DVDs in Review

The Spaghetti Westerns Blu-ray Trilogy (Sergio Leone)

Title: The Spaghetti Westerns Collection
('A Fistful of Dollars', 'For A Few Dollars More' &'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly') (Sergio Leone, 1964, 1965, 1966)

Release date: June 7 2010

Certificate: 18

Format: Blu-ray

RRP: £44.99

Rating: 5/5

Reviewed by Dave Lancaster

Few trilogies are more essential to anyone’s film collection than this. Sergio Leone’s ‘Spaghetti Western Trilogy’ is a near-flawless escape into the overly stylized world of the shoestring genre, spearheaded by the inimitable Clint Eastwood as the elusive Man With No Name.

The films included in this long awaited Blu-ray set are ‘A Fistful of Dollars’, ‘For a Few Dollars More’ and ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ – all three are classic films, each getting better as they go along, making this trilogy one of the few that saves its best film for last (even if some do argue that this isn’t really a trilogy at all).

To watch them back to back shows the genesis of the genius as Leone works with increasingly bigger budgets via more accomplished and layered scripts. These are stereotypical stories of corruptions in small towns, bounty hunts, train robberies and other well recognized iconography of the genre, delivered with little in the way of characterization, which on paper sounds bad but it should be remembered that first and foremost Sergio Leone is a visual artist. These are his masterworks.

Leone works with archetypes heavily to create easy reference points for his international audiences, even summing them up simply in the title of ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’, but it’s Eastwood’s star power that keeps the films leveled as Leone experiments with his camera. 

Eastwood’s iconic character is one which he’s saved throughout his entire career – the strong, silent type with a streak of calculated violence simmering under the surface – and it’s his underplaying that perfectly contrasts with Leone’s inventive style.

The combination is breathtaking – Leone expertly sets up a suspenseful series of highly stylized shots using extreme close-ups and vast scenary shots with his always kinetic cameras waltzing gracefully in time only for Eastwood to appear out of nowhere and coolly destroy it all, without playing up to the bold compositions. It jolts you.

But it isn’t just the acting styles and direction that made these films so iconic; it’s also Ennio Morricone’s wonderful score. Instantly recognizable and perfectly fitting, Morricone’s elegiac and operatic compositions soar high above the film, greatly aiding the atmosphere.  

There isn’t much extra that can be said about these established classics. Needless to say, if you’re a film fan and you haven’t had the pleasure to try these three, now is the perfect time. The Blu-ray transfers certainly aren’t flawless, but the specks and minor technical problems oddly add to the film’s charm – these aren’t supposed to be glossy. Here’s a list of the extras included in the box set:

A Fistful of Dollars

•    New featurette
•    Feature Commentary by noted Film Historian - Sir Christopher Frayling
•    A New Kind of Hero (Frayling on A Fistful of Dollars)
•    A Few Weeks in Spain: Clint Eastwood on the Experience of Making the Film
•    Tre Voci: Fistful of Dollars
•    Not Ready for Primetime
•    Hellman discusses the television broadcast of A Fistful of Dollars
•    The Network Prologue - with Harry Dean Stanton
•    Location comparisons: Then to Now
•    Radio spots
•    Trailer

For a Few Dollars More

•    New featurette
•    Feature Commentary by noted Film Historian - Sir Christopher Frayling
•    A New Standard (Frayling on For a Few Dollars More)
•    Back for More (Clint Eastwood remembers For a Few Dollars More)
•    Tre Voci: For a Few Dollars More
•    For a Few Dollars More: The Original American Release Version – Focuses on alternate scenes/alternate releases
•    Location comparisons
•    Radio spots
•    Trailer

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

•    Feature commentary from film historian Richard Schickel and Christopher Frayling
•    Leone’s West
•    The Leone Style
•    The Man Who Lost the Civil War
•    Reconstructing The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
•    Il Maestro: Ennio Morricone and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly                
•    Deleted scenes
•    Easter eggs