The Man with No Name Trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars / For a Few Dollars More / The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly) [Blu-
The Man with No Name Trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars / For a Few Dollars More / The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly) [Blu-ray]
- Condition: New
- Format: Blu-ray
- AC-3; Box set; Color; Dolby; DTS Surround Sound; Dubbed; Full Screen; Restored; Subtitled; Widescree
Sergio Leone “spaghetti westerns” did not simply add a new chapter to the genre…they reinvented it. From his shockingly violent and stylized breakthrough, A Fistful of Dollars, to the film Quentin Tarantino calls “the best-directed movie of all time,” The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Leone’s vision did for westerns what talkies did for all movies back in the 1920s: it elevated them to an entirely new art form. Fully restored, presented in high definition with their best-ever audio, an
List Price: $ 69.99
Price: $ 27.99
WTDK "If at first the idea is not absurd, the...
6 Dec, 2011
Over all a very good set although some minor issues with framing, use of DNR on two different films-Blu-ray Review,
Sergio Leone’s classic trilogy of films with Clint Eastwood arrives on Blu-ray (and also in a separate DVD release ) under “The Man with No Name” with varying results. All three films “Fistful of Dollars”, “For a Few Dollars More” and “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” (the last film previously released on Blu-ray before this set)have their individual issues but, on the whole, all three films have more positives than negatives when it comes to their debut on HD.
I’m going to skip the plot summaries since others have already done a good job with that.
“Fistful of Dollars” clearly isn’t the same transfer as the European edition; skin tones tend to be a bit red and the framing is a bit different than the European restored edition. I’m not sure if the original negative was accessed for this edition (I doubt it)but it could use a bit of restoration work.
Still, it looks pretty good with good detail. Overall the transfer looks quite good and digital noise reduction doesn’t mar this one quite as badly as it does “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” (which still looks good even with that issue). Audio sounds quite nice as well.I’d also note that fans should be prepared–it looks quite grainy but this is the way the film was shot and originally shown in theaters.
We get all the extras from the previous edition on DVD that was released in “The Man with No Name Trilogy” and “The Sergio Leone Collection” (the only difference between those two DVD releases was that “Duck You Sucker” was included starring James Coburn was part of that package).
“For a Few Dollars More” looks exceptionally good with nice detail, colors that mirror the overseas edition of the film and, again, the extras from the DVD edition. This is probably the best looking of the bunch here. Again, the film is grainy but thats the intended look of the film.
“The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” looks extremely good even with occasional heavy handed DNR applied to the film (more to do with eliminating grain since all three films were shot on film stock that tended to be extremely grainy to begin with). The detail is still surprisingly strong this doesn’t look as bad as, say, the latest edition of “Predator” where everyone has waxy skin completion but it isn’t quite as strong looking as “For A Few Dollars More” either.
Part of this could be due to the fact that “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” underwent a restoration some years back and this could an older HD print for the film whereas the other two films received more recent transfers. The overuse of digital noise reduction (which tends to reduce detail, cause skin textures to look smooth like wax but smoothes out grain often eliminating it if overused)was pretty common as recent as three to five years ago. That’s no excuse just the facts. I doubt given MGM’s current financial crisis and Fox’s recent trend towards overusing DNR (“Predator” again as an example for a recent catalog title or “Patton”)that we were going to get a new HD transfer. It’s not something that should prevent you from buying this set although you will notice it on TV sets 50 inches and above.
The video bit rate for all three movies is quite good with an average of 30Mbps (“Fistful” has the highest at 36 while “Good” which is the longest film of the three has the lowest at 26Mbps) which translates as a good, consistent picture.
Audio is strong for all three films. As previoulsy mentioned the extras from all three previously released DVDs are included as part of the set usually in standard definition though and on the same disc as the movie. We get multiple langauge tracks including English, Spanish, Hungarian, Italian and Turkish. Subtitles are available in English only.
All three films are packaged in a slimline 3 Blu-ray case with film credits printed on the inside of the outer sleeve. I would have liked to see Fox (which is handling MGM releases in the U.S.) include replicas of the lobby cards like they did with the previous single DVD sets and/or a booklet similar to the one that came with “The Sergio Leone Collection”.
So is the transfer for “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” and the framing issue for “Fistful” a deal breaker? No. You’ll enjoy these films and they really have never looked this good on home video before. Be aware however that there is a region free European edition that doesn’t have the framing issue for “Fistful” and the skin tones are a bit more muted for that restored edition. It all comes down to if you have a fistful of dollars to spend.
Most fans won’t notice these issues and for those that do there is an alternative should you want to pick up the European edition of the film.
So a total of 4 stars because of some minor issues with two films in the set. A note on the cover–for some reason Fox has chosen to reuse the cover from “The Sergio Leone…
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|mickey_one
6 Dec, 2011
Blu-ray review,
1. In a nutshell:
Picture quality:
- “Fistful”: 4/5
- “Few More”: 4.5/5
- “Good, Bad, Ugly”: 3,5/5
Region Free!
Widescreen 2.35:1
Audio: English, Spanish, French (German/Italian also on “Good, Bad, Ugly”)
Extras: seem to be the same as on 2-disc DVD sets.
NB: extraordinary audio commentary by Leone expert Christopher Frayling!
In my view this box set is a bargain (I ordered my copies for $29).
If you like these Leone films, then this 3-piece set should be a no-brainer.
2. For sprocket hole addicts (myself included):
All films of this “trilogy” (of course it wasn’t intended as such) were shot in “Techniscope” (i.e. 2 perforation holes instead of 4, as in “Cinemascope” ) hence cutting stock costs in half – unfortunately same goes for picture resolution. Therefore a slightly lesser picture quality than in usual Cinemascope Blu-ray transfers is the result. But this only adds to the intentional grittiness of Carlo Simi’s production design. Much better prints are not likely in the future.
Still these Blu-ray prints of the three movies differ in their picture quality with “Few More” being the best (except some minor visible stain at TC 00:04:09-56, Chpt. 2) followed by “Fistful” and “Good, Bad, Ugly” (due to excessive DNR processing).
Alternatives for the 3-disc box set?
- “Fistful” – you can also look for the Italian BD release from RHV (Ripleys Home Video; Region Free) available from bol.it.
- “Few More” – this BD is available seperately (for the price of this entire set!)
- “Good, Bad, Ugly” – you could wait for an enhanced BD version, but who knows when this will be around? “Good, Bad, Ugly” of course could use some improvement…
- Fox have put out a 4-disc BD set also including “Hang ‘em High” available from amazon.co.uk (RC? / picture quality? / audio?)
Overall these BDs look great – a definite improvement over DVDs – and are great fun to watch!! Audio commentary by Christopher Frayling (author of: “Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio Leone”, 1981) impressively marks the difference between informative vs. talkative (yes, Sir!) and provides you with everything you always wanted to know about these Leone films but didn’t know whom to ask… brilliant!!
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|M. Britton "crazy about movies"
6 Dec, 2011
stop with the ‘bad’ hype!!,
Hold on people…don’t believe the negative reviews of these fantastic transfers. Hate it when people downplay a product before its even released!! Got a hold of these and compared the ‘aspect ratio’ to the laserdiscs from 1990 (boy, did transfers come a long way) and it seems that even the laserdisc is not ‘perfect’ in its reproduction of these classics…so what if a little is cropped at the near bottom (many scenes show sloppy cinematography anyway-when Clint bends his head down out of the frame while eating at the Cantina in ‘Fistful’) these transfers beat the hell out of pan and scan ANYDAY!! Enjoy these immaculate transfers for what they are…low budget westerns filmed with low film stock (what do you expect from Techniscope anyway)and stop nit-pickin’ and give these films a chance. I too am very finicky about aspect ratios, but when all said and done it will be fifty bucks well spent (my only compaint-why wasn’t ‘Duck you suckers’ included with this fine Leone set?)
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