Great film marred by MGM/Sony DVD sound problem!!!
Sabata - one of the best Spaghetti Westerns is marred by a terrible sound-sink problem throughout most of the middle of the film. And I do not mean bad dubbing! The sound becomes and stays so out of sink that voices and all sound effets (footsteps, slaps, gun shots etc.) are noticably off by about a whole second. This completely mars one of the greatest spaghetti westerns and the very best of the three Sabata films! This is a problem with the MGM/Sony DVD pressing not with the original film. I would have given this otherwise beautiful package 5 stars if not for the sound problem.
Adios Sabata and The Return of Sabata do not have this problem. Although they are entertaining they can't hold a candle to the original Sabata.
The sound problem on Sabata is terribly disapointing and makes the package unacceptable.
Please respond if any one else finds this problem.
The Best Spaghetti Western Trilogy? No, but good fun none the less.
This DVD trilogy collects all three of the Sabata films in great quality. There are no real extras and special features, but that's ok. You don't really need them. The sound and picture quality is just spiffy. They put a nice little collection together.
The movies themselves are three of the better Spaghetti Westerns. While they are nowhere near the greatness of the Leone films, they are all a pretty fun watch. Actually these films aren't really a trilogy. They all pretty much stand up on their own.
Lee Van Cleef stars as Sabata in the first and third film. Here he has a fantastic screen presence. He does a great job of bringing Sabata to life. Yul Brynner's Sabata in Adios Sabata is quite different. He's very quiet and stern. He also wears a pretty silly costume. Despite that, he does a decent job. It's just not Sabata. They should have just called him Indio Black in this film.
All three movies have similar plots and characters. In fact, much of the cast appears in all three films playing the same types of characters. These movies cannot be taking to seriously. While the gunplay is pretty well done, expect to see lots of weird gimmicks. Characters who do flips and cartwheels off of roofs, others who kick tiny steal balls at opponents, and all types of weird gimmicky guns. Don't expect a gritty realistic western. It's all pretty wild stuff. If you can deal with all of that, then sit back and enjoy. On a side note, the music in the first two films is fantastic.
If you like Spaghetti Westerns, I think this trilogy is a must for your collection. In my opinion Lee Van Cleef does some of his best work in the first Sabata film. So check it out, but use caution. Don't expect these movies to be anything like the "Dollar Trilogy." It's more of a fun ride that's not meant to be taken to seriously.
You Win Some and You Lose Some
Thank the Italian gods Lee Van Cleef came back for the third and final Sabata film. Van Cleef is the RFD in regard to Sabata. Unfortunately, the Yul Brynner outing just never gets off the ground. Poor Yul is costumed something like Siegfried or Roy and his Sabata is superficial and bland. Not that Yul can't do better. He is fantastic in Invitation to a Gunfighter. But despite the welcome support of the usual Sabata cohorts, this version is for hardcore Spaghetti Western fans only, or for those who demand a complete Sabata Universe. The two Van Cleef films are among his best in the genre and are outstanding in the usual vein: Awesome Anti-hero lead, Catchy and quirky music, and bizarre supporting characters (and villains). 2 out of 3 ain't bad. It's good to see some interest in putting movies like this out in a set. Now if we could only get a QUALITY tranfer to DVD of the Trinity films.
This restoration of Sam Peckinpah's 1965 western Major Dundee is nothing short of magnificent, a noble attempt at restoring a famously wrecked masterpiece. When Peckinpah went over budget and over schedule during the Mexico shoot, unshot scenes were canceled and the footage rudely cut by the studio. The director disowned the results. In 2005, surviving footage was patched back in, and a new musical soundtrack commissioned to replace the score Peckinpah hated. This raises some legitimate questions about interpreting a director's intentions, and about messing with film history, but Major Dundee--The Extended Version is such a rousing, mysterious experience, one feels grateful.
Major Dundee (Charlton Heston) is a vainglorious officer busted to the decidedly inglorious job... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Charlton Heston - Richard Harris Director(s): Sam Peckinpah DVD Release Date: Released the 20 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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"Hammer Horror Series" presents some of the studios best films from the early sixties period, though they might not be the most familiar to Hammer fans. A few, in fact, might come with baggage attached, but this collection dispells some of that baggage. In particular, Hammer's "Phantom of the Opera" has suffered more abuse over the years than any other of its films. The hard truth is, it's pretty good. The reason it has such a bum reputation might be because most people first saw it on television, which seriously impaired it. In it's proper aspect ratio, and with the extra scenes filmed for American TV left out, it's really pretty good. Not perfect, but pretty good. The biggest liability with the film are the horrendous opera sequences. "Evil of Frankenstein" has similarly been... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Herbert Lom - Heather Sears Director(s): Terence Fisher DVD Release Date: Released the 06 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Walker (Lee Marvin) strides through Los Angeles with the steel-eyed stare of a stone-cold killer, or perhaps a ghost. Betrayed by his wife and best friend, who gun him down point-blank and leave him for dead after a successful heist, Walker blasts his way up the criminal food chain in a quest for revenge. Did he survive the shooting or return from the grave, or is it all a dying dream? The question is left in the air in John Boorman's modern film noir, a brutal revenge thriller based on Richard Stark's novel The Hunter (remade by Brian Helgeland as Payback), set in the impersonal concrete and steel canyons of Los Angeles and eerily empty cells of Alcatraz. Walker kills without remorse, guided by shadowy "informant" Keenan Wynn, whose own agenda is carefully concealed, and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Lee Marvin - Angie Dickinson Director(s): John Boorman DVD Release Date: Released the 05 July 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Val Lewton's name is synonymous with the subtlest, most mysterious brand of horror filmmaking in Hollywood's golden age, and the nine horror classics he produced at RKO between 1942 and 1946 constitute the most remarkable cycle of creativity in B-movie history. (For the record, the Lewton/RKO legacy also includes two non-horror entries, Youth Runs Wild and Mademoiselle Fifi.)
Before becoming a film producer, the Russian-born Lewton was a prolific writer of pulp fiction, nonfiction, and a couple of pornographic novels. He also worked for years as assistant to David O. Selznick, a legendary producer with a distinctive personal signature--and a flair for grandiosity Lewton himself never emulated. It's ever so revealing that, on Selznick's Gone With the Wind, it was... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Boris Karloff DVD Release Date: Released the 04 October 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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I don't know the real history of the gunfight at the OK Corral. I saw the recent movie TOMBSTONE with Kurt Russel and Val Kilmer and found it thoroughly enjoyable but I never considered it to be "historical". It was just hysterical.
HOUR OF THE GUN is another, older version of the story. It too is excellent and more believable as a historical drama but I have no conception that it is historical other than the recognition that Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Ike Clanton were real people; Tombstone, Arizona, Colorado, Mexico and the OK Corral are real places; and a gunfight really did take place at the corral. That doesn't matter to me because this too is a fine film and thoroughly entertaining. It has none of the comic element that TOMBSTONE had but it is a high quality western... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): James Garner - Jason Robards Director(s): John Sturges DVD Release Date: Released the 17 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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