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6 Degrees Entertainment

'The Man with No Name Trilogy' [Blu-ray]
(Clint Eastwood, Wolfgang Lukschy, et al / 3-Disc Blu ray / NR / 2010 / MGM)

Overview: Sergio Leone's trilogy of operatic spaghetti Westerns with Clint Eastwood made the former television star into an international sensation as the scraggly, silent Man with No Name, a wandering rogue with a scheming mind and a sense of humor drier than the dusty, wind-scoured desert.

Blu ray: In all three, Clint plays a mysterious master gunhand, shady yet strangely charismatic. Fistful was inspired by Akira Kurosawa's samurai film Yojimbo, with Clint putting himself in the middle of a turf war in a small town overrun with criminals. More casts him as a bounty hunter teamed with a rival (Lee Van Cleef) to take down a particular nasty hombre.

The first in the collection, 'A Fistful of Dollars,' a unique take on Kurosawa's cynical samurai hit Yojimbo, reveals the transformation of the Western hero into a crafty mercenary.

Clint Eastwood plays "the man with no name" other than the name given to him by one of the characters in the film, Joe. In what is now a classic style, he rides into town on a mule and witnesses the brutality of the town bullies. Without saying a word to them, they harass him and he calmly goes into one of the town bars, has some food and listens to what the bar owner has to tell him about the town's situation.

He casually decides to stay and do something about the entire situation, walks out and takes out four of the bad guys. What follows from there is such an outstanding film that is fraught with a certain degree of humor as he deftly plays both sides against his middle and walks away with "A Fistful of Dollars."

The follow-up, 'For a Few Dollars More,' teams Eastwood up in an uneasy alliance with Lee Van Cleef (High Noon) in a tale of revenge.

This movie has a wonderful beginning as we are introduced to Lee Van Cleef's character while he's in the performance of his role of a bounty killer. We are then treated to the reintroduction of Clint Eastwood's character, which actually does have the name of Monco, while he is taking care of his business as a bounty killer as well.

Once the director has shown these two acts, he deftly shows how they end up on the same path as they both find out that they can score it big by killing Gian Maria Volonte's character, Indio and his gang. From there, we're taken to El Paso where the film's intrigue and suspense kick into high gear as both Eastwood and Van Cleef's characters meet.

If you've never seen this movie or its predecessor, I highly suggest you check these movies out as they're basically the mold for many of the westerns that followed. Prior to this movie and 'A Fistful of Dollars,' westerns were much tamer, which lends to the popularity of these movies which have a lot more grit and realism to them.

But the masterpiece of the set is 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly,' an epic scramble for buried gold set against the violence of the Civil War. In this film good is a relative term as three criminals make a series of tenuous partnerships broken in double-crosses and betrayals in Leone's epic vision of the American southwest as endless deserts and clapboard towns infested with gunmen.

The film is especially memorable for its pace and cinematography. The opening scene, for example, juxtaposes closeups of anxious faces with vast panoramas of the Western landscape, and 10 minutes passes before a single word is said. It's like Tarkovsky transplanted to a vastly different setting. That's not to say it's all so serious, though. In a sense the film is a "two buddies on the road" movie, with Tuco the wisecracker and Eastwood's character the straight man.

It is also a war film, with Leone apparently sparing no expense in presenting a realistic image of hundreds of men charging each other on the battlefield. This is not among the greatest films I've ever seen, but it's very well-made.

Because this is a "spaghetti Western", an effort in the genre realized by a joint Italian-Spanish production team with American lead actors, the film has some curious qualities. Because of the use of locals, all the faces of Civil War soldiers are so clearly Italian, even though Italian immigration into the US picked up only later.

The Mexican bandit Tuco is played by a Jew from New York, and furthermore Leone mocks the character's Catholicism in a way that Americans of the era would, although the faith would be in no way foreign to his Italian audience. This is a Widescreen Presentation (2.35:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Features of:

A Fistful Of Dollars:
The Christopher Frayling Archives: A Fistful of Dollars
Commentary by Film Historian Christopher Frayling
A New Kind of Hero
A Few Weeks in Spain: Clint Eastwood on the Experience of Making the Film
Tre Voci: A Fistful of Dollars
Not Ready for Primetime: Renowned Filmmaker Monte Hellman discusses the Television Broadcast of A Fistful of Dollars
The Network Prologue with Actor Harry Dean Stanton
Location Comparisons: Then to Now
10 Radio Spots
Double Bill Trailer
Theatrical Trailer

For A Few Dollars More:
The Christopher Frayling Archives: For A Few Dollars More
Commentary by Film Historian Christopher Frayling
A New Standard: Frayling on For A Few Dollars More
Back for More: Clint Eastwood Remembers For A Few Dollars More
Tre Voci: For A Few Dollars More
For A Few Dollars More: The Original American Release Version
Location Comparisons
12 Radio Spots
Theatrical Trailer 1
Theatrical Trailer 2

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly:
Commentary by Film Historian Richard Schickel
Commentary by Film Historian Christopher Frayling
Leonefs West
The Leone Style
The Man Who Lost the Civil War
Reconstructing The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
IL Maestro: Ennio Morricone and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly - Part One
IL Maestro: Part Two
Deleted Scenes
Extended Tuco Torture Scene
The Socorro Sequence: A Reconstruction
Easter Egg #1 Uno, Due, Tre
Easter Egg #2 Italian Lunch
Easter Egg #3 New York Actor
Easter Egg #4 Gun in Holster
Theatrical Trailer
French Trailer

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