So is the English audio for the long version composited with Italian or German? Or is it the same language all throughout? Did they have to use different sources for the audio as well?
A complete English version exists from the UK version, which is (unlike the US version) identical to the Italian version
Wonderful! Thanks for the info!
I didnāt know that, I thought it was the same as the US release. Cheers
Is the German Blu-ray a composite or is there still missing footage?
The US MGM version contains 2 scenes not to be found in the 118 min Italian version ,which is identical to the UK version, and which is on the German Blu.
These 2 short scenes follow immediately after the credit sequence, and run together about 3:30 min. It seems that no Italian audio for these scenes exist, nor were they dubbed in any other language. The MGM is also in some other aspects a special one, as there are some flip cuts not to be found in the longer version.
Well, I wish they had done that composite version, as I like especially the 2nd scene very much. But then, it would not be an official version then.
Another question would be if there are any infos from Giraldi about the film. Was the Italian version his version, or did he had some of the usual producerās trouble.
Thanks the info. Itās a pity they didnāt include both cuts for people who want the option. I just ordered the German Blu-ray. Looking forward to watching it for the first time.
Just played the Colosseo release of Mehr Tot Als Lebendig on my Region A blu ray player. Apparently it works lol. Thought it might be interesting to anybody whoās in the US.
Just watched the long version as my 2nd Spagvember fest movie. Iād seen both versions before ā¦ and was just happy at that point to see any new SWs.
However, on my 3rd viewing I found this a real slog ā¦ Alex Cord is not my idea of a leading man ā¦ he has all the arrogant swagger but little charisma or likeability ā¦ and that nasal voice really irritated the hell out of me for nearly 2 hours.
The film has a great score and a virtual whoās who of SW character actors, plus some nice locations and situations ā¦ but it just drags and feels like it was aiming for a more artsy reception (lots of great closeups of tattered extras with sad music accompanying the scenes) but the main casting and lack of empathy for the characters, lets this down badly. Robert Ryan does ok, but Arthur Kennedy looks totally out of place and past his sell by date.
As mentioned above, this doesnāt really have a SW feel, apart from the scenes of extras whose costumes and period detail, (both rich and poor) would rival a Leone sequence. A wasted opportunity Iām afraid. 5/10 mainly because of production values ā¦ but the story is not engaging.
I deem the movie a lot more engaging than you do and I still think itās got a fairly spaghettiesque flavor, but I kind of get what youāre saying. On my recent re-watching of the film, I found the direction somewhat featureless and not strong enough, as though deficient in the visual domain. I still love the stark atmosphere and the grim tone of the spag, I like the story quite a bit too, but I dunno, it seems to be lacking in quite a few respects and the flick dropped out of my Top 20 exactly on this account. Itās still pretty good in my book though.
Probably should have watched the Italian audio version, therefore no Alex Cord nasal vocal to endure !
Just watched this on YouTube (the indispensable Grjngo channel), which has a good 117 minute print with the downbeat ending. The picture quality is oddly variable, even within scenes, and Iām not sure if this can be explained by the restoration of cut material. Like the first bootleg of it I watched, many years ago, it has the onscreen title Dove Vai, Ti Ammazzo (Wherever You Go, Iāll Kill You).
This film has been described as āa sickening, bloody messā (by Brian Garfield, who hated spaghetti westerns) and āappallingā (by Laurence Staig, who loved them). Yet when it was shown on British TV in the 70s (as Dead or Alive, in ITVās āThe Savage Westā season, if anyone remembers that), I recall one reviewer comparing it favourably to For a Few Dollars More, which the BBC was showing at the same time! (I was too young to watch it, either way). In fact, itās a decent enough western, and technically well done, but one that impresses me less each time I see it. McCord is so unsympathetic a character (and Cord such an uncharismatic presence) that you have to wonder why Laurinda falls for him, Cheap Charlie helps him and Governor Carter is so desperate to give him an amnesty. The film is also much too long. The original UK cinema release (which I havenāt seen) was cut to 89 minutes. I usually prefer to see a film as its maker intended but in this case it could have done with losing a few scenes. The UK version kept the downbeat ending, though.
Nice. Thanks for sharing that
I see everyone talking about a happy ending and a not happy ending but never actually describe the happy ending (maybe I missed it this is a long thread started many many years ago)
Iāve only seen the unhappy ending
Clay is shot as heās leaving town by two bounty hunters (shot like 6 times)
So how does he survive that for a happy ending or do they just end it prior to him being shot as if it doesnāt happen and hence a happy ending?
Can someone whoās seen the happy ending explain thanks in advance
Oh and the version Iāve seen is 2 minutes and change shy of 2 Hours on You tube
Exactly that.
He just rides off. No bad guys lying in wait for him.
I just watched this movie on DVD (MGM western legends, region 1) and watched the happy ending riding off into the hills.
Then, I fast tracked it on youtube to check out the film locations when I discovered the extra footage to give the unhappy ending.
A few seconds can make such a difference - I did like the happy ending but the alternative is more SW.
I will have to see it. This film is one of my favorites.
Chipping in after 13 years, but spot-on.
āRedemptionā is a joke on every level here - both for the outlaws chasing after the amnesty represented on the crappy painted pasteboard scene in the middle of town, and for the bounty hunters who end up with a corpse no-one will buy back from them (Lat. redemptere).
For me the irony and moral greyness - so SW - is there throughout. I donāt at all see Robert Ryanās Governor Carter as an entirely positive figure, rather as a highly political animal with a whim of iron. He first creeps into town incognito, as if pulling some form of surreptitious surveillance (cf. the Duke in Shakespeareās Measure for Measure). And his amnesty has all the appearance of an electioneering publicity stunt. Meanwhile, Kennedyās Sheriff Colby, a loathsome manipulator who utilizes the services of bounty killers to pick off outlaws whose only crime is poverty, certainly stinks. But in the final scenes, he does suggest an ends-justify-the-means coherence behind his actions: for him thereās no guarantee against recidivism, a view Kraut and his buddies, with their outspoken rejection of amnesty, have already done much to substantiate. Plus which heās the guy who gets out on the roof to stop the fire and becomes a problematic self-sacrificing hero. Then again, what does recidivism mean in the world the film represents? Is McCordās request for money to set himself up so crazy, given what seems to happen to the poor, whose only road once pardoned would lead back into outlawry and the tyrant kingdom of Escondido? A no-win situation all round indeed.
And thatās to ignore the complex protagonist, with his strange Freudian symptom which seems to have a life far in excess of what finally turns out to be a physiological cause. To me, the movieās German title gets it exactly right. But thatās another story.
I also love Rusticelliās clouds of late-Romantic sound, even if the grim ā and obviously correct ā ending is slightly spoilt by some heavy-handed musical point-making. More usually in this film the music has a quietly unsettling, estranging effect.
Easily in top 15, almost certainly top 10 for this viewer.
Just to note: I was really sad to find out that Alex Cord died the day before yesterday (August 9). Obviously this wonderful film - which aināt budging from my top 10-15 SWs, and which shows me something new every time I watch it - wouldnāt be what it is without his superb performance. Dour, dogged, impatient with comforting illusions whether they are his or anotherās, this dead man walking is a creation both haunting and moving. When he takes his $50 from Robert Ryanās thoroughly pissed-off governor with a grunted āThat it?ā, surrounded by the wreckage of the amnesty scheme - tattered bunting hanging and flapping in the wind, early-morning clouds of dust, townspeople eyeing with fear and anger the man they think lost them their sheriff and doctor - weāre confronted with a character too far gone to fake amiability, and, it seems, an actor who doesnāt compromise. I donāt know what else Cord did, and for all I know his other work may have been so-so. But in this role, I think, he touches greatness.