Stranger and Gunfighter - French Lobby Cards

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DVD Review: God's Gun

As there is no blu-ray release of God's Gun, I have opted to give a DVD review of the best quality version of this DVD on the market.

The film itself is a well know LVC disaster.  You would have thought with the talent involved (LVC, Jack Palance, and Sabata director "Frank Kramer") this movie would be a slam dunk.  Unfortunately a film plagued with problems both behind the scenes and on the page was made, and what we end up with is a film which LVC didn't even dub his own voice on!

Most copies you will find of God's Gun are of a scratchy full screen public domain print that has been floating around since the 1980's.  It wasn't until 2007 that a quality studio released version of the film was put on DVD.  Unfortunately, this DVD has only been available in Europe, and as such is region 2/PAL encoded (making it unplayable on most US DVD players)


VIDEO

While this DVD does present God's Gun in widescreen for the first time, it is only at a 1:85 ratio, which doesn't open up the film to a lot of extra picture.  The DVD was not anamorphically enhanced for HD sets, so sadly the film will display windowboxed (black bars on sides and top/bottom) on most modern devices.

Overall the image is nice, and blemish free. 

Screencaps below-

AUDIO

 

The sound suffers from PAL speedup, so voices do appear at a higher pitch (not that it matters as no one has their original voice featured!)

EXTRAS

None.  Zip.  Zilch.  Nada.


Recommended for the LVC completest only.  Owning a better copy of this film, doesn't necessarily make it a better movie!

THE GOOD:

• Widescreen
• Decent image quality

THE BAD

• Region 2 (UK) only
• No extras

 Amazon.co.uk - God's Gun DVD

Escape From Death Row - Pressbook

aka - Mean Frank and Crazy Tony

Pressbook for the cut up version of the 1973 film, probably released in the early 1980's to cash in on Escape From New York.

Click to enlarge!

Back From Spain!

 

I've been back from Spain for a week now, and have only begun to go over the nearly 2000(!) photos I took over the week I spent chronicling the many locations of LVC.  As it stands now, there will probably around 20 new location posts that I will release throughout the rest of the year (probably every other week).

On this trip I wanted to focus mainly on the non-Leone locations, and I am very satisfied with the results.  While many of the set locations are in poor condition due to age, neglect, and the elements, it is a fascinating study of man vs. nature.  Below you can see the desert of Tabernas retake a location from Day of Anger.

 

 

Many locations previously unavailable have been made available to me with permissions of the owners.  At last I have conquered the remains of the fortress of El Condor, yet the only real gold still remains to be Jaroo's gold nugget!

Another highlight of the trip was visiting the location from the finale of The Big Gundown.  Virtually pristine and unchanged since 1966, I even allowed myself to assume a non-Van Cleef role... who could not resist doing the Cuchillo knife pose!

 

 

Beyond the southern Spain locations, I also ventured to a few locations near Madrid, including the remains of E70 Studios, where Captain Apache, Bad Man's River, and The Stranger & The Gunfighter were filmed.

 

 

 

Of course there are many many more locations, and the above is merely a sample of what is to come.  I hope you all will enjoy the forthcoming photo journey!  Thank you for all your continued support!

 

 

 

 

 

The Squeeze Soundtrack Now Available!

 

 

The soundtrack for The Squeeze (Controrapina in Italy) has been rereleased for the first time since 1978 (then only available on LP).  This new release is only available via digital download at Amazon.com for $7.99 or available for free streaming on Spotify.

 

There are some pretty groovy tunes on this 30 minute album (and a particularly grating ballad called "The Loner", which I challenge you to make it through the entire song!).

 

Album is 30 minutes in length.

 

Amazon. com - Controrapina (The Squeeze) Soundtrack