As far as I know the German DVD is the longest English language version available at the moment. And it looks about the same as the MGM UK disc (and so probably the same as the other MGM 2-disc sets from other countries).
The German disc still has 4 cuts compared to the uncut version though. Clint approaching the saloon at the beginning is missing, which might somehow explain how the thunder sound has gone out of sync in all the DVDs? (so I wonder if there is nothing missing in this scene on the Spanish DVD Chris mentioned). And the laughter of Indio is supposed to be longer when he lets that one soldier go.
And then there is the beating scene. While they claimed(?) it to be complete it is still missing couple of shots of Clint getting boot into his spine.
Btw, the jailbreak scene happens during the day in the Sky Cinema’s restored version (DVD and Blu-Ray) while it happens at “night” in the MGM and German discs.
As far as I can remember all the other scenes (beating, Clint & Lee at the street at least) are the same (meaning, not day on one disc and night on another) on all the discs.
[quote=“Sundance, post:141, topic:327”]As far as I know the German DVD is the longest English language version available at the moment. And it looks about the same as the MGM UK disc (and so probably the same as the other MGM 2-disc sets from other countries).
The German disc still has 4 cuts compared to the uncut version though. Clint approaching the saloon at the beginning is missing, which might somehow explain how the thunder sound has gone out of sync in all the DVDs? (so I wonder if there is nothing missing in this scene on the Spanish DVD Chris mentioned). And the laughter of Indio is supposed to be longer when he lets that one soldier go.
And then there is the beating scene. While they claimed(?) it to be complete it is still missing couple of shots of Clint getting boot into his spine.
Btw, the jailbreak scene happens during the day in the Sky Cinema’s restored version (DVD and Blu-Ray) while it happens at “night” in the MGM and German discs.
As far as I can remember all the other scenes (beating, Clint & Lee at the street at least) are the same (meaning, not day on one disc and night on another) on all the discs.[/quote]
So is there a non-english version of this film that is longer than the German release?
And how did they manage to edit the jailbreak scene into daytime?
And is there a Blu-Ray release in english of this film?
Yes, the Italian Blu-Ray and DVD releases by Mondo Home Entertainment. But both are only in Italian and the DVD quality is shit and absolutely not recommended (They somehow managed to make it bad even though the Blu-Ray is good). The special edition DVD release comes with an Italian language “book” though (as part of the case) that has lots of text and photos.
Looks to me like the scene was filmed during the day and just made into night for at least the international versions. Was it supposed to be day or night, I have no idea (can’t remember the scene that well, or the Italian dialogue).
No.
EDIT: At least these two (from the beating scene) are cut from the English language discs (and I’m quite sure they have been part of the English versions before [on VHS]):
I always forgot that it really is there, but there is a dialogue in which Clint tells the Colonel that he’s doing the bounty hunting to buy a farm afterwards. Oh boy!
The funny conclusion I have to draw out of this is that Leone at the time of making FaFDM didn’t understand completely his own creation.
The great modernization of the Eastwood character in the Leone films was for me, that he was totally blank. There was no moral to justify his doings, only greed for money. Only that this was also only an abstract thing, so that you never had the slightest clue what he would do with the money.
For this interpretation the cut scenes in FaFDM and GBU, which would have shown Clint with a woman in a bed, would also have been a great mistake. Amongst the desinterest in common values there should be also ideally a desinterest in woman. And skipping woman roles if they are not necessary for the plot was another great idea by Leone.
Apart from that I have to admit that still the 2nd half is not as brilliantly developed as the first, in which Leone unfolds a a new way of story telling. In the 2nd half many things are pretty far fetched and only half as convincing as in the beginning.
All in all FaFdM is despite many brilliant scenes more a preliminary design for the films to come, by losing at the same time some of the direct power and freshness of FoD. In fact every scene or idea, which could be found in a similar way in GBU, is made or presented in GBU in a much more brilliant way. In a direct comparison GBU is without any doubt the much more mature film.
So FaFDM is a work in progression, but is still better than nearly every other SW.
I agree, amigo!
I don’t see this as a transitional film, like our compadre Stanton, at all. In fact, I see it as the best of Leone’s films with the exception of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (which I actually like only slightly less than FAFDM).
As fun as GBU is to watch, it has, in my opinion, a lot of unnecessary sequences and suffers from an episodic structure where each event in the film is merely an attempt to top the last one. There is nothing really wrong with that. It makes for an exciting adventure film; but, just for me…personally…I think FAFDM is clearly the better film because it is a bit more tightly structured and is truly unique.
It is a very arguable point, but in my opinion there had never been a film quite like FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE before Leone unleashed it on the movie-going public in 1965. Yes, at its core, FAFDM is a somewhat simple “revenge” tale–but, it has an incredibly different narrative style (for the time of its release) and its tale is uniquely told. THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY, on the other hand…though clever, fun, and somewhat freshly presented…is really just an update on the “topping up” structure of the Cliffhanger serials and classic adventure films that proceeded it.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST has much more in common with FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE than it does with GBU, insomuch as it is, again, a simple tale—told via a unique narrative and visual style. And I think that is why I like FAFDM and OUATITW the most–not just of Leone’s films but of all Westerns, and perhaps even all films, period.
[quote=“Stanton, post:144, topic:327”]I always forgot that it really is there, but there is a dialogue in which Clint tells the Colonel that he’s doing the bounty hunting to buy a farm afterwards. Oh boy!
The funny conclusion I have to draw out of this is that Leone at the time of making FaFDM didn’t understand completely his own creation.[/quote]Not exactly, isn’t the dialogue more like “I do this for living but I might retire after few big rewards” But anyway I see the phrase about ranch as something he doesn’t even believe in himself. When Clint rides away in the end with the corpses you can’t imagine him retiring, gunfighter is always a gunfighter.
As this is my no. 1 and the movie I’ve seen more times than any other, except maybe Dirty Harry, I relate similar to Chris and Ion. This line I always took like several others, the character displaying his sardonic and dry sense of humor. He may sound serious but not really, he only being serious for the pursuit of dollars.
This is actually a very common sort of dialogue for Western heroes and outlaws alike.
In fact, it is so common that it was, I believe, used by Leone (and his screenwriters) as a sort of sarcastic, clever way for Eastwood’s character to tell the Van Cleef character that he has no idea what he is going to do with all that money and, if he did know, it wouldn’t be any business of Van Cleef’s.
It isn’t a literal answer.
How many times have you heard an outlaw character in a Western, or a Gangster in a Crime Film, say something to the effect that he is just going to pull one more job then quit? One more big score and they are going to go straight. No one ever believes it, of course.
It is like the Gorch brothers in THE WILD BUNCH, lamenting the fact that they are stuck with washers instead of silver. “This was supposed to be Tector ‘n me’s openin’ for a new territory…” (meaning they were going to start their own “place”, business, ranch, or what have you). Of course, no one believes that is really their intention because of the type of men they are. If they had gotten the silver instead of the washers, they would have likely spent all of it on women and whiskey–and once they had done that, they would be out robbing another bank or train.
It is like your friend who is a chain-smoker telling you, “In a few weeks, I am going to quit smoking.” You may smile and say that is a good idea, or just give them a slight nod and carry on…but, you know that they are full of crap. They aren’t going to quit.
They will always be what they are (“gunfighter is always a gunfighter”) regardless. And you wouldn’t have it any other way…
[quote=“Stanton, post:148, topic:327”]He says “buying me a little place, maybe retire.” “A ranch” in the German version.
Now, that’s not the sort of dialogues we want to hear from our SW heroes. In fact not in any western.
But you are right Bill, hard to imagine at the end he will really do it.[/quote]
Its a small piece of dialogue. Insignificant really. Just a throwaway comment. Just because Clint says it doesn’t mean he’s gone soft on us.
For all we know, maybe he wants to have place like Garko’s Silver in Price of Death, with girls and judo LOL.
Also, I’d like to think that he gave back the stolen loot at the end because normally he wouldn’t, but he learnt something from his father figure Mortimer, who didn’t take any of the money.
It is not actually interlaced as far as I know. They just didn’t include some sort of flag on the disc that would tell the players how to show the image properly. Or that is what somebody told at the time, I don’t understand enough about the issue. The disc is supposed to work just fine on most players but I haven’t been able to watch it on my computer software at all because it looks so horrible. Do you have problems with a standalone player or computer?
The Nobody discs from Germany and their Fistful of Dollars also have this problem. And even though they were aware of it after (most likely before…) the Nobody discs THEY DIDN’T FIX THE PROBLEM FOR THE DOLLAR FILMS. Assholes.
I am surprised by the reports that the German disc isn’t very good. Are we talking about the same Paramount 2-disc release that I have?
I think this is the best DVD release for this film I have seen, so far.
To me it looks and sounds vastly superior to the US and UK MGM versions (and it has the more complete cut of the film, too).
Well I am talking about the same one. I can’t remember anything wrong with the quality besides the problem I mentioned. Paramount (or whoever was in charge) did not fix the problem that was already present in their previous two discs (Nobody 1 & 2). For most people the disc will look just fine (like for you Chris) but if you’re one of the unlucky ones (like retask seems to be and I am) then the error on the disc will make it look crap and basically unwatchable. And like I said, they knew about it and did not fix it. I don’t care if it had cost a lot for them to fix, nothing(?) justifies releasing a broken product even if it works just fine for almost everyone.
As far as I can remember there is some sort of flag missing from the disc (maybe because the company making the discs wasn’t able to insert it there because of their crap equipment?) which would tell the players how to play the movie. Most players can figure it out correctly anyways but a very small percentage can’t.
Or something like that.
Well if I play it like it is meant to be played… meaning it is a progressive transfer where every frame, and the fields in it, represent a single point in time… then it looks like this on my computer:
paramount_fafdm_noninterlaced.jpg[/url]
There are interlacing artifacts even though it is not supposed to be interlaced.
So… I can then deinterlace it (which never really produces good results but is the only thing you can do with interlaced material [even though this isn’t supposed to be!] on progressive displays) and it will look like this:
[url=http://www.spaghettiwesterndvds.com/screenshots/paramount_fafdm_deinterlaced.jpg]paramount_fafdm_deinterlaced.jpg[url]http://www.spaghettiwesterndvds.com/screenshots/paramount_fafdm_noninterlaced.jpg[/url]
![image 2[url]http://www.spaghettiwesterndvds.com/screenshots/for_a_few_dollars_more_beating_cut1.jpg](http://www.spaghettiwesterndvds.com/screenshots/for_a_few_dollars_more_beating_cut2.jpg){kind=link}
![http://www.spaghettiwesterndvds.com/screenshots/paramount_fafdm_noninterlaced.jpg[/url]](http://www.spaghettiwesterndvds.com/screenshots/paramount_fafdm_noninterlaced.jpg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}