Smjango's Spaghetti Westerns

The Price of Power - Ocean Pictures DVD

2010-02-10T19:52:00.001+02:00

Ocen Pictures DVDs are a mixed bunch. Some of them are good quality prints while others look like 2nd generation VHS copies. One of their best releases is also one of the best spaghetti westerns ever, Tonino Valerii's The Price of Power. I haven't got the Japanese SPO DVD at hand to compare but I'd say that they are about the same quality. Picture is non-anamoprhic as almost always with Ocean but it's very clean and sharp print. English dub track is also very good. Exact running time of this release is 107 minutes 17 seconds counting out the black screens.

Extra feature are nothing special; another self-made trailer, a collection of DVD covers for other Ocean releases and a picture gallery of one (1) picture. Portuguese dub and optional Portuguese subtitles are included.

I haven't seen the Alfa Digital bootleg myself but knowing that company's habit of stealing prints from other companies, I don't see any reason to buy it.

Some screenshots from the Ocean Pictures DVD:

http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/5549/priceofpowerocean.png

Requiescant - DVD comparison

2010-02-10T18:40:00.012+02:00

Requiescant

Wild East R0 (USA) vs. Ocean Pictures R0 (Brazil)

Aspet ratio (1.66:1) and running time (102 minutes) for these two releases are the same. Both have English dub.

Wild East release has much better extras of course; an interview with Lou Castel, photo gallery and some trailers. Ocen Pictures release only has a 'trailer' that is obviously made by Ocean Pictures and is not the original theatrical trailer. It also has Portuguese dub and optional Portuguese subtitles.

It's the print quality that makes the difference; the Ocean Pictures release is brighter and has more details. It's sligtly sharper too. The difference probably isn't big enough to make anyone buy both releases but Ocean DVD is a good choice for those who missed the Wild East release that has been long out of print now.

Ocean pictures (top) vs. Wild East (bottom)

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/9684/requiescant1.png

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/5154/requiescant2.png

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/6940/requiescant3.png

The Last Ride to Santa Cruz

2009-08-03T19:49:00.021+03:00

Der letzte ritt nach Santa Cruz
West Germany / Austria 1964
directed by Rolf Olsen
starring Mario Adorf, Edmund Purdom, Marianne Koch, Klaus Kinski & Marisa Mell

Released by Eyecatcher Movies with 2 different covers.

This new German DVD release of relatively little-seen The Last Ride to Santa Cruz is disappointing to say at least. Good things first: the DVD is indeed longer than the German VHS version. Eyecatcher DVD runs 93 minutes 10 seconds while German VHS runs only 86 minutes 58 seconds. Sounds quality is also good. That's about it.

The problems are numerous: first of all, the DVD release doesn't have English subtitles. This is the first Eyecatcher western release without English dub or subtitles that I'm aware of. Second, the picture quality isn't really up to par with DVD standards. Colors are ok but picture is very soft and more like average VHS quality. Third, the DVD is 1.75:1 while German VHS is 1.85:1. What's even worse, the DVD is clearly cropped from top & bottom to make it more widescreen. So what we get is about 1.66:1 widescreen print cropped to 1.75:1 and thus missing much picture information from all four sides! See screenshot comparison below to see how much is missing.

Screenshots from Eyecatcher DVD:

Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2
Screenshot 3

Comparison between DVD & VHS releases. Notice the cropping.

Eyecatcher DVD:

German VHS:

Eyecatcher DVD:

German VHS:

Avisa a Curro Jiménez

2009-04-10T17:59:00.008+03:00

This little known adventure film isn't exactly a spaghetti western but close enough to be reviewed here. Based on a Spanish TV series Curro Jiménez (1976-1978), it tells about the adventures of Curro Jiménez (Sancho Gracia) in 18th century Spain. Jiménez is a Zorro-style adventurer who, accompanied by his loyal comrades (who double as films comic reliefs), fights the evil ones, falls in love with a beautiful lady, tries to find a treasure and so forth. Having not seen the original TV series I can't compare but at least the film version is far too heavy on drama and light on action for those who don't speak Spanish. It is interesting to note that western specialist Rafael Romero Marchent, after helming this film, immediately made two El Lobo Negro films that are very much in tune with Curro Jiménez. Action scenes take place mostly during the final third and include few nice shootouts, fistfights and the film's real highlight, a traditional Spanish duel with knives.

Filmax released Avisa a Curro Jiménez (1978) some months ago on DVD as a double feature with The Shadow of Zorro (Cabalgando hacia la muerte - El Zorro, 1962), an above average Zorro film starring Frank Latimore and directed by Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent. Both films have non-anamorphic 2.35:1 picture and Spanish 2.0 audio. The Shadow of Zorro looks exactly like my old Spanish tape release by Major Video, with some flickering and grain. Curro Jiménez has better colours and less grain, but dialogue has some background hiss throughout the film. Otherwise it's a good release by Spanish standards, with both films on separate DVDs. Those interested can watch clips from the TV series from Youtube, just search for "Curro Jimenez". This is one of the best:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAwQ-x0qbrc

Hobby & Work DVDs

2009-03-01T01:31:00.025+02:00

Hobby & Work is a strange case. They must be the most active company in Italy when it comes to releasing spaghetti westerns but for some reason their DVDs are not available in most Italian online shops and it's hard to find any concrete information about them. Only Kult Video has a small selection of their releases, unfortunately none of the really interesting ones. Among the more well-known titles they have also released some rarities like Okay sceriffo (1964) and Spirito Santo e le 5 magnifiche canaglie (1972). Quality of their DVDs seems to vary from excellent anamorphic transfers to fullscreen of Tex e il signore degli abissi (1985). Beware, their release of Sartana nella valle degli avvoltoi (1970) is said to be cut from original 95 minutes to 78 minutes! Below is the most complete list of their spaghetti releases I have found so far. It's still missing films, since I have also found a DVD cover for I magnifici 3 (1961) carrying their logo. If anyone knows more about this company or where to get their releases, I'd be grateful.

Known Hobby & Work spaghetti western releases:

01 Tex e il signore degli abissi
02 Il bianco, il giallo, il nero
03 O' Cangaceiro
04 Garringo
05 La belva
06 Al di là della legge
07 Spara, gringo, spara
08 Il ritorno di Clint il solitario
09 Una pistola per cento bare
10 Quella sporca storia nel west
11 Vivi o preferibilmente morti
12 Una nuvola di polvere, un grido di morte… arriva Sartana
13 Da uomo a uomo
14 Cipolla Colt
15 Sentenza di morte
16 Il pistolero dell'Ave Maria
17 Sartana nella valle degli avvoltoi
18 ...E continuavano a fregarsi il milione di dollari
19 7 winchester per un massacro
20 Roy Colt e Winchester Jack
21 All'ombra di una colt
22 Matalo!
23 I sette del Texas
24 Lo credevano uno stinco di santo
25 Lo chiamavano Tresette, giocava sempre col morto
26 Per un dollaro di gloria
27 Vendetta per vendetta
28 Di tresette ce n'è uno tutti gli altri son nessuno
29 Chiedi perdono a Dio... non a me
30 Johnny Texas
31 Spirito Santo e le 5 magnifiche canaglie
32 Domani passo a salutare la tua vedova... parola di Epidemia
33 Shango, la pistola infallibile
34 Così sia
35 Un genio, due compari e un pollo
36 Arriva Sabata...
37 Uomo avvisato mezzo ammazzato... parola di Spirito Santo
38 Una donna chiamata Apache
39 Minnesota Clay
40 Dio in cielo... Arizona in terra
41 Te Deum
42 Amore, piombo e furore
43 La banda J&S - Cronaca criminale del Far West
44 Il figlio di Django
45 El Macho
46 Okay sceriffo
47 Bastardo, vamos a matar
48 Lo irritarono... e Santana fece piazza pulita
49 Tutti per uno, botte per tutti
?? I magnifici 3

Inferno bianco

2009-02-28T02:02:00.020+02:00

aka White Hell
Directed by Emiliano Ferrera & Stefano Jacurti

This spaghetti western from 2006 has escaped my attention until last Thursday, when I found a topic from Gente Di Rispetto forum in which the film was mentioned. Obviously it's a horror western of some sorts and reminds me a bit of Ravenous (1999). For an amateur production it looks promising, with nice black & white photography and effective music. According to film's MySpace site it won the first place at Tentacoli Film Festival. Running time: 82 minutes.

Trailer at YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzyPote_piw

Film's official MySpace site (in Italian):
http://www.myspace.com/infernobianco

Torrejón City

2009-02-27T00:48:00.004+02:00

This Spanish DVD released last December is a must for those who, like me, are on a quest to see every spaghetti western ever made. To my knowledge Torrejón City (1962) has never been released anywhere since it's theatrical run, making it one of genre's "Holy Grails" until now. From what I understood, this spaghetti comedy is about a stranger who's mistaken for a famous bandit "Tim el Malo" and thus unintentionally wreaks havoc in Torrejón City. After getting apologized (and appointed to sheriff!) he meets his "evil twin" and they make up a plot to get rid of Tim's bad reputation. I surely missed some of the fun since I don't speak Spanish but nevertheless the film felt like a bunch of semi-improvised dialogue scenes and stupid jokes hastily thrown together and rates as Klimovsky's worst western. Vellavision DVD has reasonably sharp & colourful non-anamorphic 1.66:1 widescreen picture and two Spanish audio tracks, 2.0 stereo and 5.1 mix. Film info, Leblanc's filmography, picture gallery and trailers for few non-western releases are included as extras.

Spanish spaghetti DVDs: misinformed again

2009-02-22T04:00:00.000+02:00

After getting new Spanish DVDs of Four Dollars of Revenge (Jaime Jesus Balcazar, 1966) and Dynamite Jim (Alfonso Balcazar, 1966) I must say that the company that released them, Llamentol, has made a good job at misinforming their customers. The worst mistake is that, whether Llamentol's fault or not, most Spanish online shops claim that both titles have English dub, which is not true. Instead, Four Dollars of Revenge has Spanish & French 5.1 audio while Dynamite Jim has only Spanish 2.0. Running times are also wrong - Four Dollars of Revenge runs 83 minutes 57 second (according to DVD cover: 89 minutes approx) while Dynamite Jim runs 81 minutes 4 seconds (cover: 85 minutes approx). On the brighter side, they are both 1.85:1 widescreen and not fullscreen as claimed.

Both films have also been released in the U.S. by bootleg label Televista in fullscreen versions.

An introduction to this blog

2009-02-22T00:17:00.000+02:00

Greetings, spaghetti western aficionados!

First of all, do not expect this to be a very active blog updated daily, since it won't be. I used to post to Spaghetti Western Web Board but because of virus problems I have not visited that site for a long time and, after hearing that Tom Betts has started his own "Westerns... All'Italiana!" blog to post film & actor files, I decided to join Blogger too. Being a member makes it easier to check for updates and find other similar blogs. I created this blog primarily to get my want list online for all those interested in spaghetti trades but time to time news about Italian and Spanish DVD releases and other genre-related random info I have stumbled upon will be posted also. In short, I will post here everything I used to post to SWWB in the past!