Code Red’s double feature DVD of Cut-Throats Nine and Joshua is now out and so I have added a screenshot comparison between the very old Eurovista (bootleg) and Code Red’s DVDs. There really isn’t any question as to which one looks better.

Here is a zoomed-in comparison between the two discs which should show some of the differences… (click the link for a very large image)

I wonder why the first (in line) guy on the left picture ain’t running considering his chain is gone.
Continue reading 'Cut-Throats Nine & Joshua from Code Red'»

Australian company Bounty Entertainment/Bounty Films has recently (April 2011) released several spaghetti western DVDs. Seems to me most of them offer nothing new compared to previous editions (and might even be much worse), but I bought the three that haven’t previously had any kind of official releases. I added the disc infos to the site with several images from all the discs.

The three are:
Kill Django… Kill First / Uccidi Django… uccidi per primo!!! + screenshots
Kitosch, the Man Who Came from the North / Kitosch, l’uomo che veniva dal nord + screenshots
Ringo, It’s Massacre Time / Giunse Ringo e… fu tempo di massacro + screenshots

As you can see they are all cropped from widescreen to fullscreen and the quality certainly isn’t very good. But from what I have understood none of them have previously existed in as good quality as they do on these discs? Unfortunately Kill Django… Kill First has been confirmed to be cut by over 10 minutes, and while I don’t know about Ringo, It’s Massacre Time the running time of only 73 minutes does sound somewhat short (but doesn’t necessarily mean it is cut).
Oh and at least on my setup Kitosch seems to suffer from somewhat low volume and the dialogue comes only from the right channel while effects are on the left one…

I can’t really recommend them, but I guess they are better than nothing.

Also as a bonus, I added some screenshots from the Spanish DVD release of Ten Killers Came from Afar (Dallas aka Il mio nome è Scopone e faccio sempre cappotto). The disc unfortunately has only Italian audio (even though the case mentions Spanish soundtrack and the menu lets you select it) and no subtitles. And it is out of print already.

Just spent the entire day ( Yeah, I work slow :p ) taking screenshots from three different A Stranger in Town DVD releases (Starmedia Germany, Alfa Digital and the quite new Cinefil Imagica Japan release) and adding them to the pages. So onward you go, to the DVD infos (which I think are missing a Brazilian release? Anybody have more info about it) or directly to the screenshots which show the superiority of the Japanese release. Too bad the only one with English audio is the extremely bad looking Alfa Digital bootleg.

And… that’s about it. For now.

Most of the visitors should have noticed it by now but lets announce it anyways. I have moved my spaghetti western dvd site to a different domain name and server… probably what… 4-5 months ago? All of the content from the old site should be here now. There are some empty movie pages for now, but they never existed in the old site. Just recently added them here, but without content yet. Oh well. There are some other stuff to fix as well.

All of you who have linked to me in the past, for which I am very grateful thank you, could you please replace the old address with this new one ( http://www.spaghettiwesterndvds.com ) when you have the time and if it is not too much trouble. Fortunately, at least for now and hopefully far into the future, I have redirects from the old addresses to this new one, so even if you don’t change the links, the visitors should arrive at the correct place. So no need for panic, especially for the good people at the SWDB and the multiple links from there.

Anyways I might contact some of the webmasters separately and ask for the link change. Maybe. Someday.

Oh yeah one more thing… I made a twitter account for the site (link is at the top of the page), and my site should automatically tweet all of my blog posts into that account. For some reason there are already couple of followers (you know who you are… ) but I don’t except this to be a big thing, especially because my blog posts might be the only content that ends up there. I’m just not a big fan of the twitter or facebook. I don’t have anything against them though. I should probably do a facebook page/group as well…

I have added some disc infos and screenshots in the last couple of months without mentioning them.

First one is a comparison between several DVDs and one Blu-Ray for the A Fistful of Dollars. As excepted the Blu-Ray is obviously superior to everything else as far as image quality goes. The UK and German DVDs discs look surprisingly bad to my eyes when compared with the older Italian DVD. I don’t (yet) have the newer Italian DVD but I except it will be better than all the rest (as it was made from the same material as the Blu-Ray).
A Fistful of Dollars screenshot comparison.

(Note that the Italian discs of A Fistful of Dollars, DVDs and Blu-Ray, do have English audio)

I have also added screenshots from Dorado Films’ Gatling Gun and The Three Musketeers of the West, SNC/M6’s French discs (only Italian & French audio) George Hilton Sartana, Night of the Serpent (comparison with the Global Video release) and Durango Is Coming, Pay or Die, and a comparison between the two unimpressive DVDs of the Moment to Kill. There might be some more but I honestly can’t remember for sure either way.

Added info and screenshots for the Surf Video release of Per il gusto di uccidere / For the Taste of Killing (1966). Comparison reveals the Wild East disc to be much worse in image quality (screenshot from Wild East and Surf Video ) but the Italian disc suffers from more cuts and perhaps incorrect colors at some points. As usual the Wild East disc comes with only English audio track while the Surf Video has only Italian.

Italian company Medusa Home Entertainment has recently released Matalo! on DVD and the result looks very good. I was actually very surprised at the quality as I thought this kind of release might not be a possibility. I remember reading, although I’m not sure if it’s true at all, that Koch Media was going to release Matalo! at some point but they had to cancel it because good enough print wasn’t found.

I compared the Medusa disc to the older Wild East disc and have to say that the Italian disc is clearly superior in multiple ways. The only reason, and I admit it is an important one, there’s still room for the WE release is that as usual the Italian disc includes only Italian audio/subtitles. But fans might want to pick up this new disc anyways even if they can’t understand Italian (and already own another release).

Here’s one higher (1024x…) resolution image comparison which really shows what kind of difference there is. I have removed the black bars from the non-anamorphic image of the WE disc.
http://www.sundances.net/spaghetti/screenshots/wematalo.png
http://www.sundances.net/spaghetti/screenshots/medusamatalo.png

And click on the following links for
Medusa Home Entertainment & Wild East disc specs / and the rest of the screenshots

Pieter Boven provided disc specs and screenshots for following discs:

Amico, stammi lontano almeno un palmo / Ben and Charlie (1972) Fravidis France / screenshots

California (1977) Evidis France and NEW Germany / screenshots

Dio li crea… Io li ammazzo! / God Forgive His Life Is Mine (1967) Evidis France / screenshots

Il mio nome è Shangai Joe / The Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe (1972) Seven Sept France / screenshots

Vivi o, preferibilmente, morti / Sundance Cassidy and Butch the Kid (1969) Best Entertainment Germany / screenshots

Uploaded specs and screenshots for a couple of different discs:

Dio perdona… Io no! / God Forgives… I Don’t! (1968) Seven Sept France / screenshots
Il venditore di morte / The Price Of Death (1971) X-Rated Kult DVD Germany / screenshots
¡Viva la muerte… tua! / Long Live Your Death (1971) Fravidis France & X-Cess Germany / screenshots

Thanks to Pieter Boven for all the info/screenshots.

French readers might want to know that it turns out the Seven Sept disc of God Forgives… I Don’t is actually cut despite the claims by the cover.

Just uploaded screenshots and updated the specs for the Unholy Four aka Ciakmull – L’uomo della vendetta discs from France (Evidis) and Germany (MCP). The specs and screenshots were provided by Pieter Boven. Looks like the French release is the winner concerning image quality despite being non-anamorphic (I bet you could re-encode it into anamorphic widescreen and it would still look the best), but there seems to be at least one small error on the disc. The German disc is slightly cut. These two discs come only with French (Evidis) and German & Italian audio (MCP) and no subtitles have been provided.

I have also added couple of spanish releases (no English audio/subtitles) and screenshots. These have probably been around for over a month already (not in the lists but search would have found them) but here’s the announcement for them.
Un Treno per Durango / Train for Durango (1968)
Quindici forche per un assassino / Fifteen Scaffolds for the Killer (1968)
Uomo avvisato mezzo ammazzato… Parola di Spirito Santo / They Call Him Holy Ghost (1971)