6.7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A bunch of professionals rob a bank, including one disguised as Sartana, and everyone now believes Sartana did it. Now hundreds of bounty hunters are after him, while he is looking for the mastermind and trying to clear his name.
Starring: Gianni Garko, Frank Wolff, Ettore Manni, Renato Baldini, José Torres (I)Foreign | 100% |
Western | 28% |
Mystery | 12% |
Crime | 7% |
Heist | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Italian: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
English, English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Note: This film is available as part of The
Complete Sartana.
One of the perhaps slightly humorous upshots of the incredible success of The Man with No Name Trilogy is that it at least contributed to an influx of often pretty similar properties featuring
mysterious (if not always laconic) characters with names. Some of these so-called “Euro Westerns” (of which the “Spaghetti Westerns”
were
a subset) were insanely popular in their day, even if that popularity didn’t always extend to the shores of the United States (though it quite often
did).
A cursory sampling of films in this kind of odd niche of genre outings with their putative hero’s name in the titles might include such offerings as
the Django films (Django, Django, Kill... If You Live, Shoot!, Hanging for Django,
Django,
Prepare a Coffin), the Trinity films (They
Call
Me Trinity, Trinity Is Still My Name!
),
the Ringo films (A Pistol for Ringo, The Return of Ringo), the Sabata films (Sabata, Adiós, Sabata, The
Return
of Sabata)
and/or the five Sartana films currently under discussion. What’s a little hilarious about this glut of named characters, all of whom owe at
least
something to the now legendary Leone - Eastwood collaborations, is that along the way character names kind of came and went, and in
various markets some films were marketed as a “named” feature even if that particular character actually wasn’t even featured in the film. In fact
one of the enjoyable supplements on Arrow's fairly recent A Pistol for Ringo & The Return of Ringo: Two Films by Duccio Tessari "double
feature" were the commentaries by Spaghetti Western experts C. Courtney Joyner and Henry C. Parke, who kind of jokingly recount at one point
how one of the Ringo films was marketed as a Sartana film in some foreign market (Joyner and Parke are on hand for
these releases as well, and both describe themselves as diehard Sartana fans, and in one of their commentaries for this set also
joke about how Django also ended up in a bunch of titles where the character of that name was nowhere to be found). Also kind of
amusingly, the character name of Sartana was actually introduced in a "non-Sartana" film, the aforementioned The Return of Ringo, where the character was actually one of the bad guys.
But Gianni Garko's characterization was so memorable that the name, if not the actual character, survived as a hero, and as Joyner and Parke
recount in their commentaries on this set, Garko went to some lengths (including lawsuits) to protect his take on the character, down to the
clothes
Sartana wears in the various films.
I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Arrow's insert booklet provides the following information on the transfer:
I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 with Italian and English mono audio. All restoration work was carried out at L'Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna. The original 35mm camera negative was scanned in 2K resolution on a pin-registered Arriscan and was graded on Digital Vision's Nucoda Film Master. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, picture instability and other instances of film wear were repaired or removed through a combination of digital restoration tools and techniques. The mono Italian and English soundtracks were remastered from the optical sound track negatives.Starting with this second film, there's a noticeable and at times rather substantial uptick in video quality due to the source being the negative. From the impressive opening credits sequence (which may owe a bit to Saul Bass and then trendy 007), there's really nice looking saturation and clarity. There are still occasional density variations (keep your eyes peeled at around 45:00 during a stagecoach scene), and there's a noticeable downturn in quality at around 1:22:08 that leads me to believe a secondary element had to be utilized for a brief snippet, but otherwise this transfer boasts really excellent detail levels and a very nicely saturated palette. This film has a kind of funny montage sequence of "club hopping" featuring lots of opticals, and grain understandably spikes during these moments, but otherwise the grain field looks great and resolves without any problems. There are also occasional deficits in shadow detail during some dark or nighttime scenes. As with some other Sartana films, there may have been some defective or damaged lenses, since things can look just slightly out of focus at times, especially toward the sides of the frame.
All five of the films feature DTS-HD Master Audio mono tracks in both Italian and English (the covers incorrectly state LPCM 1.0, for what that's worth). There's no significant difference in fidelity and overall sound between the five films, with a couple of exceptions noted below. I opted for the original Italian mixes, while also regularly toggling to the English language tracks for comparison's sake. There is surprisingly little difference in amplitude and general sound quality between the languages, with the possible exception of I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death, where the English language track sounds tinnier, especially with regard to music. All of the Italian language tracks have noticeable hiss, but no other really problematic elements. While sync is loose, as is mentioned in the booklet (due to the Italian tradition of post looping everything), fidelity is surprisingly robust in these films, offering good support for dialogue and effects, which can admittedly sound a little boxy at times (gunfire especially). All five films boast rather interesting music scores, not necessarily as "Morricone-esque" as one might expect, and in fact there's an almost Bacharach like 6/8 theme for I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death. Several scores feature potentially bright instruments like harpsichords, which sound clear without sounding strident. Some of the cues in Have a Good Funeral My Friend... Sartana Will Pay sound influenced by the then insanely popular music of Lalo Schifrin for television's Mission: Impossible, with bongos establishing tension. Interestingly, Light the Fuse... Sartana Is Coming's English language track has some underscore where the original Italian doesn't.
This second Sartana film takes the template established in the first film and then repeatedly goes for the gusto as a whole host of people come after the title character for their own personal reasons. Garko continues to impress as the enigmatic Sartana, and once again the film has a ton of fun supporting turns. Technical merits are generally excellent, and the supplements quite enjoyable. Recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
Buon funerale amigos!... paga Sartana / Gunslinger
1970
C'è Sartana... vendi la pistola e comprati la bara! / A Fistful of Lead
1970
Una nuvola di polvere... un grido di morte... arriva Sartana / Gunman in Town
1970
Se incontri Sartana prega per la tua morte / Gunfighters Die Harder
1968
Goodbye Texas
1966
Da uomo a uomo | Special Edition
1967
Ballad of Death Valley / The Angry Gun / Ringo the Killer / Una Pistola per Ringo
1965
La resa dei conti
1966
10,000 Dollars for a Massacre / 10.000 dollari per un massacro
1967
1967
E Dio disse a Caino...
1970
Milano trema: la polizia vuole giustizia
1973
Special Edition
1966
散弾銃の男 / Sandanju no otoko
1961
Blood at Sundown / Il ritorno di Ringo
1965
8時間の恐怖 / Hachijikan no kyôfu
1957
Django, prepare ton cercueil / Preparati la bara!
1968
野獣の青春 / Yajû no seishun
1963
A Bullet from God
1976
Gli Specialisti
1969