I hope Eureaka will have another crack at this on Blu-Ray (if they still have the license.) It’s been over a decade since they were going to make it, and we’ve had 4 BR releases from other companies so there’s hope for some kind of decent package. The Japanese trailer makes the BR release look great:
Curiously the JP release lists the run time as 110 minutes, so I wonder how they handled the SD scenes.
Reading around it sounds like Sollima’s original cut doesn’t exist anywhere anymore, and the uncut scenes are SD only due to deterioration or disappearance? I like the movie a lot but it definitely has that aura of “it could have been so much more” due to the missing chunks and pacing… Take Linda Veras’ character; she just appears from nowhere!
Does anyone know if the Eureka DVD booklet or French booklet expand on what got cut from Sollima’s original release btw?
This movie’s page in the SWDb has been upgraded to the new “SWDb 3.0” format. Please have a look and let us know if there’s something you can add (information, trivia, links, pictures, etc.)
A little info on the English language theatrical cut of ‘Face to Face’: a 102:19s/PAL 98:13s version was submitted to the BBFC for classification in 1968. After various cuts by John Trevelyan (who had clear distinctions of what is considered ‘art cinema’ and ‘commercial cinema’) it was passed A (suitable for adults) with a 93min runtime. This version was subsequently reclassified 15 for a VHS release in May, 1993.
A year later, ‘The Big Gundown’ fared no better with John Trevelyan’s scissors. The shortened US version (89:21s/PAL 85.47s) was duly trimmed to 85mins/PAL 82mins and rated A. The film was later reclassified AA (over 14s only) in July, 1970.
It’s weird to me that RMR and F2F had full english dubs before cuts but Gundown didn’t.
Soooo… trying to muddle through this: The cut English dub versions on DVD that run for 93mins are sourcing their audio from the VHS release? And the quality of that audio is generally ‘decent.’
The full uncut versions which include an English dub for the removed scenes (e.g on the Explosive’s DVD) are using the Fletcher/Technofilm 80s pre-code VHS? And that quality is quite low and hissy.
Makes you wonder how Technofilm managed to get the full dub and where it ended up.
The film was submitted to the BBFC for classification by Butcher’s Film Service - a British distribution company that specialised in low-budget productions. It’s likely they cut the film to 102mins prior to submitting it for classification.
The Fletcher/Technofilm VHS in all probability sourced the full dub from Butcher’s Film Service.
Sergio Solima and Sergio Cobuchi are my favorites amongst some other great spaghetti westerns directors. I just watch knowing it will be a great ride ,and it doesn’t disappoint.
So this was a surprise to come across; a betamax version of Technofilm’s Face to Face release. If I had a betamax player I’d nab it purely out of curiousity, especially since it might have better quality english audio for those deleted scenes. Although its a little worrying that the tape is untested/unlabeled…
£35 seems a lot to me, especially when I picked it up on VHS for 50 big pennies about 30 years ago.
The sound is much better than the Japanese DVD release, it’s the long cut and it’s semi- wide … not very wide, but does have some black masking top and bottom of the frame.
A fandub was made using the best BD available and the audio from this release, which our own friend, @autephex shared here … he did a great job too
A murdering maniac turns into a good guy and a good professor into a murdering maniac… The change of one of them would be hardly believeable, the change of both of them is just stupid.
When the murdering maniac turns into a good guy, the lawman let him go with something like “You are allright now buddy, you can go. I will cover for you.” Ok…
Hold your horses! … that’s a way too over simplification of the movie. Watch it again, and again and again. You’ll get it and appreciate the more you see it.
I think that’s a very good example of artistic licence … it’s a romantized version of the era, not a biographical story based on fact, although the political parallels of the time period the film was made and the action in the story have perhaps opened up closer scrutiny of the film’s ethics … Quien sabe!
It takes a few viewings to appreciate what Sergio Sollima was trying to say with this film.
It took me a while to take on board the complexities of personality change, and that was 30 year’s ago!!. I begin to understand it more now.
Briefly: I think that Beau recognises in Brad, how bad he has become himself, and that if he keeps on travelling the same path, he will be destroyed.
I go back to Sergio’s ideals…There is some good in bad people, and there is some bad in good people…In all people, there is something ugly.
Which one wins over is down to the individual.
It takes a mirror image, sometimes, to make us all realise how much we need to change for the better.
I hope that helps, compadre.
Sometimes, Diamond, we can get older and still not know which camp we are in…whether it be ‘The Good, The Bad, or The Ugly’.
In truth, I think that most people belong in all three.categories, which is what Leone was commenting on. How true he was.
There is something ugly in all of us.
We are on the same page. My interpretation is just the same and I agree with everything you wrote in the post above.
I just don’t find it very believeable that both of them would change. Always one person is dominant and affects the other one.
I know that SWs are not meant to be believeable but certain serious topics imo require certain aspect of believability. And I think there was not simply even time enough to properly develop the progress of both characters.
I think they overdid it. Wouldn’t it be much more effective if Beau did not give up and just left? If the lawman just told him he would chase him anyway for his past crimes and he said something like “I know…” and rode away? That’s how I would write it.
Anyway it is an interesting movie worth watching and thinking about.
