Yes, that’s true. So to do a comprehensive list (if that is possible) I would need to enlist forum members to contribute.
But I’ll say one thing. It may be a lot of work but it would be a labor of love to expose this fraud.
[quote=“Romaine Fielding, post:81, topic:710”]Yes, that’s true. So to do a comprehensive list (if that is possible) I would need to enlist forum members to contribute.
But I’ll say one thing. It may be a lot of work but it would be a labor of love to expose this fraud.[/quote]
He’s been doing this since the inception of his video search of miami days, maybe before that even. I am curious if anybody outside of the fanbase would care much after his decade + long career of spreading untruths. I know he and his “co-writer” Ric Meyers are two of the most hated individuals in the martial arts film community but it seems as the above response attests, no publisher, or at least McFarland are aware of his error riddled tomes.
That’s absolutely strange and rather difficult to imagine that no one was complaining before.
I know it. I know it. Very strange. Well, they’ve heard now.
I was under the impression that Bruckner’s “Für ein paar Leichen mehr” was now considered the authoritative encyclopedia on the genre.
Unfortunately my German isn’t too great so I haven’t bothered to obtain a copy but I was thinking of getting a copy anyway just to thumb through and read as best I can. Would be great if someone could translate it into English.
You buy Bruckner’s book for the data parts, which are using the original titles so that anyone can use them. The large amount of photos are also not concerned by the language problem. And believe me, unfortunately, what he had to say about the films is not too interesting, and not really worth a translation.
He should have also used a rating system, so that also the people who don’t speak german, get a clue what he thinks about the films. But he hasn’t.
There are of course also mistakes, that’s unavoidable by such a mass of data and such a chaotic information basis, but not that much, and he had corrected all he knew about for the 2nd edition.
It’s a serious book, from an author who loves the genre and tried to do the best possible.
Buy it, it’s worth every buck.
No Bruckner’s book can be a bit dry in places. What would be fun would be a translated hybrid of Bruckner’s “Für ein paar Leichen mehr” and Kessler’s very fun read “Wilkommen in der Hölle” …
I’m actually at the moment reading a book that fits that description but concerns another genre, namely Matt Blake and David Deal’s “The Eurospy Guide”… Here we have a book full of facts about each movie but which is at the same time written in a relaxed fun style.
Yes, it’s rather dry, and written in a rather styleless style, and even not in the best german.
But someone who doesn’t speak german would not mind the dry style, but can still enjoy the photos and all the data. That’s what I was talkiong about.
Kessler has more interesting things to say, but offers only the most basic data to the films and has unfortunately excluded all SWs which weren’t directed by italians. No Cemetary Without Crosses, no Duel in the Eclipse, no Marchent brothers, no …
And his style is a bit too loutish, but fun to read.
A fusion of both books would be a great idea.
I think I’ll pick it up for all the data and photos then. Although a brief synopsis for each movie is welcome, I’m not too concerned about Bruckner’s personal opinions because, as this forum shows, people tend to have rather distinctive tastes when it comes to SWs. However, having now read several of your posts Stanton, I suspect you and I may in fact have very similar tastes. I guess we will see as I contribute more to the forum over time.
We are looking forward to your contributions
Thanks, am looking forward to it too.
Although I’m still in awe at the number of these movies some of you guys on the forum have seen! I think I’ll hold back on compiling my top 20 until I’ve at least seen a few more to make it a bit more representative.
You know, with MCF making a suggestion for a book, it’d be quite the labor of love, but we have the resources here at the SWDB to do it. We could have a similar format to Weisser’s book, but we can also have some good thematic commentary (like the great stuff scherp always writes). It would just involve a quick paragraph or two with the vital info, and a plot synopsis. It doesn’t even have to be a review. I’m sure with all the people on here, we’d have a good amount of films covered.
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Good idea, we could include ratings from various forum members
I’d like to know what Sebastian and some of the other admins think about this. I’ll volunteer to put it together and organize the preliminary stuff. If everyone chimes in, maybe we can make an announcement and come up with some kind of process.
How receptive do you think McF would be to something like this?
I welcome that idea. Would be cool to have a SW-Bible out by the SWDB-Team (including our reviews and ratings) ! If we all work together, this could become real and also really good ! We have the muscles for great reviews (Scherp., Phil, and many others) and almost everything we need in the DB !
Basically, what I see is something that is similar in form to Weisser’s book, having an entry with as many spags as we can get together, including pertinent cast/crew data, a synopsis, and possibly a review, as well as any thematic essays we can put together. It’d probably be best to get all the lesser known stuff out of the way first, and then tackle the top 40 last, as there are several reviews out there and we’d have to vote on the best ones to use.
Keep in mind, that we wouldn’t need to have extensive reviews for everything, and we’d need to convene some sort of editorial board to review all of the entries, so we have some semblance of quality control, both in content and accuracy. And if we don’t have a synopsis of a film, that’s fine, it’s better than making it up like Weisser did.
Exactly !
Sounds great. I’m up for volunteering.
Errors will happen but Weisser obviously never saw many of the spaghetti westerns he “reviewed”. Making up stuff just to fill out a book is pretty unforgiveable.
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I think the problem is not his taste, and not that there are some errors, and you are right about this, every book which deals with such a great amount of films contains some errors. But in Weisser’s case there are so many big, big errors, that it cannot be simply apologized by saying he had some wrong sources.
It really seems that he often invented things, instead of trying to check the available sources.
I doubt that any other book about the genre has such an incredible amount of wrong data in it.
And Romaine Fielding, he said that he wanted to do that comprehensive list of errors, but his life had changed, and he did then not even found the time to stay here in the forum.