Review for The Spaghetti Western Trilogy

Introduction

Introduction: A Fistful of Dollars

Picture: A Fistful of Dollars

A Fistful of Dollars gets a 2.35:1 widescreen transfer at 1080p. It’s not bad. The image is relatively clear and sharp throughout, stable and clean, with a natural layer of film grain. There might be a smidge of flicker, some faded frames, and there’s an overall softness that holds back on the detail. It’s a film that could use some restoration, and can on occasion look a little dull. But the HD format does wonders for Leone’s extreme close-ups, while the grand vistas and locations look splendid. It’s in the middle distance that things don’t fare so well, as well as the day for night scenes.

Sound: A Fistful of Dollars

You have the choice between DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround English, DTS 5.1 French, and the original mono English in DD 2.0 form, as well as DD 2.0 Spanish, with subtitles in these and a fistful of other languages. I gave the surround a try, and it’s not overly emphatic, pretty subtle at times, but I did feel that the dialogue felt hollow and muddy. There may be less in the way of bits, but I did feel that the DD 2.0 mono track was the preferable option, the dialogue feeling fresher and more immediate. Of course lip sync is an optional extra in Spaghetti Westerns, but Ennio Morricone’s music is very much a character in the film itself, and it comes across well.

Extras: A Fistful of Dollars

The disc presents its contents with an animated menu screen. Pressing pause during playback brings up a progress bar.

Most of the extras on this disc are taken from the previous Special Edition 2-disc release.

However new for this disc is The Christopher Frayling Archives: Fistful of Dollars, which runs to 18:40 in HD, and he takes us through the story of the film’s distribution through the poster art that he has in his collection.

You get the audio commentary again from Sir Christopher Frayling.

He appears again on A New Kind of Hero, which lasts 22:54 SD, and takes us through the history of the film, and its legacy.


A Few Weeks in Spain: Clint Eastwood on the Making of the Film lasts 8:33 SD.

Tre Voci: Fistful of Dollars, features interviews with Leone’s associates, Alberto Grimaldi, Sergio Donati, and Mickey Knox, speaking about the director. This lasts 11:12 SD.

Not Ready For Primetime: Renowned Filmmaker Monte Hellman Discusses The Television Broadcast of A Fistful of Dollars lasts 6:20, and you can see the prologue for the film he directed in The Network Prologue With Harry Dean Stanton which lasts 7:44, both in SD.

Location Comparison: Then to Now is a 5:22 image slideshow again in SD.

There are 10 Radio Spots for the film; a 6 minute HD Production Stills Slideshow, the Double Bill Trailer in SD and the Fistful of Dollars Trailer in HD.

Conclusion: A Fistful of Dollars

There’s this odd phenomenon that happens with me and some of my favourite films. Not all of them, as some movies (like The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly), I can watch any time, get the same level of enjoyment, appreciate them in exactly the same way no matter how many times I see them, or if I’m lucky, find something new to appreciate about them. But a few of my favourite films slowly become background noise, the more I watch them. A Fistful of Dollars is just like that. I loved, absolutely adored this film the first time I watched it, and that love grew as I watched it again, and again while I was growing up. But somewhere along the line, my familiarity with the film grew to the point where I could speak the dialogue before the actors, knew every scene, every beat. I didn’t actually have to physically watch the movie to watch the movie.


The last decade or so of re-watches, A Fistful of Dollars might as well be background noise for me. The film will be playing, and I can dip in and out of it when it suits me, my attention wanders to other things, and I don’t feel as if I’m missing anything. The converse is that when I do devote my full attention to it, as I did for the purposes of this review, it actually becomes tedious to watch. A Fistful of Dollars is glacially slow paced for me now. It is a Leone trademark to linger on a scene, to let it become art, but the demise of the Baxters as Joe watches from within a coffin lasts so long, the massacre at the river is just the same way. I particularly find the day for night sequences over-long and tiresome.


At this point I would much rather re-watch the original Yojimbo, or for my sins, Walter Hill’s Last Man Standing than A Fistful of Dollars again. That is a pointed warning on the perils of loving a film too much. It’s a crying shame as when I look back on my memories of watching this film as child, I can still see how good it was, the direction, the characters, the action, Ennio Morricone’s iconic music, and that ever quotable dialogue. This was cinema in its purest form, a movie that very much shaped my appreciation of cinema ever since. I can only hope that one day I have the distance from this film to watch it as fresh again. Fortunately I do not have that problem with The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, even though I’ve actually seen that more than A Fistful of Dollars, while For a Few Dollars More is a film that I watch far more infrequently.

7/10

Introduction: For A Few Dollars More

Picture: For A Few Dollars More

Now if all three films had transfers on a par with this one, I’d be a lot happier with this collection. Not only does For a Few Dollars More look better than the first and third films, it looks pretty spiffy for a film of this vintage. The 2.35:1 widescreen 1080p transfer is very nice indeed. It’s clear throughout, with the film having a degree of restoration to remove print damage and signs of age. There’s a palpable level of film grain and a bit of flicker so it looks properly filmic, but where it excels is in the sharpness and level of detail, which is as you would expect from a vintage film on Blu-ray. Soft scenes are few and far between, contrast is good, there’s none of the problems with day for night scenes that I had with the first film, and the colours are excellent. If there is a problem with black crush, I only really noticed it at the start of the film, with Mortimer’s outfit losing all detail on the train to Tucumcari. Other than that, I was enjoying the film too much to pick nits.

Sound: For A Few Dollars More

You have the choice between DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround English, DD 2.0 mono English, and DD 5.1 Surround Spanish, with English, French, and Spanish subtitles. Once again, I found the English surround track to be overcooked and artificial, and after about twenty minutes I switched to the mono track, which was a far more pleasant experience. The dialogue is clear throughout, bullets ricochet off hats with surprising regularity, and Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack is once more a character of its own in this film.

Extras: For A Few Dollars More

The disc presents its contents with an animated menu screen. Pressing pause during playback brings up a progress bar.

Most of the extras on this disc are taken from the previous Special Edition 2-disc release.

However new for this disc is The Christopher Frayling Archives: For a Few Dollars More, which runs to 19:02 in HD, and he takes us through the story of the film’s distribution through the poster art that he has in his collection.

There’s another Christopher Frayling audio commentary for the second film, and it’s just as informative and as agreeable to listen to.

Back For More (Clint Eastwood Remembers For a Few Dollars More) lasts 7:08 and is presented in SD, offering comments edited together from the same interview that supplied the comments for A Fistful of Dollars.

A New Standard (Frayling on For a Few Dollars More lasts 20:14 and is presented in SD, offering some interesting observations on the second film.


Tre Voci: For a Few Dollars More sees Alberto Grimaldi, Sergio Donati, and Mickey Knox return with more comments. It’s interesting to hear how Lee van Cleef was signed up. This lasts 11:05 SD.

For a Few Dollars More: The Original American Release Version lasts 5:18 SD and offers a look at 3 trimmed scenes, 2 of which are in the film on the disc, while one is that extra line of dialogue following the beating of the bounty killers, which isn’t restored.

Location Comparisons lasts 12:16 SD.

There are 12 Radio Spots for the movie presented against a short, looped HD slideshow of monochrome promotional images. Finally there are two theatrical trailers for the film one 2:29, and one 2:44, both presented in HD.

Conclusion: For A Few Dollars More

My opinion on the two Dollars movies has completely flip-flopped over the years. I used to think that A Fistful of Dollars could do no wrong, while For A Few Dollars More was overlong, bloated and poorly paced. This time around I found the first film had pacing issues (albeit down to my excessive familiarity with it), while For a Few Dollars More is a much better film than I first credited, with a well told story, and brilliant, engaging characters. Far from being overlong and poorly paced, I find that I’m enthralled by the film for its runtime, and barely notice that time has actually passed.


A simple story of revenge usually makes for a good movie, while there’s an air of mystery to it as Colonel Mortimer’s motivation is revealed. That it comes through Indio’s drug fuelled flashbacks makes it all the more disconcerting and disjointed. Indio makes for a vicious psychopath of a villain, but Gian Mario Volonte also brings a vulnerability and odd naivety to the role, which stands in contrast with the character’s depredations. But really, the joy in the film comes in the two-hander aspect of the protagonists, the rivalry between Mortimer and Manco. One is the elegant, well-groomed, but wholly intimidating man in black, while the other is the brutal, scruffy-looking shootist, both of them skilled bounty-killers, and both of them masters of understatement.


As it is with this entire trilogy, these are films of moments, little cinematic flashes of art that populate each movie. Image and sound will collide and combine to stick in the memory, Leone’s direction, Morricone’s iconic score, all coming together. For A Few Dollars More has its fair share, the confrontation between the two anti heroes that sees their hats take the brunt of the punishment, the bleak opening sequence of the film, the stubborn old man living by the railroad, and Manco`s unique take on arithmetic to cite but a few. Of course there is that epic climax to the film, the gunfight to the music of watch chimes. I now realise that I’d much rather re-watch For a Few Dollars More than the first film, and given the quality of the transfer on this Blu-ray, that renders it an easy choice to make.

9/10

Introduction: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

Picture: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly gets a 2.35:1 widescreen transfer at 1080p resolution. We’re in better than DVD mode again, a disc that presents the image in a way that improves greatly on the DVD, but is nowhere near the quality that Blu-ray can offer. In terms of clarity, smeared skin-tones, lack of overall detail, signs of age and dirt and compression, this is the worst of the three. I also felt as if the reds were pushed a little strongly. The grand operatic vistas of a Leone film are a little indistinct here, but the close ups are as intense as ever. Even with all this, I’d much rather have this disc, which approximates my original viewing of the film, than the ‘colour-corrected’ re-master.

Sound: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

Plenty of audio options here, with a DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround English track, DD 2.0 mono English and Italian, DD 2.0 Surround Thai, DTS 5.1 Surround German, and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Portuguese, French, and Spanish along with plenty of subtitles. I could handle about 15 minutes of the overcooked surround, before eagerly switching to the English mono track. Alas, unlike the first two films, this isn’t the original mono, rather a down-mix of the surround track, as I realised when I heard distortion on the dialogue which in the surround mix comes solely from the rear speakers. This is also the extended version of the film, which had to have a new dub created for scenes which were originally only available in Italian. After forty years, they got Eli Wallach and Clint Eastwood to reprise their roles, and they sound completely different, which does throw you out of the movie a bit. In contrast, they got a sound-alike to voice Lee Van Cleef’s part and the new actor is pretty close. But generally, the mono track is good enough to enjoy, you can’t change the classic, quotable dialogue, and Ennio Morricone is a god.

Extras: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

The disc boots up relatively quickly to an animated menu. Once again the extra features seem ported over from the Special Edition DVD, although there’s something of a lack of continuity in extras (no Tre Voce, and no Location Comparison).

You get two audio commentaries on this disc, one from film historian Richard Schickel, and one from Christopher Frayling. I found the latter to be more engaging and interesting, offering more about the making of the film, whereas the former looks at its place in history, and comes across as drier.

Leone’s West lasts 19:55 480i, and has contributions from among others, Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach on the film.

The Leone Style lasts 23:48 480i and is more of a look at how Leone made film, the panoramas and the close-ups, and the measured pace of storytelling.

The Man Who Lost the Civil War 14:24 480i, is an abridged documentary on the real Henry Sibley and his campaign in Texas and New Mexico, which offered inspiration for Leone to make this film.


Reconstructing The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly lasts 11:09 480i, and takes a look at how the film was restored for DVD (and later this Blu-ray), the added scenes the ADR, and the 5.1 sound effects.

Il Maestro: Ennio Morricone and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is presented in two parts; Part 1 is a video interview with film music historian Jon Burlingame and lasts 7:48 480i, while Part 2 is an audio only essay from him elaborating more on the film’s musical themes. This latter lasts 12:26.

Finally there are two deleted scenes in 480i running to 10:19 in total, and two trailers, the original theatrical (1080p) and the French trailer (480i).

Conclusion: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

It isn’t the case so much now, but once upon a time, there was the opinion that sequels tended to diminish in quality. Certainly, movie series made in the seventies and eighties offered diminishing returns in terms of quality, the further they went on. Not for Sergio Leone, who just got better and better with each Spaghetti Western that he made. A Fistful of Dollars was a small, fun movie, very much rooted in its source material of Yojimbo. For a Few Dollars More got the space to really develop its characters, and offer a grander, more engaging story. With The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Sergio Leone got to make his war epic, a full three hours of greed, backstabbing and action, set against the background of the American Civil War. It is easily my favourite of the Man With No Name trilogy, and I can watch it again and again. It never gets old, or tiresome, and despite its runtime, it’s remarkable easy to watch.


The story is simple enough, three men after the promise of stolen gold, willing to do anything, kill anyone to get their hands on it. Of the three films, the characters here are the most ambiguous, villains for want of a better word, and at their best approaching what we now comfortably call anti-heroes. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly is how the title refers to them, but the monikers are interchangeable (indeed the original US advertising had Angel Eyes as the Ugly). We want to think of Clint Eastwood’s character, Blondie as heroic, but he’s no gunfighter for hire, pushed to take a moral stand as in A Fistful of Dollars, and he’s no bounty killer collecting on wanted criminals as in a For a Few Dollars More. Blondie is a fast-shooting conman at best, who’s come up with a scam involving capital criminals to let him collect on reward money again and again. That he’s got a dry wit, and a likeable face makes him the protagonist, but it’s only towards the end of the film, when he’s confronted with the sheer waste of war, that he reveals a sliver of humanity.


Lee Van Cleef may have played against type in For a Few Dollars More, Colonel Mortimer being something of a mentor figure to Manco, and having a reason for vengeance against Indio that very much made him the sympathetic protagonist of the film, but in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, he returns very much to the type that saw him pigeonholed as henchmen in fifties Hollywood Westerns, although Angel Eyes badness is on a whole other level. He’s a ruthless killer that plays by no rules other than his own twisted moral code, and he wants that money as soon as he hears about it. He’s got no qualms in beating women, killing children, but he also has a dark twisted sense of humour that also makes him mesmerising on screen.


But the revelation of the film has to be Eli Wallach as Tuco, greedy, unprincipled, able to hold a grudge across a hundred miles of desert, profane, and he’s the funniest character in the film. He’s a man with absolutely no guile. He thinks he’s wily, duplicitous, and deceptive, but every thought he has, every scheme he concocts plays out on his face for all to see. For most of the movie it’s a double act between him and Blondie, a tit for tat relationship that develops after Blondie tires of using Tuco for his scam, and with Tuco as verbose as Blondie is tight-lipped, it’s a wonderful screen partnership. Tuco’s a font of pithy sayings and observations about the world, and the frequency with which he crosses himself, suggests a man who doesn’t really believe in God, but doesn’t want to take the chance either.


The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is a fantastic movie. Great characters, an epic story, eminently quotable dialogue, awesome music all go together to make one of my favourite films of all. And it is amazing, timeless cinema, take the L’Estasi dell’Oro scene in the graveyard, that has to be one of the most epic scenes in film history, as important and as influential as The Odessa Steps sequence from Battleship Potemkin, here perfectly blending visuals with music. This is definitely the cream of this collection, it’s just a shame that the disc isn’t quite up to par.

10/10

In Summary

If all three movies had Blu-ray transfers on a par with For a Few Dollars More, I’d be a very happy bunny. As it is, the quality of the first and third films leaves much to be desired. Although given that for years I watched these films again and again on VHS tapes of TV broadcasts before starting on the never ending home media upgrade ought to make me more forgiving. These discs are just about good enough to watch. But I would double dip again for The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, although not the colour corrected version. I’d prefer one that maintained the original colour timing and was the un-extended version, as I find that the newly dubbed scenes for the Special Edition tend to throw me out of the movie. I’d also want the original mono restored.