World Famous Comics: The Sergio Leone Anthology (A Fistful Of Dollars / For A Few Dollars More / The Good, The Bad And The Ugly / Duck, You Sucker)
The Sergio Leone Anthology (A Fistful Of Dollars / For A Few Dollars More / The Good, The Bad And The Ugly / Duck, You Sucker)
Starring: Clint Eastwood, James Coburn, Rod Steiger, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef Directed By: Sergio Leone Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: Anamorphic, Box set, Color, NTSC, Surround Sound Label: MGM (Video & DVD) Number of Items: 8 Region Code: 1 Release Date: June 05, 2007 Running Time: 568 minutes Theatrical Release Date: December 29, 1967
Description: Disc 1: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY Collector's Edition Disc 2: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY Bonus Disc Disc 3: A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS Collector's Edition Disc 4: A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS Bonus Disc Disc 5: FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE Collector's Edition Disc 6: FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE Bonus Disc Disc 7: DUCK, YOU SUCKER (A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE) Collector's Edition Disc 8: DUCK, YOU SUCKER (A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE) Bonus Disc
Amazon.com: From the innovative "James Bond Western" style of A Fistful of Dollars (1964) to the complete restoration of Duck You Sucker (1971), The Sergio Leone Anthology pays lavish tribute to one of the greatest of all Italian directors. A lifelong film buff deeply influenced by the movies he enjoyed as an uneducated youth in southern Italy, Leone (1929-1989) had officially directed only one previous film (1961's The Colossus of Rhodes) when he recruited a relatively unknown American TV star named Clint Eastwood (on a modest salary of $15,000) and made cinema history with A Fistful of Dollars, not the first Western made by an Italian but certainly the first truly Italian entry in the "Spaghetti Western" genre that Leone virtually invented. Each of the four films included in this eight-disc set are influential milestones in that once-maligned, now-celebrated genre, and while Leone's classic Westerns were largely dismissed by critics throughout the 1960s and '70s, they now stand as the masterworks of a visionary artist who was posthumously elevated into the pantheon of world-class filmmakers. To acknowledge Leone's historic impact on the genre, the Leone Anthology includes MGM's previous two-disc extended-cut collector's edition of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966), and applies the same deluxe treatment to A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More (1965), and, for the first time on DVD, the fully restored English-language version of the original 157-minute Italian cut of Duck You Sucker (previously known by its alternate U.S. title A Fistful of Dynamite), which was never shown in American theaters.
A Fistful of Dollars is best known in America for spawning the "Man With No Name" marketing campaign that made Eastwood a star, although Eastwood's character is clearly named "Joe" in this cleverly adapted low-budget remake of Akira Kurosawa's samurai classic Yojimbo, in which Eastwood's lone drifter vies for strategic advantage in a corrupt Mexican town divided by a bitter family feud. The operatic qualities that grew increasingly lavish in Leone's later films are evident here on a smaller scale, along with the modern, innovative score of Ennio Morricone, whose legendary collaborations with Leone (on all four of these films) were vital to the director's deliberate defiance of Hollywood's Western traditions. Fistful was an instant success in Italy and its immediate sequel, For a Few Dollars More, is often cited as the definitive Spaghetti Western, with a bigger budget ($600,000) and a charismatic costar with Eastwood (Lee Van Cleef) in an uneasy alliance between gunslingers that introduced a hint of humanity to Leone's increasingly de-mythologized vision of the West. While teaming Eastwood, Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach in a ruthless Civil War-era quest for buried Confederate gold, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly completed Leone's "Dollars" trilogy (filmed primarily on locations in Spain) on a truly epic scale, introducing the darker cynicism, grander ambition, and artistic maturity that defined Leone's later films.
Leone vowed to quit making Westerns after his 1968 masterpiece Once Upon a Time in the West (a Paramount release not included in this set), but circumstances led him to seize the directorial reins of Duck You Sucker, a dynamic yet deeply disillusioned study of revolution that can now take its rightful place among Leone's greatest films. Like several of Leone's films, Duck You Sucker suffered a long history of cuts, re-cuts, and censorship, and the fully restored 157-minute version (unseen since the film's 1971 Italian premiere) more effectively explores the complex friendship between an Irish rebel explosives expert (James Coburn) and a brutish Mexican bandit (Rod Steiger) who becomes a reluctant revolutionary in 1913 Mexico. With explosive action sequences that remain among the most impressive ever filmed, Duck You Sucker now gives richer meaning to the film's original Italian title Giù la testa ("Keep Your Head Down"), asserting Leone's theme that family is far more important than the devastating violence of revolution. In the Leone Anthology (a variation on previous DVD sets released in England, Germany, and Japan), Duck You Sucker is the long-awaited crown jewel in a box-set of cinematic treasures. And while Leone purists will endlessly debate over the image quality (generally quite impressive) and 5.1-channel soundtrack mixes included here, there's no denying that The Sergio Leone Anthology is the definitive Leone tribute for a technically demanding 21st-century audience, and that's cause for enthusiastic celebration. --Jeff Shannon
On the DVDs Listed in the glossy 32-page booklet that accompanies this eight-disc set (also including cast lists, scene selections, brief synopses, and behind-the-scenes details), the bonus features found in The Sergio Leone Anthology provide a comprehensive study of Leone's career, themes that dominated his work, and the historical contexts that inform Leone's classic "Spaghetti Westerns." With an even balance of lively authority and erudite scholarship, acclaimed Leone biographer and British film historian Sir Christopher Frayling provides informative commentary on A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and Duck You Sucker, while Time magazine critic Richard Schickel's equally astute commentary remains on MGM's previous two-disc release of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. (Many of these features were prepared for the U.K. version of The Leone Anthology, including interviews conducted in 2003 and 2005.) In addition to a wide variety of vintage American radio promotional spots for these films, the meticulously researched and delightfully fascinating "location comparisons" show "then and now" scenes from all four films, with original film clips perfectly matched to location photos taken in 2004 by devoted Leone fans Donald S. Bruce and Marla J. Johnson.
Extras on A Fistful of Dollars begin with "A New Kind of Hero" (22:53), Frayling's behind-the-scenes analysis of the film's innovative anti-hero played by Clint Eastwood, whom Leone hired (when first choices Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Lee Marvin, and Charles Bronson proved too expensive) after seeing Eastwood in a 1961 episode of Rawhide. In the interview featurette "A Few Weeks in Spain" (8:33), Eastwood recalls the experience of making the film on location, and "Tre Voci" (or "Three Voices") is an 11-minute combination of retrospective interviews with producer Alberto Grimaldi, screenwriter Sergio Donati, and Mickey Knox, an American actor living in Rome who provided many of the post-synchronized voices for the English-language versions of Leone's films. In "Not Ready for Prime Time" (6:20), maverick American director Monte Hellman describes the circumstances that led to his direction of an explanatory Fistful of Dollars prologue for the film's American network TV premiere on August 29, 1977. Featuring Harry Dean Stanton, and filmed as an attempt to "legitimize" the Man With No Name's seemingly immoral behavior, the rarely-seen prologue (7:44) is introduced by obsessive Leone fan Howard Fridkin, who saved his Betamax recording from the one-time-only 1977 broadcast.
Frayling examines For a Few Dollars More in "A New Standard" (20:15), a "making of" featurette with emphasis on the film's male/male dynamic (described by Frayling as Leone's "invention of the brother he never had"). In "Back for More" (7:08), Eastwood recalls how he'd begun to watch Leone to inform his own directorial ambitions. "Tre Voci" (11:05) continues the retrospective interviews with Grimaldi, Donati, and Knox, and "The Original American Release Version" (5:19) examines three edits (including removal of the name "Manco" so Eastwood's character could remain "nameless" in the film's American marketing) that were made for the film's U.S. release.
Extras on The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly are highlighted by "Leone's West" (19:53) and "The Leone Style" (23:47), a pair of excellent documentaries exploring the film itself and the evolution of Leone's visual style as his budgets and production values grew to epic proportions. Featuring interviews with Clint Eastwood, critic and Eastwood biographer Richard Schickel, and others, these are must-see features packed with entertaining observations and anecdotes. Lending historical context to Leone's film, "The Man Who Lost the Civil War" is a 14-minute excerpt from a documentary about ill-fated Confederate general Henry Hopkins Sibley's botched campaign to expand Confederate dominance in the West. The "Reconstruction" featurette (11:07) is a detailed study of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly's painstaking restoration to Leone's intended 179-minute extended cut, featuring an interview John Kirk, the MGM director of technical operations who supervised the film's meticulous reconstruction. The essential contribution of composer Ennio Morricone is celebrated in the "Il Maestro" featurette (7:47) and film music historian Jon Burlingame provides an excellent audio-only survey (12:29) of Morricone's most popular soundtrack. Deleted scenes include the extended "Tuco torture" sequence (in which the brutal beating of Eli Wallach's character is masterfully cross-cut with the melancholy performance of a prison-camp orchestra); the brilliant "Socorro sequence" that was drastically edited in previous cuts; and a French trailer revealing shots and alternate angles not seen in the film's various theatrical releases. The poster gallery includes eight posters from the film's international marketing campaigns.
For Duck You Sucker, Frayling's film-by-film analysis continues in "The Myth of Revolution" (22:10), a behind-the-scenes study of Leone's deepening artistic maturity, as manifested in the film's cynical view of political revolution. "Donati Remembers" (7:20) is a continuation of the retrospective interview with screenwriter Sergio Donati (who by the early '70s was urging Leone to return to smaller-scale filmmaking), and "Once Upon a Time in Italy" (6:00) explores the ambitious effort that went into creating the definitive traveling exhibit of material (props, posters, costumes, etc.) from Leone's archives and beyond, first shown at the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage, in Los Angeles, California, in July 2005. In "Sorting Out the Versions" (11:37), film historian Glenn Erickson narrates a visual survey of the various cuts and changes made to Duck You Sucker during its tortured history of global distribution, and in "Restoration Italian Style" (6:07), MGM director of technical operations John Kirk outlines the painstaking effort to restore Duck You Sucker to its original Italian premiere length of 157 minutes, resulting in the first-ever English language version based on the film's Italian-language restoration of 1996. The disc concludes with the enjoyable "Location Comparisons" (9:32), six rare radio spots from the film's original U.S. release in 1972, and (as with all other films in this set) the original theatrical trailer. --Jeff Shannon
Finally - the whole movie... I've been a fan of the Sergio Leone westerns for more years than I care to count, particularly the 'man with no name' trilogy starring Eastwood, followed very closely by 'Duck You Suckers'. I've seen these movies many times, but never in their entirity until now. After 40+ years, we now have complete versions in this anthology - not to mention a lot of background material that I thoroughly enjoyed watching as well.
This collection is a must if you're a Clint Eastwood fan, A Sergio Leone fan, or just someone who likes the old spaghetti westerns and wants to see the whole movie, uncut by censors or chopped up to show on TV between commercials. Great set! Go for it!
Wow!, 4 great Sergio Leone classics restored in all their glory Worth "the few dollars more"!!! Wow,If you're a fan of Sergio Leone or spaghetti westerns in general,than this great 4 film set is a no brainer type purchase!!! Each film gets the royal 2 dvd treatment(the film on the fist disc while the second disc each has more extras than you shoot a six gun at,absolutely remarkable,it;s time that these claccis films got the red carpet treatment!!!It includes the famous "Dollars/Man With No Name Trilogy(Fistful Of Dollars,Few Dollars More and The Good The Bad and the Ugly) complete and restored Starrring the onne and only Clint Eastwood!!! And for the first time in the US,"Duck Your Sucker AKA "A fistful of Dynamite". All in anamorphic widescreen!!! For just a few dollars more you can have this set that's so much better than the previous "Man With No Name" 3 DVD set from 1999,In fact this one actually cost me less than the 1999 one I bought originally,is it worth the upgrade,the answer is a solid YES!!! If you have not bought these classic before,get this 8 DVD set and you're in for a treat!!! Recommended!!! Five stars!!! Two thumbs up!!! A+
good deal I purchased this as a Father's day gift for my husband. I thought I was getting a good deal for the money. The movies are not really what I typically enjoy, but my husband has really loved watching them.
WHAT A DIFFERENCE...40 SOME YEARS MAKE You know, when these spaghetti westerns came out, movie critics hated these movies, with a passion. Judith Crist, who was a TV Guide critic, wouldn't even write a complete sentence. Now, the same movies are considered western movie masterpieces. Unfortunately, Sergio Leone isn't alive to hear this about his movies, but fortunately, he already knew that his movies were masterpieces. You know, it's interesting, that many of great directors never won Oscars. Orson Welles, John Ford, even Alfred Hitchcock. It's nice to know, that Sergio Leone is in good company.
An almost perfect boxed set Among the truly great movie directors, few have a smaller body of work than Sergio Leone. He really only directed seven movies, and the first of those, The Colossus of Rhodes, is a standard sword-and-sandals flick with little of the true Leone touch. After that, he would make his mark with five westerns and finish with one of the great gangster films, Once Upon a Time in America. It is, however, the westerns that Leone really excelled, making some of the best in the genre. These so-called "Spaghetti Westerns" (because they were Italian-made) actually exceed in quality most of the ones made in the U.S. The Sergio Leone Anthology contains four of these five westerns.
All three of the "Man With No Name" trilogy are included. This is a bit of a misnomer; although all three movies star Clint Eastwood (in roles that would make him a major movie star), he does not play the same character. In the first film, A Fistful of Dollars, Eastwood plays a mercenary gunfighter who plays both sides in a gang war in a small Mexican town. A re-make of Yojimbo, this movie was made on a small budget, but already, in the first film in which Leone could truly express himself, he has created a minor masterpiece. As with all the movies in this set, this film comes with tons of extras including commentaries and behind-the-scenes material; especially amusing is an incompetent attempt by a TV studio to add a prologue to give the movie a bit of moral standing.
The follow-up, For A Few Dollars More, ups the ante by including Lee Van Cleef as a rival bounty hunter whose motives may be more complicated than the mere pursuit of money. And both Eastwood and Van Cleef would be back for the third "Trilogy" movie, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. In my opinion, this may be the best western ever, and I doubt I'm alone (it rates consistently in IMDB's top ten movies). Eastwood is The Good, Van Cleef is The Bad and Eli Wallach is The Ugly, but good and evil are not really relevant terms here. It has been said that while in American Westerns, the hero is always the best with his gun, in Leone's Westerns, being the best with your gun makes you the hero, not any moral standing. The plot deals with the hunt for stolen Confederate gold during the Civil War; and while the previous films also conclude with grand showdowns, this movie has perhaps the best showdown in movie history (probably part of the reason it is one of the best films ever).
What's missing from the set is Once Upon a Time in the West, which rivals The Good, the Bad and The Ugly in quality. While this missing film deals with the end of the era of the gunfighter and the coming of civilization, the last film in the set, Duck, You Sucker, takes place after that era. Of all Leone's films, this is probably the least watched, and while good, it is bound to be a disappointment to those expecting another western like the earlier ones. Instead, this one has Rod Steiger as a bandit thief (very similar to Wallach's Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) who is converted against his will into a revolutionary by explosives expert and ex-IRA member James Coburn. Despite moments of humor, this is the darkest movie in the set, but also forms something of a thematic transition to the gangster era of Leone's final movie, Once Upon A Time in America.
Although this set suffers from the omission of Once Upon a Time in the West, it is still a great set well worth five stars. All the movies look great with once-deleted scenes again restored and plenty of extras: each set has two discs, making this an eight disc set. Even if you've seen these movies in other formats, you should pick up this set if you enjoy westerns at all. These are not just westerns at their best, they are movie-making at its best.
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