The Spaghetti Western thread

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

What's the dealio with Code Red's release of Margheriti's VENGEANCE? I'm assuming it's identical to the Anchor Bay (EDIT: Sorry, Image Entertainment, wasn't it?) DVD. Has anyone bought it?

[Andrew Monroe Pallid Hands Find all posts View Profile Close Andrew Monroe]

What's the dealio with Code Red's release of Margheriti's VENGEANCE? I'm assuming it's identical to the Anchor Bay (EDIT: Sorry, Image Entertainment, wasn't it?) DVD. Has anyone bought it?

I have it, Paul. It's an improvement on the old Image disc I think - was supposedly a new HiDef transfer - and it also has interviews with Richard Harrison and Alfredo Leone.

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

I have it, Paul. It's an improvement on the old Image disc I think - was supposedly a new HiDef transfer - and it also has interviews with Richard Harrison and Alfredo Leone.

Hmm. Thanks, Andrew. If it's an improvement, I might pick this up next time I order some discs from Code Red. I like the film quite a lot.

I watched COFFIN FOR THE SHERIFF at the weekend. I'd seen this one before. Not a bad film, but not brilliant either. The comic 'relief' (the town drunk) is annoying as heck. I think this version is a little longer than the Japanese disc I'd seen before; it seems to be composited from a couple of sources. The opening titles and some portions of the English dub seemed relatively 'new' (in comparison to other 1960s Italo-Westerns) to me too: I'm guessing that although this was shot in 1965, the English version wasn't prepared and released till the mid-1970s or thereabouts.

[Andrew Monroe Pallid Hands Find all posts View Profile Close Andrew Monroe]

I watched COFFIN FOR THE SHERIFF at the weekend. I'd seen this one before. Not a bad film, but not brilliant either. The comic 'relief' (the town drunk) is annoying as heck. I think this version is a little longer than the Japanese disc I'd seen before; it seems to be composited from a couple of sources. The opening titles and some portions of the English dub seemed relatively 'new' (in comparison to other 1960s Italo-Westerns) to me too: I'm guessing that although this was shot in 1965, the English version wasn't prepared and released till the mid-1970s or thereabouts.

I watched COFFIN FOR THE SHERIFF over the weekend too. I like the film; no, it's not a top tier spaghetti but it's a solid entry all the same. I do agree that old man grates...his dub voice is a familiar one. A nice juicy villain role for Fajardo, and Steffen's final accounting of him is quite brutal. One thing that bugs me is Steffen's hat - it's too small, haha. I'll have to check my dvd-r but I thought the WE print was kinda wonky - some weird motion blurring in spots (maybe a poor PAL conversion?), also the dub was slightly out of sync a time or two. Definitely sourced from a couple versions, and a couple lines subtitled.

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

Amazon now has a listing up for The Man With No Name Trilogy 4k remaster set here.

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

One thing that bugs me is Steffen's hat - it's too small, haha.

A common feature of Steffen's early SWs, as I recall, with it tilted slightly forward on his head to compensate

I'll have to check my dvd-r but I thought the WE print was kinda wonky - some weird motion blurring in spots (maybe a poor PAL conversion?), also the dub was slightly out of sync a time or two. Definitely sourced from a couple versions, and a couple lines subtitled.

That's what I thought too. I need to remember where my SPO DVD is.

Amazon now has a listing up for The Man With No Name Trilogy 4k remaster set here.

'Tis a nice idea, but I'm sticking with the Italian and German BDs of the first two films and waiting for a release of THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY that has the original mono track. (Alternatively, I might just give up on that, 'cause it seems it's never going to happen, and make my own version .)

[Richard--W a straight arrow Find all posts View Profile Close Richard--W]

...I watched COFFIN FOR THE SHERIFF at the weekend. I'd seen this one before. Not a bad film, but not brilliant either. The comic 'relief' (the town drunk) is annoying as heck. I think this version is a little longer than the Japanese disc I'd seen before; it seems to be composited from a couple of sources. The opening titles and some portions of the English dub seemed relatively 'new' (in comparison to other 1960s Italo-Westerns) to me too: I'm guessing that although this was shot in 1965, the English version wasn't prepared and released till the mid-1970s or thereabouts.

I watched COFFIN FOR THE SHERIFF over the weekend too. I like the film; no, it's not a top tier spaghetti but it's a solid entry all the same. I do agree that old man grates...his dub voice is a familiar one. A nice juicy villain role for Fajardo, and Steffen's final accounting of him is quite brutal. One thing that bugs me is Steffen's hat - it's too small, haha. I'll have to check my dvd-r but I thought the WE print was kinda wonky - some weird motion blurring in spots (maybe a poor PAL conversion?), also the dub was slightly out of sync a time or two. Definitely sourced from a couple versions, and a couple lines subtitled.

Didn't Jess Franco have something to do with A COFFIN FOR THE SHERIFF? I see his name attached to it here and there. I swear, it used to be listed under his name on imdb. But not anymore. I know it was listed because I scrolled over the directing credits, copied that, pasted it into a list worksheet so that I could start collecting his films. That was about three years. I'm still working off that worksheet, and it says A COFFIN FOR THE SHERIFF. But it's not on the imdb list now. Not under Franco, I mean.

[Andrew Monroe Pallid Hands Find all posts View Profile Close Andrew Monroe]

Didn't Jess Franco have something to do with A COFFIN FOR THE SHERIFF? I see his name attached to it here and there. I swear, it used to be listed under his name on imdb. But not anymore. I know it was listed because I scrolled over the directing credits, copied that, pasted it into a list worksheet so that I could start collecting his films. That was about three years. I'm still working off that worksheet, and it says A COFFIN FOR THE SHERIFF. But it's not on the imdb list now. Not under Franco, I mean.

No, I don't think Franco had any connection to A COFFIN FOR THE SHERIFF, Richard. I double checked a couple reference books on hand and came up with bupkis. The film was directed by Mario Caiano, who made quite a few of them - usually a reliable name for a good solid (if not outstanding) western by the way. I think this page covers most of Franco's spaghetti western links.

[Andrew Monroe Pallid Hands Find all posts View Profile Close Andrew Monroe]

I watched BLOOD AT SUNDOWN from the latest Wild East release over the weekend...the dub switches to unsubtitled Italian (or Spanish, it's been a couple days) for a line or two. Picture is okay, I didn't notice any glaring problems but between the admittedly minor audio glitches on this one and the things I mentioned about COFFIN FOR THE SHERIFF, I'd say this is one of WE's sloppiest releases to date. It's too bad because I do really like BLOOD AT SUNDOWN, it has an epic tragedy quality to it, a great, scenery-chewing villain role for Garko, and a terrific Michele Lacerenza score dominated by his mournful trumpet.

[Richard--W a straight arrow Find all posts View Profile Close Richard--W]

Coming soon from WildEast:

THOSE DIRTY DOGS 1974
Cast
Stephen Boyd: Chadwell
Gianni Garko: Korano
Renato Rossini: Younger
Simon Andreu: Angelo Sanchez
Harry Baird: Washington Smith
Theresa Gompers: Miss Adams
Director: Giuseppe Rosati
Anamorphic 16x9

WANTED 1967
cast:
Giuliano Gemma: Gary Ryan
GermíƒÂ¡n Cobos: Martin Heywood
Teresa Gimpera: Evelyn
Serge Marquand: Frank Lloyd
Daniele Vargas: Gold - il sindaco
Director: Giorgio Ferroni
Anamorphic 16x9

extras
INTERVIEW WITH TERESA GIMPERA
Italian trailers
English trailers
Picture galerries

[Jason C Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Jason C]

What's the best way to see FACE TO FACE?

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

What's the best way to see FACE TO FACE?

The German DVD from Explosive Media, I think, which contains both the English dub and the Italian language version - though be aware that not all of the film was dubbed into English. The UK Eureka DVD is the next best option, I reckon, which contains an equal presentation of the film - though only includes the Italian sound mix.

[Sundance Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Sundance]

The German DVD from Explosive Media, I think, which contains both the English dub and the Italian language version - though be aware that not all of the film was dubbed into English.

Maybe you mean that particular disc only(?), but an English track does exist for the entire film and the old OOP Japanese disc has that included. The quality in some parts isn't supposed to be very good though (I have the disc and I think I even watched it but I can't remember the quality if I did... xD ). Eureka didn't include English audio because they couldn't acquire good enough (for them) full track.

As far as the image quality goes, the Explosive Media disc has been DNRd and encoded with low bitrate (the low bitrate problem seems to be very common with EM's discs including their Blu-Rays) so as far as I'm concerned the old Koch disc looks better. I would expect the Eureka disc to look at least as good as the Koch but with much better subtitles (and the Koch disc is available only in the OOP Sollima box).
So either the Eureka for the probably better transfer (well I guess it depends on what you want from the transfer) or Explosive Media for the partial English soundtrack. Or if you absolutely need/want the full English track then go for the Japanese disc but its not even anamorphic and the current lowest used price at Amazon.co.jp is ~200$. ;)

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

Maybe you mean that particular disc only(?), but an English track does exist for the entire film and the old OOP Japanese disc has that included.

As I recall (though it's been a few years since I viewed mine), there are a few minutes in which the English track on the Japanese SPO disc dips into silence: there are a couple of sequences that were cut from the English language export version. (I seem to recall that the English dubbed export version ran for around 95 minutes, ten minutes shy of the running time of the domestic version.) The Explosive Media disc presents these scenes in Italian with English subtitles; the SPO just presents these scenes with no audio whatsoever when the English track is selected.

I've got the SPO disc upstairs. I'll dig it out later tonight and see if my memory is accurate.

[Sundance Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Sundance]

Well, now I'm not so sure about the issue anymore. :D But still consider more than likely the SPO disc has full audio. I can't remember any mention of it not having it when the Eureka disc was announced and discussed. Eureka was releasing the shorter version on Blu-Ray with English audio but upon learning there actually is a longer version of the film they changed plans but in the end ended up releasing Italian only DVD because no suitable HD master was available and the English audio for the longer version was too shitty. This was what one of their employees wrote at Blu-Ray.com at the time:

The English audio was taken from a sub standard source and, as with the hd master, just wasn't up to scratch. There was a loud audible hiss and loads of pops that try as we did we just couldn't make it work. This release has been a real effort for all involved, we are releasing it nearly 2 years after licensing it and after ploughing thousands of pounds into it. What we've arrived at is a release we are happy with, we would have loved to have had a blu-ray edition with both audio tracks but at this point in time it really isn't possible. We've had people all the way up the line working on it including Grimaldi's studio and we've just not been able to get all the elements. Hopefully we're releasing a disc that people will enjoy.

Well it doesn't really mention if the track they were working on was full length or not, but the shorter cancelled Blu-Ray release was only like a few weeks away from release when they learned of the longer version and that cancelled disc was going to have English audio so surely they must have had a good quality audio source for the shorter version? Or maybe there is a longer track yet even that isn't full length?

Like I said I have the SPO disc as well but unfortunately have no desire to go through it currently so I'll leave that task for your shoulders alone. Sorry about that. :P