MAN, PRIDE AND VENGEANCE (1967)

MAN, PRIDE AND VENGEANCE (1967)

Label: Blue Underground 

Region Code: region FREE

Rating: Unrated

Duration: 100 Minutes

Audio: English DTS-HD MA Mono, Italian DTS-HD MA Mono with Optional English SDH, French, Spanish, English for Italian Version Subtitles 

Video: HD Widescreen (2.35:1)

Director: Luigi Bazzoni

Cast:  Franco Nero, Tina Aumont, Klaus Kinski, Franco Ressel

Synopsis: When stalwart Spanish soldier Don Jose (Franco Nero of DJANGO) meets the stunningly beautiful Carmen (Tina Aumont of TORSO), he becomes instantly obsessed with the mysterious gypsy woman. After discovering she has cheated on him with his Lieutenant, Jose kills the officer during a brawl and flees the city. Forced to become a bandit, Jose partners with Carmen's villainous husband Garcia (Klaus Kinski of FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE) to rob a stagecoach and prove his love for the seductive femme fatale. 

This one is also deceptively known as With Django Comes Death and stars g the steely-eyed Franco Nero (Django) as Don Jose, a Spanish soldier who becomes absolutely intoxicated by a gorgeous young gypsy woman named Carmen (Tina Aumont).  Thus unhealthy infatuation with the young woman pulls him into her world of thievery and smuggling despite his noble intentions, so enraptured by her wide-eyed beauty he is willing to risk imprisonment to have her to himself, and what guy hasn't been there, am I right? 

What we come to find out is that the young Carmen is quite a manipulator of men, now blinded by lust Jose is powerless to deny the attraction, which puts him on the run from the law when he accidentally murders a superior officer with whom Carmen is involved with. Carmen has the tendency to bring out the green-eyed monster in men, and it's hard to fault him for it, she's quite a vision.

Now on the run as a wanted murderer Jose joins a group of thieves with which Carmen is affiliated and begins planning a heist in hopes of grabbing enough money to begin a new life together in America. A wrench is thrown into the works when Carmen's estranged husband, played by the mad man Klaus Kinski, shows up things turn from bad to worse when treachery and jealousy erupt between the men. 

Man, Pride and Vengeance strays from the typical Spaghetti Western tropes of vengeance, violence and gun play and focuses more on the manipulation and betrayal of Don Jose, whose blind desire for a pretty face proves to be his undoing. This one is deliberately paced and punctuated with some stunning cinematography, if you're looking for an Italian Western that offers something different with a bit more emotional depth Man, Pride and Vengeance is quite a find. 

Audio/Video: Blue Underground presents Man, Pride and Vengeance on Blu-ray for the very first time in North America with a brand new HD transfer sourced from the original negative. At first glance this is quite a sight, wonderfully saturated colors come through vibrantly but upon closer inspection we have some odd digital noise infiltrating the image, sort of masking the fact that the fine detail is lacking. In fact the grain structure seems off. Not sure what exactly is going on here but the digital noise seems to masking a lack of film grain, the natural grain should be alive and move with the image but this is something different. Nero's blue officer's uniform and piercing blue eyes pop off the screen, but the black levels seem to suffer quite a bit during a fantastic knife fight towards the end of the film, the intense action is difficult to follow with poor contrast and shadow detail, which is unfortunate as the knife fight between Kinski and Nero is rather intense. 

Audio options include both the original Italian DTS-HD MA Mono audio and the English-dub, both are solid but I found the English dubbing of Carmen to grate on my nerves, the character is already a manipulative woman but the dubbing makes every line overwrought and insufferable. 

Extras on the disc include an informative Audio Commentary with Journalists C. Courtney Joyner and Henry C. Parke who seem to be the go-to guys for Italian Western commentaries, having done commentary for both The Big Gundown and Companeros recently. There's also interviews with Franco Nero and Camera Operator Vittorio Storaro who fondly recall their longtime friendship with each other and director Luigi Bazzoni and what a joy it was to come together on the project. Finishing up extras are a selection of trailers and a poster and stills gallery. 

Special Features: 

- Audio Commentary with Journalists C. Courtney Joyner and Henry C. Parke (

- Interview with Star Franco Nero and Camera Operator Vittorio Storaro

- International Trailer

- Italian Trailer

- Poster and Still Gallery

Spaghetti Western fans might be a slightly disappointed by the lack of gun play and epic showdowns, but this is a pretty decent tale of infatuation, lust and betrayal with a great finale bolstered by some fine cinematography. Man, Pride and Vengeance is yet another gem of an Italian Western cinema now on Blu-ray courtesy of the folks over at Blue Underground, only slightly marred by an odd PQ quirk. *** 3/5 

EUROCRIME! THE ITALIAN COP AND GANGSTER FILMS THAT RULED THE '70S (2014)

EUROCRIME! 

THE ITALIAN COP AND GANGSTER FILMS THAT RULED THE '70S (2014)

Label: Cinema Epoch

Duration: 127 Minutes

Region Code: 1

Rating: Unrated

Video: Anamorphic Widescreen (1.78:1) 

Audio: English, Italian  Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0 

Director: Mike Malloy
Cast: Franco Nero, John Saxon, Henry Silva, Luc Merenda, Antonio Sabáto, Fred Williamson, Richard Harrison, Chris Mitchum, Enzo Castellari, Leonard Mann, Joe Dallesandro, Michael Forest, Claudio Fragasso, John Steiner Ottaviano Dell'Acqua, Mario Caiano, Nicoletta Machiavelli, John P. Dulaney, Greg Stephen, Sal Borgese, Ted Rusoff

Something I didn't even know I was yearning for was a comprehensive documentary about the high octane Eurocrime police films coming out of Italy in the 1970s following the decline of the lucrative spaghetti westerns. At first these films were out and out copycats of American angry cop films like DIRTY HARRY but the Italians quickly made it something all their own by informing their stories with the true life violence of the era. The format usually dealt with an angry cop fed up with crime but also infuriated by the bureaucracy and red tape that prevented them from taking the scum off the streets ending with a fed-up cop pushed over the edge and taking things into their own hands with bloody consequences.

Mike Malloy's two hour plus documentary covers all the facets from  Enzo Castellari's HIGH CRIME (1973) starring Franco Nero (DJANGO) onward offering up a steady stream of movie posters, clips and talking heads. We gets some great info about the second career it offered both seasoned Italian and American actors and just which films were ripping off what other films. Some of the dialogue comparisons are quite fun and just a cunt hair short of being verbatim.

The interviews with John Saxon, Henry Silva and Franco Nero are my favorite with candid and often funny recollections of making these oftentimes misogynist crime thrillers under suspect and hurried circumstances.

Plenty of tales of shooting death defying stunts and action sequences peppered with live ammunition - the spaghetti western may have died off but the down and dirty nature of some of these shoots are right out of the wild west.

I've seen only a handful of Eurocrime capers from the likes of Blue Underground and Raro Video so it was a treat to sit down with  this and just take notes with pen and pad jotting down names of films to further my Italian crime education - this was quite an introduction to a sub genre of Italian cinema that has eluded me for the most part.

There's a metric ton of interviews crammed into this, it's a veritable who's who of Eurocrime cinema spread out over two hours and divided up into chapters with a great soundtrack from Calibro 35 among others. The editing is down and dirty and not overly glossy and that's just fine by me, this is a great documentary packed with more info than I could ever hope to absorb in one sitting. The passion for the genre by the filmmakers is dripping off screen and makes for an electrifying watch one critique might me that at over 120 minutes it's a bit long in the tooth and might wear out the less initiated but not me, I wanted it to on for another hour! 

If you have a curiosity for Eurocrime and Italian cinema I strong encourage you to seek this out and immerse yourself in the glory of the action-packed and ultra-violent Eurcrome cinema of the '70s, a damn fine documentary.

COMPANEROS (1970)

COMPANEROS (1970)

Label: Blue Underground

Release Date: October 28, 2014
Region Code: Refion FREE

Rating: Unrated 

Duration: 115 Mins. / Italian: 119 Mins.

Audio: English and Italian DTS-HD Mono with Optional English SDH, French, Spanish, English Subtitles for Italian Version
Video: 1080p Widescreen (2.35:1) 

Director: Sergio Corbucci

Cast: Franco Nero, Tomas Milian, Fernando Rey, Karin Schubert, Jack Palance

SYNOPSIS: 
Yodlaf Peterson (Franco Nero of DJANGO) is a suave Swedish arms dealer with a love for fast money. Vasco (Tomas Milian of TRAFFIC) is a trigger-happy Mexican bandit with a hate for suave Swedish arms dealers. But when the two men team up to kidnap a professor who holds the key to a fortune in gold, they find themselves hunted by the American army, stalked by a marijuana-crazed sadist (Academy Award winner Jack Palance) and trapped in the middle of a revolution about to explode. Can these two enemies blast their way across Mexico together without killing each other first?

THE FILM: 
Here we have another Zapata Western of the Italian persuasion from director Sergio Corbucci (DJANGO) set during the Mexican revolution. The film Western legends Franco Nero (DJANGO) and Tomas Milan (DJANGO KILL). Milan portrays a Mexican bandit El Vasco who wears a beret which gives home a certain Che Guevara flavor. Vasco's not the sharpest tool in the shed which makes him useful to the self appointed rebel leader General Mongo (José Bódalo) who sends him into battle. The red-coated Mongo is more interested in personal gain than the revolution so it's always handy to have a few good disposable men at your disposal and Vasco fits the bill.

When a dapper Swedish arms dealer Yodlaf (Nero) arrives on scene to sell weapons to Mongo we discover that his payment is locked away in the impenetrable town vault and only the counter revolutionary leader Professor Xantos (Frenando Rey) knows the combination. He's currently imprisoned at an American Army base on the other side of the border and Vasco and Yodlaf must team-up to free te non-violent revolutionary. 

What makes the film here is the adversarial buddy-relationship between the slow-witted Vasco and the blue-eyed Swede, which is also very much what made THE BIG GUNDOWN such a fun watch which also starred Milan as the rough and tumble Mexican. As a Zapata Western there's certainly some political leanings to the film but for me the humor and camaraderie are what pulled me in and pushed me through - this is a wonderful watch and comedy tends to be painted in broad strokes. Milan is very much the straight man - a dapper stranger in a strange land who plays the opposition against each other to his benefit. Milan is sort of a low-life who cannot stand the well-dressed foreigner he has been assigned to. He mockingly refers to the well-dressed Swede as a "penguin" and the two double-cross and trade barbs with each other.

A particularly fun scene has Penguin at the wrong end of a noose balanced precariously on top of a barrel. Having just been betrayed by the Swede Vasco takes his sweet time freeing the arm dealer and with no small amount of taunting before doing so, these two are dynamite together - even more so than Milan's teaming with Lee Van Cleef (ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK) in THE BIG GUNDOWN. 

The performances are captivating and the chemistry of the two actors is undeniable - it's a damn shame this was they're only team-up onscreen. Also making a memorable appearance is Jack Palance as a weed-smoking mercenary with a vendetta against the Swede. He's a colorful character with a wooden hand and a pet hawk named Marshall (or Matilda in the English version), the back story is a fun one, he plays it cool but there's that Palance menace just beneath that nightmarish grin. Fernando Rey as the non-violent counter-rebel leader gives the film quite a bit of soul it wouldn't have had otherwise. 

There's a lot of nice character touches throughout that just add to the film in small ways beginning with the question of why the Swede gave Vasco a dollar upon meeting him - the question nags at the Mexican throughout the film. Another weird touch is professor Xantos discovering the younglings of a rare species of turtle which he carries with him, at the end of the day neither are significant to the story but help paint are more colorful image including references to DJANGO with someone dragging a coffin from a graveyard and the machine gun making an appearance. 

A fun film from start to finish but the film does strike a nice balance with the violence we've come to expect from the sub-genre with some excellent exchanges of gunfire, violence, bridges blowing up, hangings and bursts brute force but it never once loses the comedic edge. 

The visuals are top-notch and the cinematography is excellent, the sweaty Western visuals are framed nicely, just on a visual level this is a knockout. Adding immensely to the film is another stand-out score for Ennio Morricone (THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY) that stays with you long after the movie ends. 

BLU-RAY: 
COMPANEROS (1970) arrives on Blu-ray from Blue Underground with a brand-new transfer sourced from the original negative. Colors are uniformly strong and vibrant with black levels and shadow detail scoring high marks - this is a great looking disc with some nice clarity and moments of fine detail in the close-up shots.  There are two versions of the film on the disc, a 115 minute English version and the 119 minute Italian version which adds a few additional scenes including the "death to the oppressors" opening scene.

Audio options include an English DTS-HD Mono track for the English version and both DTS-HD Mono Italian and English for the extended Italian version with Optional English subtitles for both.

Onto the extras we have the 17 minute featurette from the 2001 Anchor Bay disc presented in standard-def. Nero speaks about his preference to play foreigners and to use his own voice in his Westerns while Milan address the fact that he could be a very difficult actor to work with and using his beret in the film as a prop to enhance his character. Both stars speak about their somewhat adversarial relationship during filming. They also recall working with the the imposing Jack Palance and director Sergio Corbucci with Nero glossing over his falling out with Corbucci with whom he did not collaborate with again following this film. 

There's a new audio commentary from Journalists C. Courtney Joyner and Henry Parke who have also done commentaries for THE GRAND DUEL (1972) and THE BIG GUNDOWN (1967). It's quite a good listen as the two are deeply versed in the genre and add a lot of insights into the cast, context and making of the film. 

Extras are finished up with a selection of stills, TV spots and trailers including an electrifying Italian trailer comprised of still shots and animation. 

SPECIAL FEATURES
- Audio Commentary with Journalists C. Courtney Joyner and Henry Parke
- In The Company Of Companeros - Interviews with Stars Franco Nero, Tomas Milian and Composer Ennio Morricone (17 minutes)
- International Trailer (1 minute)
- Italian Trailer (1 minute)
-Poster and Still Gallery (31 Images)

VERDICT:
Not as excessively violent as Sergio Corbucci's classic Spaghetti Western DJANGO (1966) but  just as enjoyable on another level. A top notch Italian Western infused with a fun buddy movie chemistry from Milan and Nero and some effective bursts of violence that punctuate the film. Blue Underground have done a fantastic job with the transfer and there's a decent set of extras, any fan of Spaghetti Westerns and the Zapata sub-genre in particular should jump on this without reservation.