I’ll have to watch it again. I remember enjoying it quite a bit
Firecreek was filmed Dec 1966 to early Feb 1967. A while before OUATITW. Fonda plays a sorta bad guy but doesn’t kill anyone and is intended as a bit of a tragic figure who has lost his lustre. He spends most of the movie injured which I think is intended to represent impotence.
I found it a bit pretentious play-of-the-week stuff. Everyone has some psychological background problems that they feel compelled to impart on the audience in a forced manner.
It’s indeed very pretentious and sentimental also. It obviously wants to be something, but remains as nothing …
Discussion (as often) about the versions and the ending
Can someone verify what’s in that video description?
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What exactly?
Whether it is true what the fella writes in the video description and this reconstruction/edit is in fact how the movie is supposed to end. Otherwise I am in trouble (over on Facebook, haha)
The English titles /credits are slightly different from the Italian, both at the front and end … I don’t know that this is any big deal though ?
do read the video’s description text
This is the ending form the long Italian version, and as such not the reference for the theatrical version, which is with its few differences yet unreleased on home disc in any country.
The theatrical version ends at 7:41 in the video. And the credits come at different places. Here after the film had stopped, over a freeze frame and accompanied by the Cheyenne theme.
I think in the German theatrical version the credits came a bit earlier, before the 7:41 mark in the video.
I’m not sure if this is true from the description:
“The original version features no titles onscreen for the entire tracking shot,”
I checked on OFDB the German VHS from the 80s. The title appears one min before the end and is followed by the credits, which are much shorter than in the long version. And that fits with my memories, that’s how the German theatrical version ends.
But actually I do not care much about the credits, but they should fix the score.
The reviewer has a mixed reputation, but this does indeed not sound great.
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It sounds like just another excuse to make further releases down the line (Pun intended) as expected.
For someone claiming to be a huge fan / expert, the reviewer makes quite a few gaffes - Filmed in Southern Italy, really!? … and referencing the celebrity commentary,
’ These people know Leone and this film well, and their love of both is obvious.’ … Bullshit, I say … it’s the same track that was on the DVD release, and the ‘bungling’ from people like John Carpenter and Alex Cox, is staggering at times.
Also we have the now customary pseudo expert rant about colour, grain, contrast, detail in shadows etc etc … it might sound impressive to the uninitiated, but it’s the same noise all these reviewers of Blu Ray make. Shame they haven’t been collectively gathered so they can work on the next transfer to whatever medium will finally satisfy the most stringent standards.
As I, and certainly others have said before, you can not take a Techniscope negative and expect it to look like modern HD … it is inherently a substandard process, NOT that there is anything wrong with how this film looks on 35mm shown properly on a huge wide cinema screen, it looks absolutely stunning, and I know (personal opinion) that this experience can never be replicated or equalled on a home system.
Stick with what you’ve got on BD, because this 4K UHD bladdy blah just screams of marketing rip off.
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It does sound like Paramount’s decision to squeeze a 4K scan onto a 66GB disc (instead of 100GB) has resulted in so much compression the earlier BluRay remains favourite.
I agree the failure to address the substantive editing/content issues (by Paramount and reviewers) is galling.
Film nerds tend to be much more exacting in such matters than film directors.
Where were all these experts when we only had VHS … One uniform (one word) review to fit all releases, ‘Shit!’
PS: Just found this review on Amazon, thought it worth sharing - watch out, genius at work …
I believe they just didn’t have the internet to make themselves heard.
Actually I remember seeing a rather highbrow movie show back in the day where they mainly discussed new art cinema releases. They also had a short piece about the then new pan & scan VHS of OUATITW, explicitly showing one of those artificial pans where there was originally a still camera in the film. They understandably trashed the VHS release, concluding that “home video remains the best reason for going to the cinema”.
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It’s always a question of the state of the source material and then the amount of work and expertise that does go into it. Blade Runner and Apocalypse Now are two examples where I have experienced the latest 4k restorations both on the big screen (albeit digital projection) and UHD Blu and it can be done to satisfaction. But that’s something that can apparently (and repeatedly so) not be expected from the goons at Paramount it seems. And it is a shame…
Apocalypse Now was shown on UK TV a few months ago, I believe the most recent re-edit, and in HD … it was a completely different viewing experience to when I saw it in the theatre in 1982, not in a good way … to be brief, it looked horrible in the new version, so overly processed that it felt like I was watching something made last week with digital cameras.
The essence, the texture, the mystique was stripped away … and something spectacular became routine and even contrived. I couldn’t sit through it past the Major Kilgore surfing scenes which had become full on comedy, rather than the harrowing sense of insanity that was so crucial to the original concept and edit - I’d have to come to the conclusion that director’s shouldn’t be allowed to go back and fiddle with the structure of a film which they are just too close to, … and yet they can never experience what an audience gets from the story, because they were there while it was being created.
Ridley Scott seems to be the worst offender … regarding ‘A L I E N’ and Blade Runner.
Cliche, but true: ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t try and fix it!’
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“Ultra HD” sounds like a parody even, what comes next, “Double Ultra HD” in 8k, “Super Duper Ultra HD” in 16k ? 
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