I agree with everything you’ve said, but one point where I was coming from is that a film’s shortcomings can sometimes be a bit covered up by only being available in very poor quality videos. While a great film is always great, a bad film can sometimes be a bit better when viewed on VHS versus an HD transfer. When you see it in HD, the quirky novelty can be totally absent, and instead you’re just watching a really bad movie.
Granted, you have to be the type of person who is subject to this sort of novelty, the dreaded hipster.
Watched the new BD last night and thoroughly enjoyed it.
This will not be to everyone’s taste … and I’d forgotten just how rough the violence and action scenes are, in contrast with the basic premise, style of acting and storytelling.
It’s like a kid’s show on an acid trip … kind of sweet and goofy one moment and then full on vigilante exploitation flick the next. The action scenes are well handled and there’s plenty of energy from Woods and his sidekick, Renato Rossini (Howard Ross)
There’s some amazingly corny moments too - when Robert, as the mild mannered, ‘Johnny’ gives his “lucky” friends and family a “live” rendition of the theme song played on the worst guitar ever … the neck is warped, and the action between strings and fretboard is over an inch - in brief, unplayable.
His mother looks on adoringly and everyone is charmed by this ludicrous rendition - not just the timing, but the content of the song lyrically, tells us how dark and violent the world is. The arrangement on the theme song is gorgeous, but again is so heavy in mood for a pseudo kid movie.
Just one other thing - look out for the Sheriff’s luminous green vest/tank top under his shirt. Wouldn’t have spotted it in a non HD version
After re-watching Starblack I have to admit that the film was less good than remembered.
Actually it is too often pretty boring, and it has a lot of bad stuff in it. There are a few well made scenes, or at least shots, but there is also quite a lot of amateurish looking stuff. Apart from some violence there is hardly any SW atmosphere at all to find here. Costumes and landscape are as unimpressive as possible, the dialogues are often quite dull and the acting is also too often amateurish. In some of its better moments it comes close to a parody, but for a parody Grimaldi handles most of the silly scenes with too much seriousness. All in all it is in its naivety a close relative to Canevari’s Per un dollaro a Tucson si muore, only that it is not a complete failure. On the entertainometer it sinks to a 2/10 … maybe 3 on a good and sunny day.
Too bad, I had some sympathy for this odd little film, and had expected to like it more by re-watching it.
I think it has a lot of naïve charm … agreed that it’s not actually very good - but it’s an interesting oddity within the history of the genre. I was happy to re-watch it, but I wasn’t blown away by it.
Maybe if I were 8 years old I’d appreciate it more.
Jonathan, do you have some information on different versions?
The runtime of the English version and the new German Blu is by 93 min, but according to another source there is also a 102 min version mentioned (2.800 m), and actually the 93 min version makes sometimes a cut impression.
Well, yes, I understand that Starblack can have that appeal for SW fans, but for me this charm is only there partial. Too partial considering that I too often was bored by anything that happened. There was hardly any interesting character in it, and any interesting story.
I know nothing about this hypothetical extended version, in any case for the one originally shown in theaters the 93 minutes runtime is absolutely correct (film length 2552 meters).
If I remember rightly the close-up, part of the original VM14 Italian version later censored, was missing from the English version. Is the German Blu uncut under this aspect?
Mid-September 1966
(…) alle copie del film sono stati apportati i seguenti tagli:
nella tomba del padre: eliminate quattro inquadrature di pugni, un primo piano del “muto”, due primi piani del volto di Johnny con il sangue, due calci mentre Johnny è a terra
nell’interno della miniera: eliminato il secondo pugnale che arriva sulla mano
nell’interno Manuelita: eliminato il campo ed il controcampo del bandito che dice “va’ di là ed aspettami”, piano della mano del bandito che punta la pistola contro la testa del bambino, piano della madre che si alza ed entra nella stanza seguita dal bandito che poi chiude la porta, piano del bandito che apre la porta ed esce aggiustandosi i pantaloni
nelle frustate: eliminate tre inquadrature delle frustate al muto
eliminato il primo piano dell’occhio trafitto dal pugnale
I posted the cuts to obtain an ALL rating instead of the original VM14 just for a matter of completeness, it’s not that important since practically all of them were reinstated in the English version we already knew.
With the exception of the knife in the eye filmed in close-up (point 5), and that’s why I asked.
this is one of the stand out scenes I was thinking of when remembering it as a kids movie
