I've always considered myself a fan of the genre, but as I stopped to actually think about it, I realized I was just talking about the Leone movies---and then I read there were about 600 European westerns made over the 60's and 70's---I had no idea there were that many.

Anyways, I did a bit of research and picked up Ferdinando Baldi's "Texas, Adios", which I thought was quite solid, and also Sergio Sollima's "Run, Man, Run", which I REALLY loved. Any other ones out there that people would recommend? I'd be looking for nice anamorphic widescreen releases, and plot wise, I'm not a big fan of graphic violence/torture/sadism, so from what I've read, that might rule out Django? Also, I'm not really into spoofs or the more silly weapons/action that appeared in some of the later ones I've seen clips of.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Django isn't that graphic from what I recall--it's a great one.

Also try A Bullet for the General and The Great Silence.
Mannaja and Keoma are also worth a look.

Sabata

Buy the Once Upon a Time in Italy box set from AB. That has a lot of great titles.

hang 'em high

Death Ride A Horse is great and can be found in small boxsets for like five bucks. Same with Navajo Joe, which used to be tricky to find, but is now in the Wal Mart 5.50 bin with some others. Companeros and A Profesional Gun are both really good, and they both have Franco Nero and Jack Palance. Like someone above said, the Once Upon A Time In Italiy box set is a great place to start and it has Companeros and Four of the Apocalypse which was directed by Fulci, so it's pretty bloody.

Companeros gets re-released by Blue Underground next month. By far, one of my most favorites. Much like Leone, Sergio Corbucci never made a bad spaghetti western.

Have to agree with you Kane, Sergio Corbucci is the man. Looks like between BU and AB(sorry, Starz) all the movies from the Once Upon A Time In Italy set are either getting seperate releases or just did.

I caught The Great Silence on IFC the other day and I really enjoyed it. Beautiful cinematography and well acted. Klaus Kinski is one odd Mo-Fo...

Ky-Fi, you'll find that R1 treatment of the Spaghetti/Macaroni Western genre is somewhat disappointing....cropped transfers and cut versions, along with a limited selection. I know you're region-free so you do have other options....R2 Japan ("Faccia a Faccia", "Cemetery Without Crosses", "Tepepa" (actually I think this was a European R2 release), etc.) is good for the genre, but expensive...Germany also releases a fair number of discs ("Blindman" - sort of the genre's take on "Zatoichi" - which I posted about in International was great fun, but maybe doesn't fit given the parameters you've mentioned). Xploited will be quite useful in your research.

You liked "Run, Man, Run" eh, then definitely go for "The Big Gundown" (xploited). Tomas Milian's character of Cuchillo first appeared in "The Big Gundown", and the title song (search youtube for "The Big Gundown") is an awesome tune.

"Il Mercenario" aka "A Professional Gun" (mentioned earlier) is excellent and features a great showdown towards the end (with music Tarantino utilized in "Kill Bill")....youtube again if you're not worried about major spoilers. The R1 is fullframe, there was a Japanese disc but it is out-of-print as I recall. I suppose ebay is your friend if you really need to see it.

"Death Rides a Horse" (mentioned earlier) is recommended but I think the R1 is likely cut and maybe cropped too...if I recall correctly the UK release is your best best, and cheap from AmazonUK last time I checked.

"Cut-throats Nine" is worth a look but certainly a dark entry in the genre.

Aside from the R1 stuff already mentioned earlier, Wildeast's catalog is generally commendable...."Pistoleros", "Kill and Pray" aka "Requiescant", etc. "Ace High" is another R1 option, it's cut but cheap enough I suppose. Also available in R1..."The Hills Run Red", "Hellbenders", "The Strangers Gundown" (perhaps slightly cut or altered) among others.

As you watch more films, you'll find a lot of them are variants on Sergio Leone's entries, but the formula can still be very much enjoyed.

NOTE: The Venice Film Festival coming up in late August and early September is having a major sidebar featuring 40 Spaghetti Westerns...thankfully I have maybe half in my collection, but I sure would love to be there to catch the other ones. I think Tarantino is involved in a major way too. Hopefully it re-kindles International interest in the sub-genre....I'd like to see someone (not counting that Japanese Django one coming) give a go at making more Spaghetti Western's in the coming years.

He didn't want any extra violent movies, even though I was let down by the gore in that one

Someone, or people on this forum, should really revive the DVDaf lists or create something all new that had a buyers guide for a number of things, like Spahetti Westerns, Shaw Brothers, notable directors or Godzilla like we talked about a while ago here:
http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread....46#post7280046

Yep, I definitely have to track this one down---I did see the title credits on youtube--that is the coolest song ever!!

These sound good, but I just won't buy fullframe movies---knowing that if I love them I'm just going to either be disappointed that I'm not seeing all of it, or knowing that I'll have to buy it again in the future!


Yeah, I saw that Wild East does have a bunch out---I will probably give some of those a try. Anyone have that Lee Van Cleef double feature that includes The Grand Duel? That might be up my alley.

Hey, I'm a kungfu and Zatoichi movie fan---so I don't mind forumula at all!! In my book Leone's is a pretty enjoyable formula to follow.

Thanks for the info, everyone. I think The Grand Silence, the Big Gundown, Companeros, and A Bullet for the General may be on my list...

Haven't seen this movie yet, but man! These title sequences sure kick @$$!
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Cool! Thanks for posting that. Here's The Big Gundown:


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I've recently gotten more interested in these after digging into "My Name is Nobody" (and sequel), "Django", the Trinity films, etc. I'll check out some of the titles mentioned above next time I hit xploitedcinema -- but damn if they don't have a pretty big selection there. Can anyone vouch for one or more of the European DVD production companies putting out some of these editions?

Release-wise, I don't think I got burned too badly qualitywise (might have even gotten lucky) picking up the R2 UK Trinity Double feature right before the R1 re-release came out, but I'm currently a little pissed after finding out that what I thought was a decent quality edition of "Fistful of Dynamite" - the R2 German SE -- is actually pretty messed up in the audio -- now I'll probably double dip on the R1 SE (which finally came out after I had already bought the other one) -- and not worth re-buying the whole Leone box since I bought the GBU SE a year earlier (and have the nifty wooden box for the first two films). Wish dvdcompare.net or some of the other sites were a little more comprehensive in comparisons -- it's starting to get a little intimidating ordering or preordering.