A Few Words About A few words about...™ Fistful of Dollars -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[SAhmed]

I second the special edition that has the restoration of 'M' by Torsten Kaiser even though I have the great release from Criterion.

Regards,

 

[haineshisway]

Why is everyone talking about the German Blu as if it's any different than the Ripley - it uses the Ripley restoration so why is Torsten Kaiser's name being used as if he restored it, or did I misread something. I just watched a bit of both the German Ripley and the Italian Ripley - they're pretty much the same although I think the Italian looks a bit better to my eye.

 

[Trancas]

Why is everyone talking about the German Blu as if it's any different than the Ripley - it uses the Ripley restoration so why is Torsten Kaiser's name being used as if he restored it, or did I misread something. I just watched a bit of both the German Ripley and the Italian Ripley - they're pretty much the same although I think the Italian looks a bit better to my eye.

Since you have both the Italian and German versions compare the Restoration Extras that are supposed to be on both the discs.....see how they differ. See if Mr. Kaiser is mentioned.

 

[haineshisway]

Why don't you just tell us what those restoration extras say? Since I neither understand German or Italian. I'm sure everyone here is interested.

 

[Trancas]

Why don't you just tell us what those restoration extras say? Since I neither understand German or Italian. I'm sure everyone here is interested.

I don't have either disc. Certainly you could see if the Restoration extras are identical or not and if the participants are speaking German or Italian. I assume that if the head restorer were interviewed his name would be on screen while he was talking. The back covers of both discs also say that there are English subtitles so perhaps the extras are subtitled too.

 

[haineshisway]

Someone said Mr. Kaiser is mentioned in this very thread, unless I misread that.

 

[Trancas]

Someone said Mr. Kaiser is mentioned in this very thread, unless I misread that.

The Italian version says the restoration was done by Ripley's Film and CSC - Cineteca Nazionale....does Mr. Kaiser travel to Italy to restore films? Come on Bruce check out the restoration featurette - it's probably less than 5 minutes long!

 

[commander richardson]

Fistful of Dollars, was the earliest of the Clint Eastwood / Sergio Leone Italian western imports.

There were thousands that followed, mostly with unidentified talent, and sold packaged with the better films, if you wanted those for distribution.

It was photographed in Techniscope, 35/2.

For those unaware, the process, designed by Technicolor, specifically for dye transfer 35/4 anamorphic prints, allowed a production to shoot in scope format, using 50% of the raw footage, and end up with 35/4 anamorphic dye transfer prints for distribution. Generally, the process worked well, with the exception of a more grainy appearance.

The antithesis of Technicolor's majestic Technirama process, it was used for low budget productions, first appearing in films such as Gladiators 7, an Italian production released in October of 1962, and arriving in the U.S. in May of 1964.

Also, in 1964 it was used (strangely) for Paramount's Roustabout, as well as Fistful of Dollars, released in Italy in September of 1964, and in the U.S. in January of 1967.

It would become the standard of many beloved "spaghetti" westerns.

Fistful was produced on a tiny budget, which can be seen in obvious problems with Kino Lorber's new Blu-ray.

Constantly shifting colors, and lack of overall color continuity, may be processing problems - they tend toward yellow, mixed with cyan-blue - along with what appears to be light struck shots, possibly some sort of camera or later optical problem, as the bottom of certain shots flares to yellow-orange.

Those fans of the genre will want to add this film to their libraries, but be forewarned that quality is all over the map, presumably based upon MGM's transfer, as delivered to Kino.

Image - 2

Audio - 4

Pass / Fail - Fail

Upgrade from DVD - Doubtful, unless there is a need

RAH

This Forum and hometheatforum.com are ace and thank goodness reviews are honest and reliable from all reviewers . I had no idea about the 2 film German BD release even existed and people stating it is a marked improvement over the MGM original releases in BD .......so I have cancelled the KL BD and ordered the German release with both movies . Hope I have done the right thing here.

 

[Jordan Krug]

Here is the full featurette on the Ripley's restoration, it is in Italian and about 17min long.

As you can see, they did extensive work on the film, removing flicker and damages throughout, a completely new color correction etc. Of course all this work was thrown out the window when they did the new 4k scan and it seems like they didn't bother to fix all the issues with the negative again, judging from the review here.

 

[Trancas]

Here is the full featurette on the Ripley's restoration, it is in Italian and about 17min long.

As you can see, they did extensive work on the film, removing flicker and damages throughout, a completely new color correction etc. Of course all this work was thrown out the window when they did the new 4k scan and it seems like they didn't bother to fix all the issues with the negative again, judging from the review here.

Excellent sleuthing! I'll have to watch it ............. I wonder if the German Universum featurette is also online .........


I just went to Vimeo's site and saw that you posted the Italian featurette an hour ago. Very thoughtful!

 

[Trancas]

So the film was scanned (and restored?) at Digital Film Lab of Copenhagen under the supervision of Johan Alexander Prijs and Franca Farina. Sound was restored at L.E. Diapason and supervised by Fabio Venturi.
Interesting that "Bob Robertson" is listed as the film's director in the restored credits section of the featurette. I looked up "Fistful" on Wikipedia - Gian Maria Volonte is credited as Johnny Wels and Ennio Morricone is called Dan Savio. I don't think I've ever seen this movie.

 

[Jordan Krug]

Yes, it was common practice at the time for the Italians, they were trying to "disguise" these films as American by using fake American names. Once FOD became an international hit, Leone decided he didn't need to continue using a fake American name.

 

[Jordan Krug]

In 2014, Ripley's home video shed some light on their 2007 restoration and why they felt the 2014 restoration wasn't necessary.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/riple...52425272305056

This was ritrovato's response to the re-restoration controversy (in Italian):

http://corrieredibologna.corriere.it...63958208.shtml

 

[haineshisway]

So the film was scanned (and restored?) at Digital Film Lab of Copenhagen under the supervision of Johan Alexander Prijs and Franca Farina. Sound was restored at L.E. Diapason and supervised by Fabio Venturi.
Interesting that "Bob Robertson" is listed as the film's director in the restored credits section of the featurette. I looked up "Fistful" on Wikipedia - Gian Maria Volonte is credited as Johnny Wels and Ennio Morricone is called Dan Savio. I don't think I've ever seen this movie.

After all these posts to me, we find out you've never seen the movie? O-kay.

 

[haineshisway]

My question is, is this review of the Kino about this new restoration? If so, I am so glad I have the Ripley Italian disc. And apparently the German Blu-ray is that same restoration albeit a bit darker than the Italian disc.

 

[Member 323668]

Why is everyone talking about the German Blu as if it's any different than the Ripley - it uses the Ripley restoration so why is Torsten Kaiser's name being used as if he restored it, or did I misread something. I just watched a bit of both the German Ripley and the Italian Ripley - they're pretty much the same although I think the Italian looks a bit better to my eye.

You are right. The German Blu-rays indeed use the Ripley restoration, scanned in Italy and worked on in Scandinavia.

Mr. Torsten Kaiser DID perform a restoration of "A Fistful of Dollars" and the sequel in 2005 for a DVD release.

http://tlefilms.com/TLEFilms_Gallery_$1.htm

Sorry about having things mixed up.

 

[haineshisway]

No, thanks for the clarification, much appreciated.

 

[atfree]

Trying to get definitive BDs of The Man with No Name Trilogy is frustrating..... you wouldn't think it would be so hard.

 

[Vincent_P]

CultFilms in the U.K. has been using TLE's involvement with restoring Sergio Leone's DOLLARS trilogy as one of the selling points for their release of SUSPIRIA (the exact wording on the back cover of their SUSPIRIA Blu-ray- "The unadulterated encode of this CultFilms release is from the ultra high definition 4K restoration painstakingly assembled by TLE Films whose acclaimed works include the Clint Eastwood "Dollar" Leone Westerns"), so maybe this is why people assumed the earlier restoration was a result of TLE's work.

Vincent

 

[Jordan Krug]

Trying to get definitive BDs of The Man with No Name Trilogy is frustrating..... you wouldn't think it would be so hard.

It's sad but only Fistful of Dollars has received a commendable and accurate restoration (Ripley's). A lot of the home video releases never bothered to actually check their cuts against real vintage prints...for GBU Kino was offered the chance but decided to use a recut dvd created in 98 as their reference for their international cut, even though they were warned it was wrong (lol).

You have three inherent problems with all the Leone releases -

1. They were popular movies, and Italy went through a lot of censorship changes in the 70's. It was common practice (probably the cheapest option) to recut the negative to suit the current censor requirements! They also used 2p film stock to save money. So most of the negatives are cut/damaged, required specialized scanning equipment in the analog home video days, and vintage Italian prints are hard to come by (again because the movies were so popular, the prints are usually heavily worn).

2. There are usually two key versions of the films, an international, and an original Italian, and they always differ. Usually each version has it's own unique shots/scenes. (not to mention each territory would censor the films further). A lot of home video releases have tried to combine the two key versions which leads to problem #3.

3. The mistakes perpetuate. Each successive home video release assumes the previous release got it right (i.e. Kino's error in referencing the 98 dvd, Kino using MGM's master of Duck You Sucker) and then makes their own changes. So you have mistakes carrying through and then further mistakes being made until the home video releases become a frankenstein mess. Even OATITW is not the original release edit, despite people like Scorsese being involved.