I know I am probably alone in this but I actually prefer Minnesota Clay to Navajo Joe.
Will have to watch that one again then. Didnāt find it anything special first time around, but it has happened that a spaghetti western has grown on me at the second viewing.
[quote=āENNIOO, post:63, topic:74ā]Available for pre-order already at Amazon.Com:
http://www.amazon.com/Navajo-Joe-Burt-Reynolds/dp/B0014BQR2E/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1203512866&sr=8-6[/quote]
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 ???
Did notice that and lets hope it is a mistake ???.
I think they (amazon) simply do not know yet and simply fall through to worst caseā¦ Amazon isnāt the most reliable site for specs especially not on unreleased ones 
That seems likely as 1.33:1 is also the ratio for the VHS release still in Amazon circulation.
I hated every minute of this movie both times I sat through it. I thought Reynolds was great as Joe, and who canāt enjoy Aldo Sanbrell just standing there let alone getting a lead, but something about the movie bothered me, and I didnāt care much for Morriconeās score either. It should have been a camp masterpiece like WHITE COMANCHE, but instead itās this painful, wounding, emotionally distraught slasher movie masquerading as a Spaghetti Western.
If I was to have a one sentence catch-phrase about it, Iād say āWHAT EVER YOU DO, DO NOT WATCH NAVAJO JOE TRIPPING: YOU WILL BUM OUT, REAL BAD.ā
Just noticed that Amazon now lists the following:
Format: Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Yet, below that it still says:
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Iām wondering if maybe it will have both ratios on there. Regardless, it says widescreen in the description. Was it that way previously?
[quote=āGarko Forever, post:69, topic:74ā]Just noticed that Amazon now lists the following:
Format: Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Yet, below that it still says:
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Iām wondering if maybe it will have both ratios on there. Regardless, it says widescreen in the description. Was it that way previously?[/quote]
Maybe itās letterboxed
In that case the format is 4/3 but the film can be either 2,35:1 or 1,85:1
The difference with a 16/9 release is that the image has not been enhanced for widescreen TVs; the result usually looks more flat than an anamorphic transfer and there are more artifacts (especially posterisation)
I just got around to watching it last nightā¦
Corbucci directed an absolutely solid movie. itās up there with Django with the troubled avenger who takes his bloody revenge on those who wronged him. Burt Reynolds was excellent and the soundtrack by Ennio Morricone was first rate. I also loved having Aldo Sambrell take the lead as the antagonist which was nice. It has none of the cutsie humor that Corbucci injected in his later movies (except The Great Silence which is the pinnacle for him). This along with the previously mentioned two movies make for an excellent taste of westerns not directed by Leone. And to be honest they are close behind his work.
Hi, again.
I watched this the other night. I really was not expecting much of this, mainly because of Reynolds and the 40 years of baggage heās carrying but I decided to approach the film as if I just heard of him, a ānewā action star, if you will. It worked for me. This western just explodes in your face in the very first frame. The cinematography by Silvano Ippoliti is really spectacular. Some of the hand-held stuff is amazing.
Corbucci did a great job working this genre and this is, I think, as good as his others. I suppose I could rate his SWās if you put a pistol to my throatā¦ ;D
I found myself singing āJoeās Themeā over and over all day. :
Iām watching the film right now
Stopped halfway to check whether the film was made a) immediately BEFORE Django, like Phil Hardy states, or b) immediately AFTER Django, like Giusti says in his book
Canāt find any exact details so far
Anybody?
EDIT: it wasnāt made immediately before Django, because Corbucci was working on Johnny Oro then
So it was probably made after Django (canāt imagine he made this one before Johnny Oro)
Still, confirmation will be welcome!
Iād hazard a guess and say it was more than likely made after Django, thereās obviously a 50% chance iām wrong though so not really much help just an opinion ;D
After Django I thought, and Alex Cox seems to be of the same opinion:
http://www.alexcox.com/venice.htm
(Just scroll down to you come to the title of the film).
After Django, but I have no definite proof for this. Everybody says so, and Hardy is no SW expert.
The shooting for Django started in 65, and Navajo Joe was released at 25.11.66.
But of course Navajo Joe and I crudeli are looking like predecessors to Django.
Corbucci was still working on Johnny Oro when producer Bolognini offered him the direction of Django (Bolognini himself shot a few extra scenes for Johnny Oro to avoid a lawsuit). So both Navajo Joe and The Hellbenders were clearly made after Django, I donāt know in which order (The Hellbenders was released later, but thatās no real evidence).
Corbucci was less involved in both productions than in some of his other work: he didnāt contribute to either story or screenplay and both films seem to lack (more or less) that special Corbucci touch (the practical jokes, the visual bravoura). Donāt get me wrong: theyāre fine films, only not vintage Corbucci. I suppose Corbucci was thinking about, mentally preparing some of his later masterpieces and accepted these two movies to earn some money. The Hellbenders was an Albert Band production and Corbucci had a love-hate relationship with him, and he probably accepted Navajo Joe because producer Di Laurentiis had suggested that he had signed a contract with Marlon Brando.
Made between Django and The Great Silence, both Navajo Joe and I crudeli were a major step back for Corbucci, if you want to consider him as an artist.
A more logical order of his films would be:
Johnny Oro
Navajo Joe
I crudeli
Django
The Specialists
The Great Silence
The Mercenary
Companeros
But whereas I crudeli doesnāt feel like a Corbucci at all, Navajo Joe fits well enough in his output, is clearly preferable to I crudeli, which lacks mostly any inspiration, is only solid where it should deliver something visually unusual.
Navajo Joe shows Corbucciās progress in handling action scenes (the smaller ones are done very well) and violence. And his picture compositions, his framings, his use of the tele lens, were now often done with a certain beauty, which he had developed for Django, and which he brought to a brillant perfection later in TGS and (especially) in The Mercenary (and for a last time in greater parts of Companeros).
But in Navajo Joe there are enough scenes which should have been done with more imagination, or which should have been better worked out in the screenplay (which probably lacks a Corbucci revision), like Joeās way of overwhelming the guardās on the train, or how it was arranged that Duncanās brother went alone to the train to look for the money, and so on.
And there is again one of these much too long scenes in which a train is raided with lots of (unintentional funny) shooting and riding around.
And here Corbucci had started to mix in some social and political sideswipes, which gave, for a typical revenge driven SW unusual, some depth to the motivations of the Bounty Hunters, and which portrayed the citizens in a not so flattering way (they are more interested in the money than in all the dead victims of the robbery). But these elements make often only an added impression, they are not connected organically with the plot.
Reynolds in the lead is ā¦ well, he is okay, but looks a bit uncool under his strange wig (like Milian in Face to Face), but Aldo Sambrell shows that he was able to achieve more, than to be wasted in supporting roles, still his main fate thereafter.
What more?
Ennio Morriconeās score, his first for Corbucci, is one of the great pleasures of the film, as is the beauty of Nicoletta Machiavelli, as is the brutish end.
Overall a good and recommended SW, with some excellent moments, not exactly the stuff for a masterpiece, but the potential for a minor classic was given away by the sloppiness of several sequences, a sloppiness which was gladly associated, not without good reason, with Corbucciās way of working.
Due to Navajo Joeās highlights, this is one of the films I like to watch again and again.
I think the strengths of this film far outweighs itās negative aspects, so much that indeed you can call Navajo Joe a minor classic!
Sure it has some unintentionally funny scenes here and there, but the same could be said about Django.
I think Reynolds does an excellent job despite his wig. Others have complained that his leather outfit isnāt authentic enough.
As you probably know he was an ex-stuntman, and he handles the athletic action scenes with bravura.
Another fine aspect of this film is Silvano Ippolitiās photography, and also some beautiful landscape shots you donāt see all the time in spaghettis.
The editing is also tightly done, the film never drags one bit.
Most elements Stanton mentioned are in the review I have been writing over the last few days
There were already two reviews in the database, so I sent mine to Lordradish
Itās not grade A Corbucci, but it doesnāt drag and itās certainly well-shot and well-edited
Like Stanton says, a Corbucci revision of the script could have been useful