A plain downright incredible spaghetti western.
A contender for best spaghetti though I find the last reels a little jarringly light hearted.
The Return of Ringo is a Spag with a) an actual āgood-guyā hero rather than a duplicitous bastard anti-hero and b) a plot where thereās plenty happening but every step ACTUALLY MAKES LOGICAL SENSE! ;D Looking back on the genre, this sort of common-sense, start-middle-and-end plotting and straightforward characterization marks The Return of Ringo out as a bit of a Maverick! Still, it was a good, enjoyable romp. I wouldnāt know about how faithfully/loosely it retells Homerās Odyssey since Iāve never read it but it told a ripsnorting tale nonetheless about a guy back from the wars and now hopelessly outgunned, trying to win back his woman and their kid from the Mexicans who put the rest of his kin in their graves and who now run the town unopposed by law and townsfolk alike. Another thing I found a refreshing change of pace is that our man here, played with that typically easy charm that Giuliano Gemma seems to possess in spades, ISNāT an unstoppable agent of death. Heās a crack shot, yes, but in any vague semblance of the real world, youād need a lot more than that. And Montgomery āRingoā Brown canāt retake this town single-handed. Itās good to see a Spag plot that realises it needs more than its protagonist looking cool and scary in a cape to get out of the hole presented by the antagonists. Not that I donāt adore Django, Sartana, Sabbath, Silence, Blondie and a thousand different versions of Lee Van Cleef; I do, itās what attracts me to the Spag most of all, I think. It was just nice to change that up once in awhile, root for a mortal and well-meaning everyman. Well, as close to that as these films tend to get, anyways.
Iām wanting a hi-def transfer of THE RETURN OF RINGO. The high-pitched 4% whir-up of PAL spoils the DVD; even the cheaper public-domain editions in NTSC are at PAL speed. This film merits a blu-ray.
I agree with you on that, Richard.
New HD transfer of this title would be excellent
Surprisingly, PISTOL and RETURN are two spaghetti oaters I havenāt seen. Iām going to have to rectify that problem with the praise you fellers hang upon them. Now Iām looking forward to eachā¦
Return is considerably better than Pistol in my humble opinion. I think Pistol is really a closer relative to Arizona Colt in many ways. Not that Pistol and Arizona Colt ARENāT good movies - they are, BLOODY good - but The Return of Ringo is in a different class. And its theme song might be the best one out there, bar none.
I ordered them from Amazon. Have to admit that my curiosity (which killed the proverbial cat) is highly piqued!
Watched it a couple of days ago, itās amazing. I loved it, halfway through I felt like I wasnāt just watching a good movie, but a great one. The score is incredible, my favorite of any spaghetti.
Even with itās traditional western tendencies, it has so much going for it, the little things and the big things. The finale does have some things that could have been done better, but I love this movie. Now my only problem is figuring out where to put it in my top 5, it could go anywhere.
[quote=āSilvanito, post:57, topic:1509ā]Ok, this isnāt explained, but maybe the herbs were originally used to cure something?
But they used it instead for another purpose?
Anyway I donāt think this matters, and itās a cool scene when the guy visits the indian, so I donāt care if itās a bit strange[/quote]
In the Italian dub he says only āI need your herbs, your herbs for a friendā.
My favorite track (uploaded in high quality 320):
Still plowing my way through my top 20 which led to this and Johnny Hamlet the other night. They were such ambitious projects but they managed to deliver, and theyāre two of the finest westerns ever made if you ask me, spaghetti, Hollywood or otherwise.
I gotta say, Arrowās English audio track is quite shit. Itās so distorted at times, especially when thereās music playing. The Koch DVD didnāt have this issue.
I also watched Return last night and greatly preferred it to Pistol, but interesting to see how different they are given the same production crew and troop of actors. Very much enjoyed Tony Raynsā apparently impromptu musings and the interviews with assistant cameraman etc.
I was always intrigued to see these movies because they were about the only spaghettis which got positive reviews in Sight & Sound (or was it Film Monthly Bulletin?) upon their original UK release. It was decades before I picked up two very ropey VHSs and I was slightly underwhelmed. Seeing Return again, and in such good shape itās gone up in my estimation. I felt it fell apart rather in the final stages.
The sound on Return is the fly in the ointment. I imagine the master tracks donāt survive for these movies and it was a transfer from an optical track with a bit of tweaking?
Canāt complain about the video transfer & extras. I was surprised to see that Arrow got the rights to the Koch featurettes.
They must have been very conscious of the audio issue. I hope they at least tried to fix it before releasing it.
The Ringo double was next on my shopping list, now Iām a little hesitant ā¦ but better to know up front.
Thanks for the info 
I wouldnāt want to overstate the audio issue. It only bothered me on Morriconeās music in Return when there is a noticeable wandering off pitch and general lack of fidelity. If, as I surmise, itās a transfer from optical, various methods exist to digitally remove defects in the optical track image, but the result is not going to match a decent magnetic transfer.
I know nothing about archival procedures on these old movies. Presumably the magnetic audio masters are not routinely scrapped, but I imagine theyāre likely to be mislaid at some point, given the vagaries of film preservation. Besides, remixing a fresh track from original audio materials would be a major undertaking. Clearly good digital recordings of the music exist and according to Dean a better soundtrack exists on DVD.
I remind myself at such times, the quality of image and sound are probably at least as good, if not better, than in un teatrucolo di provincia, circa 1965.
1 Like
I must admit I didnāt notice this when I watched it but I only ever watch RoR in Italian. Itās one of those where I think the English dub is not as good. (a la Django for example)
I found a great review from one of the amazon users who bought double disc with two Tessariās western classics. Love it! 
āā¦In contrast Return of Ringo I didnāt take to as much. It feels like its only Ringo in name the atmosphere is dark and brooding, Ringoās a depressed alcoholic on the road to redemption we have returning characters in different roles which is typical of these kinds of films. Considerably less budget almost no gore, set destruction and even the explosives going donāt really seem to do anything I guess they spent the entire budget on that chaingun and its ending is lacklustre not much of a showdown. So its worth it for the first film if you get it cheap and the seconds a bonus.ā
Checked out the Arrow commentary, and had to turn it off, as the pronunciations made me wince.
āDoose-ioā Tessari? Gemma with a hard G? Yikes.
1 Like