As an early birthday present, I received Explosive Media’s 2-disc set of “Face to Face”. A brilliant film - not as exciting as “The Big Gundown”, but far more philosophical and thematically complex. I asked for the EM release because I wanted to listen to the English dub (not found on the Eureka DVD) and some good special features (not found on Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray).
The dub on the DVD is presentable, but flawed in terms of sound quality - there are some minor dropouts and moments that sound like they were recorded near rippeling water. There are also some very noticable moments of silence indicating when the track changes to Italian. Unfortunately as well, the subs on the DVD are mostly dubtitles.
What I’m asking is this. Is it definitely true that the film was dubbed in its entirety into English, or, like TBG, “Companeros” and “Django Kill”, was it cut and then dubbed? Some people seem to imply the former (especially when they discuss the English audio on the Japanese DVD and the UK VHS), but I would just like some clarification, so I can sleep easily at night. I’m inclined to think that it was cut then dubbed, because when Fletcher goes through his bank robbery plan (which gets applause from Frank Braňa), the film changes to Italian for the mock duel between Beau and Fletcher and Fletcher’s explainations of the roles the other outlaws will play in the robbery, then goes back to English when he says that Beau will need to disguise himself as a Mexican. The delivery of Fletcher’s narration in the English dub seems to imply that in the English print, the shot of Beau in his disguise was effectively used as a transition shot/match cut, because when Braňa says that they’ll hit the bank before the dropout into the Italian dub, both he and Fletcher are looking at Beau. It reminds me of how Lee Van Cleef’s line to Nieves Navarro in TBG was changed from “I’m glad we completely agree” in the Italian version to “Thanks for the tea” in the English dub to, again, accommodate the edits.
I’ve also found on the the BBFC’s website that when the film was first screened to the Board, the print was 102 minutes, but all of the other British releases of the film were 90/3 minutes. http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/face-face
And just out of interest, what’s the Kibo Lorber DVD/Blu-ray like? Does it have a distributor logo (Peppercorn-Wormser, the US distributor) and “The End” instead of “Fine” as in the EM release?
I have a U.K pre cert vhs which has the full english audio so yes was dubbed full in english. However later vhs releases of the film in the U.K were the shorter version of the film.
If I remember correctly (i.e. I might be wrong), the old Japanese SPO DVD had a complete English dub but it was quite garbled sometimes - particularly at the beginning. Perhaps it used the same master as on Ennioo’s pre-cert VHS tape?
I think that’s the implication. Ennioo, just wondering, what was the name of the VHS’ distributor? And to both of you and anyone else reading this thread, would anyone be willing to upload recordings of the missing scenes to YouTube or some other video service (you might be able to use fair use/preservation reasons as a rationale)?
Here are the scenes missing from the Explosive Media and Kino Lorber releases:
The first part of Fletcher and Beau’s hideout in the cabin, where Fletcher removes some floorboards to get medicine for Beau’s gunshot wounds.
Fletcher learning to shoot with Beau, and their spying on Siringo - Beau wants to kill him, while Fletcher decides to create a diversion.
Belle de Winton’s sob story about her dead Confederate lover, and Beau/Fletcher’s reactions to her story.
Fletcher meeting Rusty Rodgers, and expressing admiration for his legacy.
Fletcher and Beau’s mock duel, and Fletcher’s explanations of the roles the other outlaws (sans himself, Maria and Beau) will play in the Williow Creek bank robbery.
The society lady’s argument with the sheriff about Siringo’s warning letter, just as Fletcher and Maria enter town.
The lawmen’s discussion about Fletcher’s rise to power, and Siringo’s hunting for Aaron Chase.
Thats right the old SPO disc had the complete english audio track, but like you say the quality of the audio is extremely poor in parts. The audio on my pre cert vhs is much better than this. The vhs is on the Techno Film / Fletcher label, which I am unable to copy at present as my dvd recorder is broke at present. This is a link to the vhs details:
That is a really well-thought out theory based on the TBG comparison! I’d have to watch again, but from what you are saying, it seems that this “transition” was used to accommodate all the extra editing done by the international producers for the English-language release in spite of there existing English dubbing for the whole thing.
I don’t own the Japanese disc anymore so unfortunately can’t check. It would make sense if the Italian sections you mention above match the cuts on the English version of the Kino BD but I don’t have a copy of that either to check.
In terms of which dubbing to choose when watching, if there is an option to hear the main actor’s, or actors’, own voice(s) then I always choose that one (unless everyone else sounds awful). Face to Face is an interesting one because in Italian you get Volonte’s own voice and in English you get Milian’s own voice, but you don’t get both as Milian didn’t start dubbing himself in Italian until Tepepa and Companeros.
Speaking about the Kino blu-ray here, aside from it being cut, did anyone else notice that the audio is slightly slowed down or off-key? I found it distracting while trying to watch it. I don’t suppose there’s a region-free European blu-ray that would work better for me?
The Explosive blu ray is a must have, seriously listen to Dean.
That’s the problem with noise removal, it sounds like shit ninety percent of the time because it’s removing a great deal of the audio’s frequency range. Personally I think a light touch approach is best for audio restoration, if it sounds like shit already don’t make it worse.
I have it on my watch list on ebay from a seller in Germany. Just waiting 'til I can afford to get it. I still don’t have the Sartana box, the Ringo double-feature…I’ll get to it eventually.
I’m pretty sure @ChrisCasey had the Japanese SPO DVD back in the day… like 15 years ago… if he is still around this forum he could verify if the English track is complete.
Yeah, I am frequently annoyed with the fact I did a lot of work doing noise removal on english dubs that I worked on for a few films like 7 Dollars on the Red, as the warbling produced in the tracks from noise removal is rather obnoxious. Although I did attempt to blend the english dialogues with the better quality non-english tracks during non-dialogue scenes to avoid this warbling where possible, looking back I wish I would have just used the poor quality english dubs in their entirety instead.
I have watched many of your custom projects, and never had a complaint - on the contrary, the effort made and execution was and is, extremely professional, and greatly appreciated by fellow fans.
Aw shucks, thanks aldo. We share a mutual appreciation for this kind of work
I still am sticking to the sentiment regarding noise removal though… just leave it in! Its kinda like how noise & grain removal in video is not good.
However, there are times when you can do a light noise removal without any noticeable loss. I did always try quite a lot of different settings, and did multiple passes on audio tracks only removing very small amounts of frequency in each pass which gives a higher quality end result than trying to remove it all at once.
In tracks where this isn’t done, and they just try to scrub all the noise in one pass, it can be pretty bad sounding.
I tried cleaning up the notoriously bad sounding ‘They Call Him Cemetery’ … why on earth has no one found a better English soundtrack ? … it must exist somewhere on 35mm, 16mm or even VHS !?
For those who know the Franco Cleef dub, the audio was apparently taken from a South African tape, which had really muddy sound, the dialogue is almost inaudible in places - Franco had synced this to the Spanish DVD, which is slightly shorter than the Koch Media.
I tried a little experiment using Koch’s release as the video source - first I removed all the bass off the English track using Audacity (the software, NOT my technique) then applied some treble, just enough for it not to hiss too much. I wanted to use the clean Italian audio for the music and non dialogue sequences, but there was too much of a noticeable gulf in quality between the audio tracks, so I added lots of bass and reduced the treble on the Italian track and did cross fades when I needed the dialogue again. It worked out quite nicely … far from perfect, but much better than what is currently available.
Must get round to posting it on CG sometime … haven’t been active there for a while.
Yeah I have done a lot of the same type of work with audio tracks and mixing better sources in. It can be very difficult as you say- mixing a bad quality audio track with a good one often results in jarring transitions between the two and personally I usually end up preferring just the entire bad quality track instead. But sometimes you can work out transitions between the two which aren’t as bad, doing some EQ tricks like you say and whatnot. Sometimes a little EQ is all that is needed, rather than noise removal.
I even went to the lengths of copying short clips of 1-3seconds of silence and then splicing those in between spoken sentences to cut out noise between dialogue…
Would definitely be interested in your Cemetery dub. I also have not been active on CG until this last couple weeks where I got the urge to up some stuff that I’ve had sitting around forever. I had previously become a bit annoyed by the direction CG went in terms of its decline in community spirit, which was one of the main reasons I loved participating. Now it often feels like a typical public tracker, complete with shitty attitudes & people getting big egos because they have the ability to copy discs…
Definitely … there are many others who feel the same, and have all but quit posting - I feel there’s a problem with ‘management’, who seem arrogant, and way too blasé to encourage projects and members. There’s also a reluctance for some people to go on the forums, for fear of being blasted with sarcasm and dickhead trolling.
The moderators need to step up and try to get things back on track, rather than change their users names and ignore general morale problems. MODs rarely comment on a post, and we as users can’t see if they are snatching, as they probably have hidden or multiple accounts.
10 years back it was great there, as all cult fans got so excited when a rare or custom title turned up … and weren’t afraid or too lazy to voice their enthusiasm. Now days I feel like the site is a great resource for ioffer bandits, hoarding everything, contributing nada … it’s very sad.
Personally, I’d cull a lot of the dead weight … and folks who never comment or contribute after years and years of freebies can F- - K off
