittorio & Franco in which leading man Franco Nero and camera man Vittorio Storaro. Nero talks about his experiences working on the picture, what he really likes about the role and his thoughts on the movie as whole. He looks back on it quite fondly and really seems to appreciate the film. Storaro discusses what it was like working on the film behind the camera, his relationship with the director and the location shoot. Aside from that we get two different trailers for the feature, a nice sized still gallery, menus and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
Blue Underground has given Man, Pride And Vengeance a pretty respectable release. The transfer isn't perfect but it's good and the extras are quite solid as they do a nice job of documenting the history of the film and provide some critical analysis as well. The movie itself is a very atypical Spaghetti Western but it's a well-acted and well-made film definitely worth seeking out.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
