Cemetery Without Crosses

Released by: Arrow Video
Released on: July 21st, 2015.
Director: Robert Hossein
Cast: Michí¨le Mercier, Robert Hossein, Anne-Marie Balin, Béatrice Altariba, Charly Bravo, Guido Lollobrigida, Daniele Vargas
Year: 1969
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The Movie:

A gorgeous woman named Maria Caine (Michí¨le Mercier of Margheriti's Web Of The Spider and Bava's Black Sabbath) sees her husband, Ben (Benito Stefanelli of numerous Spaghetti Westerns including My Name Is Nobody and A Fistful Of Dynamite), chased down and hanged by the members of the Rogers family. Obviously and understandably upset about this turn of events, she wants vengeance. After attempting to enlist the aid of her two former brothers-in-law to no avail - they can't even be bothered to help her dig a proper grave. She approaches Manuel (noted French writer-director-actor Robert Hossein) , who was one of her late husband's closest friends and who, years prior, had a romantic relationship with her.

Manuel agrees to help Maria, though before he agrees he tells her that vengeance will not satisfy her, and decides to go to the Rogers family and join their gang, in turn, gaining their trust. This works well and soon he's kidnapped their young daughter who he turns over to Maria who in turn holds the poor girl hostage to use as leverage against the Rogers family. Of course, the plan doesn't go exactly the way Maria had hoped it would and Manuel is left to fend off the Rogerses and settle the matter.

Shot with plenty of style by cinematographer Henri Persin (who was the second unit director on Woody Allen's What's New Pussycat!), the film looks great from its black and white opening sequence through to its incredibly grim finale. Lots of Leone-esque close ups and framing show an obvious nod to the most influential director in the genre (he's thanked in the end credits!) and the film just looks superb. The score from Robert Hossein's father, Andre Hossein, has obviously been influenced by the scores, which Ennio Morricone was churning out around the same time but it's not a direct rip off even if it owes a bit (the cues with the trumpets really sound like Morricone!) to the man.

With Hossein starring, directing and co-writing the film it would stand to reason that this would have been a fairly personal project for him. As such, there's considerably more depth to the movie than there is to the average Spaghetti Western, even if you have to look under the surface of the picture to find it. While the first chunk of the film plays out without any dialogue and spoken bits remain sparse in the film even after that scene has passed, the movie still manages to make a statement about the futility of violence and mankind's natural inclination to want revenge. The script is very cynical and quite critical of its characters, none of which are innocent despite playing fairly traditional 'good' or 'bad' roles.

Manuel is an interesting character, he's obviously still in love with Maria who is the whole reason he comes on board in the first place but as the movie plays out you can tell that he's tired of the gunslinger's life. Hossein plays the part well with a fair amount of morose and subdued moments that make Manuel more than just another grizzled looking cowboy with a gun on his hip and a chip on his shoulder. His actions towards the end of the film and some of his dialogue with Maria completely solidify the fact that he really has no interest in killing anymore and that he's doing this not because he personally feels the need to avenge his friend's death but because he still carries a torch for the man's widow.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Cemetery Without Crosses debuts on Blu-ray in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed in the film's original aspect ratio of 1.66.1 widescreen. The opening black and white sequence looks a bit rough around the edges and shows more print damage than the rest of the feature, and things do clean up considerably once we pass those moments. Detail is pretty solid here, close up shots showing things off the best in that regard, while texture and contrast also fare nicely. Skin tones look lifelike while color reproduction is really strong and frequently quite impressive. There are no obvious issues with any compression artifacts and the lack of noise reduction ensures that the image is grainy in that nice, natural way that purists will appreciate without ever getting to the point where it's distracting. This is a really impressive transfer, fans should be quite pleased.

Audio options are provided in English and Italian language LPCM Mono options with removable subtitles available in English only (they subtitle the Italian track and are not dubtitles). Both tracks sounds solid here, with the score and the opening theme song really getting the nicest upgrade in clarity. Sound effects, gun shots in particular, have decent punch to them while the dialogue is consistently clean, clear and properly balanced.

Extras start off with a five minute interview with Robert Hossein entitled Remembering Sergio in which he shares his thoughts and remembrances on making this film as well as how Sergio Leone influenced his filmmaking style. It's a decent piece worth watching. Also included on the disc is eight minutes of interesting French television news pieces that cover the making of the film and that feature some vintage interviews with Hossein, Michí¨le Mercier and Serge Marquand. We also get a quick two and a half minute long archival interview with Hossein that is also quite interesting. Unfortunately none of the extras that appeared on the Anolis DVD released in Germany (which included a half hour featurette on Hossein, thirty minutes of comparisons between the different versions of the movie and various international credits and opening sequences) have been ported over to this Blu-ray.

Rounding out the extras on the disc are the original theatrical trailer, animated menus and chapter selection.

The Final Word:

A tense and very well made revenge-driven Spaghetti Western, Cemetery Without Crosses has yet to find as large an audience as it no doubt deserves. This is top notch entertainment and while Arrow's Blu-ray is a bit light in the extra features department it offers up the film in an excellent transfer and with very strong audio as well.

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!