CinemaGunslingers-HD: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ***+ (1967, Westerns)
Summary: Clint Eastwood (the Man with No Name) is good, Lee Van Cleef (Angel Eyes Sentenza) is bad, and Eli Wallach (Tuco Benedito Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez) is ugly in the final chapter of Sergio Leone's trilogy of spaghetti westerns (the first two were A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More). In this sweeping film, the characters form treacherous alliances in a ruthless quest for Confederate gold. Leone is sometimes underrated as a director, but the excellent resolution on this digital video disc should enhance appreciation of his considerable photographic talent and gorgeous widescreen compositions. Ennio Morricone's jokey score is justifiably famous. The digital video disc includes about a quarter-hour of footage not seen in the original release.
CinemaClassics-HD: The Harder They Fall ***+ (1956, Drama)
Summary: Humphrey Bogart's final screen role was in this 1956 film by Mark Robson (Home of the Brave), about a cynical sportswriter who becomes a press agent and sees firsthand how badly boxers are used and manipulated by crooked managers. The story finds Bogart's character waffling about the ethics surrounding the exploitation of an overrated fighter who will earn money for his handlers in the short term, then be tossed onto the scrap heap. This is a very tough tale written by Budd Schulberg and shot with determined unromanticism; the boxing sequences are among the most striking and violent ever committed to film. Jan Sterling plays Bogart's wife, who watches him vacillate about whether to expose the fight syndicate as a racket. --Tom Keogh
CinemaGunslingers-HD: A Fistful of Dollars *** (1964, Westerns)
Summary: A Fistful of Dollars launched the spaghetti Western and catapulted Clint Eastwood to stardom. Based on Akira Kurosawa's 1961 samurai picture Yojimbo, it scored a resounding success (in Italy in 1964 and the U.S. in 1967), as did its sequels, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The advertising campaign promoted Eastwood's character--laconic, amoral, dangerous--as the Man with No Name (though in the film he's clearly referred to as Joe), and audiences loved the movie's refreshing new take on the Western genre. Gone are the pieties about making the streets safe for women and children. Instead it's every man for himself. Striking, too, was a new emphasis on violence, with stylized, almost balletic gunfights and baroque touches such as Eastwood's armored breastplate. The Dollars films had a marked influence on the Hollywood Western--for example, Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch--but their most enduring legacy is Clint Eastwood himself. --Edward Buscombe
, this movie features mathilda may walking around naked a lot.
