Welcome to theBad.net Lee Van Cleef Blog! Here you will find information, photos, videos, and some of my opinions of the badman himself.

Many thanks to the wonderful fans of theBad.net for their contributions and continued enthusiasm!

Saturday, December 31, 2016

Happy New Year!!!



Happy New Year!

The LVC Blog will continue with weekly Saturday updates throughout the year.  Truth be told there are already enough entries written and scheduled to take us into mid-2018, but I am sure there will be new things to report as the year progresses!

2017 marks the 20 year anniversary of my LVC website as well as the web board.  Has it really been that long?

the original webpage


Have a happy new year!




Saturday, December 17, 2016

Bad Guy Lee Van Cleef Now Riding Higher Than Ever - 1970 Article

 

The Pittsburgh Press, Friday, July 24, 1970
Bad Guy Lee Van Cleef Now Riding Higher Than Ever
By REBECCA MOREHOUSE


NEW YORK--Lee Van Cleef was close to broke five years ago, after 13 years as a bad, bad movie badman. Today, he is serenely solvent and increasingly popular here and abroad: “I’m in the top five actors in Italy and in the top ten throughout Europe.”
Booted into Western villainy by “High Noon,” Van Cleef had played 350 gunslinger roles in movies and television, none as the star he now is, when Italian director Sergio Leone galloped to his rescue with Van Cleef more than a fistful of dollars.
“Leone came to Los Angeles and we had a meeting,” he said. “Late the next night -- April 10, 1965 -- we signed a contract that was 30 per cent higher than anything I’d made before. Then his production manager opened an attache case containing thousand of greenbacks, I shelled out 10 per cent to my agent and went home.

Greenbacks Everywhere
“I hadn’t told my wife Joan about the conference. I just walked in and threw her the envelope and the rubber band broke and there were greenbacks all over the room. She was between laughing and crying. It took her four times to count it.
For all the bullets and beatings he’s taken, Van Cleef is a rock of a man with a fist like a stone, 6-2, dark hair thin and graying, pleasant in manner. Of Dutch ancestry, he was born 45 years ago in Somerville, N. J. -- “My mother still lives there.”

His new movie, National General’s “El Condor,” takes him again to the American West. But like his other recent pictures (“For a Few Dollars More,” “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly,” “The Big Gundown”), it was shot in Rome and on location in Spain. He co-stars with Jim Brown.

“The man I play in ‘El Condor’ is a change for me. He’s a wildcat but there’s a lot of comedy. I’ve done leading men in six of the eight European pictures I’ve made -- the character lead, not the pretty face. It’s getting so they don’t want a pretty face, they like ’em rough looking.”
Lee Van Cleef’s own life has been as full of dramatic surprises as the scenarios he enlivens.
He dropped out of high school to join the Navy, after he go out worked on Doris Duke’s estate: “I took care of her prize cattle, pitched hay, things like that. But you can’t keep a family going on farm wages and I got a job at a plant doing time and motion study.”

Josh Logan Hired Him
A friend at the plant belonged to an amateur theater group and Van Cleef began to act with the troupe in 1947. In 1950, a director he had worked with brought him to New York to see talent agent Maynard Morris. Morris sent him straight to the Alvin Theater to see Joshua Logan, then casting the national company of “Mister Roberts,” the World War II Navy drama.
“I read some lines, very bad, and he says I’m hired and he wants me back tomorrow. I’m hit between the eyes. I’m working at the plant and doing public accounting at night and I don’t see how I can do it. But I was there Monday morning and I’ve been acting ever since.”

The “Mister Roberts” tour ended in Los Angeles. There, producer-director Stanley Kramer saw the play and engaged Van Cleef for “High Noon” as one of Gary Cooper’s tormenters.

“I can’t say enough good of Gary Cooper. He was so honest and had such respect for other people. He was beautiful.”
Van Cleef has three children from his first marriage to Patsy Ruth Van Cleef who lives in Athens, Ga.
“My oldest boy, Alan, finished four years at UCLA and is in officers training at Ft Benning, Ga. He wants to be a lawyer. My daughter Deborah is studying interior design at the University of Georgia.
“My younger son David is in high school in Athens..”

North American Newspaper Alliance

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Big Gundown and Death Rides a Horse Return to Blu-ray

Both The Big Gundown and Death Rides a Horse have returned to blu-ray this month courtesy of Exploited Media.  These discs were previously released in 2012 as 3 disc collector sets (1 feature blu-ray, 1 feature DVD, and 1 DVD of extras).  The new 2016 versions only include the movie only blu-ray disc.

There is currently no US release of Death Rides a Horse.

Discs can be ordered from Amazon Germany.  They will play in US blu-ray players.




The Big Gundown - amazon.de

Death Rides a Horse - amazon.de



Saturday, November 26, 2016

Big Gundown New York City Postcard


Here is a cool postcard of New York from 1967 featuring a marquee for The Big Gundown!

Click to enlarge!


 
 
 
 

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Saturday, November 12, 2016

LVC WTF?

I found this on a recent eBay offering.  It is quite obviously a Day of Anger poster repurposed for the release of Captain Apache.  I'm not sure if this was something that was widespread, or maybe it was something thought up by a particularly thrifty theater owner in the 70's.

 
 

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Saturday, October 29, 2016

For a Few Dollars More - Candids

Here are a few candid photos from LVC's "breakthrough" role!



 

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Saturday, October 8, 2016

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Soundtrack Release: The Perfect Killer


Earlier this year, Quartet Records released the soundtrack for Quel Pomeriggio Maledetto, aka The Perfect Killer. While the movie is nowhere to be found on DVD or blu-ray, at least the groovy soundtrack is available!

Quartet Records and Gruppo Sugar presents the premiere release of an exciting polizziesco Stelvio Cipriani score!

Quel pomeriggio maledetto stars Lee Van Cleef as Harry Chapman, a criminal whose latest heist left him in the slammer while everybody else got away. Finding new employment as a hitman, Harry uses his job as a means to right the previous wrongs while also facing another determined opponent with a similar task...

Stelvio Cipriani's infectious mod-flavored score recalls the easy-listening world of the Mission: Impossible scores with some tense suspense music for the assassinations. Harry's theme features the solo trumpet to reflect the criminal's loneliness following the abandonment of his team. A love theme aims to portray him as a lady's man and Van Cleef succeeds at breaking hearts despite his unconvincing toupee.

The release by Quartet Records marks the first ever release of the score, mastered by Claudio Fuiano from the first generation stereo tapes, courtesy of Gruppo Sugar. The 8-page booklet includes colorful stills and liner notes by Gergely Hubai discussing the film and the score.

Listen to some samples and order here-
http://www.quartetrecords.com/quel-pomeriggio-maledetto.html



Saturday, September 24, 2016

Saturday, September 17, 2016