TheBad.net - The Lee Van Cleef Blog: April 2015

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Blu-ray Review: Bad Man's River (Spain)

Bad Man's River was recently released on Blu-ray in Spain. The disc is compatible with US blu-ray players (verified). Sadly the disc is only available in Spanish, and does not offer any English subtitles either.

Main Menu

VIDEO:

The overall image is nice, certainly the best this movie has ever looked, it is however not without problems. Detail is lacking. Color is a bit washed out at times. The print itself looks to be several generations from the original negative.

Screencaps below (click to enlarge) -

The image quality is much better than the previously "best" DVD version on the market (which while letterboxed, offered an image that was not anamorphically enhanced, and was mastered in the late 90's)

Click images below to see the improvement-

Blu-ray

DVD

The Spanish print utilized for the blu-ray is slightly cut, and runs less than minute shorter than the US version. The missing scene looks to be the dinner scene between LVC and Gina on the train.

AUDIO:

Spanish only, with the exception of the songs recorded in English.

EXTRAS:

Trailer in HD
A nice image gallery of photos. A minute and a half in length.

Overall not a bad release. A major improvement over most DVD versions. Hopefully other regions may get this film, and a proper English release will be set forth.

THE GOOD:

Cheap

Plays on US players

THE BAD:

Spanish language only

Full stats and ordering info-

Region: A/B/C
Language: Spanish
Subtitles: Spanish
Number of discs: 1
Studio: Divisa
Run Time: 88 minutes (1:27:35)

Amazon.es - El Hombre de Rio Malo [Blu-ray]

Saturday, April 18, 2015

TheBad.net Returns to Spain...

I am currently on my way back to Spain to create more location reports for the blog. This time I will be focusing on more of the non-Leone locations from films such as The Big Gundown, Death Rides a Horse, Sabata, El Condor, and more! There will be plenty of new blog entries on these locations (and updated ones from the last trip too) coming over the rest of the year.

Mid-week I will post a few teaser photos on Facebook as I make my way around the country.

I'll try not to take myself too seriously!

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Blu-ray Review: Return of Sabata (Germany)

Slipcover and DVD case

New from Germany by Explosive Media (who also have released The Big Gundown, Death Rides a Horse and Sabata), comes the worldwide debut of Return of Sabata on Blu-ray. Yul Brynner's Adios Sabata has also been released to complete the trilogy. While the packaging does state this is a Region B (Europe) disc, it played with no problems on my Region A (US) player.

main menu

VIDEO:

The transfer for Return of Sabata appears to be an older HD transfer supplied to Explosive Media by MGM. I suspect this is the same transfer that has been used for sporadic HD broadcasts in the past 10 years.

It is a very good looking transfer, and is on par with their Sabata release. The overall presentation is faithful to the source material. No major print damage. Color is very good. Close ups exhibit fine detail. Definitely a worthy upgrade to the MGM DVD.

Screencaps below (click to enlarge!) -

AUDIO:

The audio is available in German, English, Spanish and Italian. German and English subtitles are also available. Overall it sounds exactly how you would expect, and faithfully reproduces the soundtrack of the time. "If you wanna get money, if you wanna get rich, and if you wanna good life ya gotta ba son of a .... bom, bom, bom..bom bom....bom...bom..."

EXTRAS:

Explosive Media has put together a fantastic array of extras for the film. All are presented in HD. The German trailers for this film and other LVC films, are a real treat as I had not seen some of them before. The location comparisons were disappointing as they each feature about 2 minutes of footage from a scene (set to Marcello Giombini’s score, not the film audio), and the about 5 seconds of the location today (not necessarily matching up).

German Sabata trailers (entire trilogy)
English trailers
Radio spots
German Lee Van Cleef trailers

For a Few Dollars More
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Day of Anger
Beyond the Law
Death Rides a Horse (US trailer)

Locations
Image Galleries (publicity photos, lobby cards, posters)
Booklet interview with Reiner Schone (in German)

IN CONCLUSION:

I would recommend this set to all LVC fans. I imagine Kino might release this stateside (as they have released Sabata), but likely their US release would not contain any of the above extras. As this is a region free disc, and can be had for about $20 US, there is no reason not to pick this up!