Spaghetti Western Collection [Blu-Ray]

A Fistful of Dollars launched the spaghetti Western and catapulted Clint Eastwood to stardom. Based on Akira Kurosawa's 1961 samurai picture Yojimbo, it scored a resounding success (in Italy in 1964 and the U.S. in 1967), as did its sequels, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The advertising campaign promoted Eastwood's character--laconic, amoral, dangerous--as the Man with No Name (though in the film he's clearly referred to as Joe), and audiences loved the movie's refreshing new take on the Western genre. Gone are the pieties about making the streets safe for women and children. Instead it's every man for himself. Striking, too, was a new emphasis on violence, with stylized, almost balletic gunfights and baroque touches such as Eastwood's armoured breastplate.

In the second film, For a few Dollars more, in Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Western trilogy (A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS being the first and THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY the last), the Man with No Name (Clint Eastwood) teams up with gunslinger Colonel Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef) in order to extract reward money from Indio (Gian Maria Volonte), a mean and vicious bandit. There is little doubt as to No Name's financial intentions in the hunt, but Mortimer seems to be driven by something a bit deeper. A series of flashbacks (which would become a Leone signature device) provides the background for Colonel Mortimer's anger and desire for revenge. Morricone's score combined with Leone's trademark long and lingering shots bring the viewer ever closer to the human side of the Man with No Name. Although the film was not released in the United States until 1967, it was produced and released internationally in 1965.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Clint Eastwood reprised the role of a taciturn, enigmatic loner. Here he searches for a cache of stolen gold against rivals the Bad (Lee Van Cleef), a ruthless bounty hunter, and the Ugly (Eli Wallach), a Mexican bandit. Though dubbed "the Good," Eastwood's character is not much better than his opponents -- he is just smarter and shoots faster. The film's title reveals its ironic attitude toward the canonized heroes of the classical western. "The real West was the world of violence, fear, and brutal instincts," claimed Leone. "In pursuit of profit there is no such thing as good and evil, generosity or deviousness; everything depends on chance, and not the best wins but the luckiest." Immensely entertaining and beautifully shot in Techniscope by Tonino Delli Colli, the movie is a virtually definitive "spaghetti western," rivaled only by Leone's own Once Upon a Time in the West. 

• Actors: Klaus Kinski, Mario Brega, John Wels, Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach
• Directors: Sergio Leone
• Format: Anamorphic, Colour, PAL, Widescreen
• Language English 
• Number of discs: 3
• Classification: 18
• Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment 
• Run Time: 390 minutes

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