Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

The Climber Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 20, 2017

One of the best remembered ad campaigns of all time was for Schlitz beer, which suddenly catapulted into national consciousness in a way it never had before when “go for all the gusto you can” became a catchphrase. That campaign was popular in the late sixties and early seventies, and it’s not hard to assume that Joe Dallesandro may have seen one of the spots and taken the message to heart, for if there’s one guy who seems to have gone for about all the gusto that’s possible (or at least available), it’s “Little Joe”. Dallesandro is on hand in a nearly half hour long supplement, the sole bonus feature on this new Blu-ray release, and considering the first thing that’s heard, even before the first sight of a now fairly elderly Dallesandro, is the former “Warhol superstar” asking if it’s okay if he smokes a cigarette. That fact that Little Joe shows up (with that nickname) in Lou Reed’s iconic “Walk on the Wild Side”, a tune which came out in 1972, may indicate that Dallesandro was going for the gusto from a relatively early age. Dallesandro was at the height of his matinee idol heyday when he made The Climber in 1975, and while the film has its fair share of issues, Dallesandro’s undeniable charisma isn’t among them.

I recently reviewed Magnificent Italia, a three disc set that visited a number of both iconic and lesser known Italian locales, including several long vignettes devoted to peaks in the Dolomites and Alps. It’s notable to realize that The Climber’s American title is not in fact an allusion to a cliff scrambler, but instead to an “upwardly mobile” thug. In that regard, it’s kind of interesting that various industry publications are reporting about a proposed remake of Scarface just as this review is being written, and some viewers may see at least some analogs between The Climber’s tale of ne’er-do-well Aldo (Joe Dallesandro) and Scarface’s Tony Montana. It’s also instructive to note that the film’s original Italian title was L’ambizioso, i.e., “ambitious”, for that’s the motivating factor underlying what is arguably a pretty rote saga of a guy from the wrong side of the tracks making good in illicit activity, at least for a little while.

Several online sources credit The Climber with actually having inspired De Palma’s Scarface, something that might be at least somewhat questionable, given the fact that De Palma’s film is obviously based on 1932’s Scarface, which in turn was culled from a 1929 novel by Armitage Trail, a book which presented a fictionalized take on the story of the then notorious Al Capone. But there are some undeniable links between Pasquale Squitieri’s 1975 opus and the De Palma outing, including an almost palpable sense of location and an overall gritty ambience that quite efficiently depicts the kind of unseemly, maybe even smarmy, life of its focal character.

Plotwise, The Climber is almost lethargic at times, positing Aldo as a ne’er-do-well from the get go who tries to appropriate some of the booty a Neopolitan gang headed by Ciriaco (Benito Artesi) has illicitly amassed, only to get caught and be subject to a severe beating. That leads the petty crook into a revenge scenario where he decides to form his own gang and mete out what he evidently thinks is justice to his former nemeses. Folded into the tale is the requisite love angle, as Aldo hooks up with Luciana (Stefania Casini, reportedly Dallesandro’s real life main squeeze at the time). The storyline is rote at best and actually kind of uninvolving at worst, but the location work is often quite striking and a couple of set pieces, including some utilizing near Peckinpah levels of slow motion violence, also tend to resonate better than the film as a whole.

As charismatic as Dallesandro undeniably is, it’s a kind of surface sheen that doesn’t fully inform the character of Aldo in a way that probably would have made the film more viscerally effective. Squitieri’s screenplay is also too diffuse to ever build momentum, instead kind of wandering from vignette to vignette, some of which are admittedly eye catching, but many of which fail to connect, with some less than forceful performances and a shooting style that suggests Squitieri may have simply been trying to get scenes in the can rather than worrying about how good they looked. Like a lot of seventies Italian exploitation fare, there’s a “feel” to this film that is instantly recognizable, and its low rent proclivities actually tend to support the story’s emphasis on hardscrabble types in desperate circumstances. But it’s probably instructive to note that some of the slowest sections of The Climber have nothing to do with how much Squitieri and cinematographer Eugenio Bentivoglio "overcrank" the camera for the dreamlike violence that erupts, especially in the film’s second half.

The Climber Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Climber is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Arrow's insert booklet contains the following information on the transfer:

The Climber (L'Ambizioso) was restored by Arrow Films in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with mono sound.

All restoration work was carried out at L'Immagiane Ritrovata, Bologna. The original 35mm camera negative was scanned in 4K resolution on a pin registered Arriscan and was graded on Digital Vision's Nucoda Film Master.

Thousands of instances of dirt, debris and scratches were removed through a combination of digital restoration tools. Overall image stability and instances of density fluctuation were also improved.

The original Italian mono and English language soundtracks were transferred from the original optical sound negatives using the Sondor OMA/E with COSP Xi2K technology to minimize optical noise and produce the highest quality results possible. There are times in which audio synchronisation will appear slightly loose against the pciture, due to the fact that the soundtracks were recorded entirely in post production. This is correct and as per the film's original theatrical release.

WIth an understanding that Squitieri evidently filmed much of this picture on the fly, with at times less than optimal lighting conditions, the results here are largely highly commendable. When the film ventures outside, the palette is natural looking and quite vivid, with excellent depth of field when vistas permit. Fine detail is excellent in close-ups, but overall clarity can still be somewhat variant even in outdoor sequences, especially when focal subjects are far away. The film has its fair share of rather dark moments, either intended or (at least at times) unintended, and in several longer scenes shadow detail is minimal at best and overall detail levels are somewhat subdued. This is a fairly grainy looking presentation, but the encode is strong and there are no compression issues other than slight yellow chunkiness in a few selected spots.

The Climber Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Both of the DTS-HD Master Audio Mono tracks on this release can't quite overcome the obvious post looping that was employed, with slight but noticeable differences in things like ambient reverb and even amplitude. As stated above in Arrow's "About the Restoration", the looseness of the sync is quite noticeable throughout both tracks. While dialogue is clear enough, it occasionally takes a back seat to both effects like roaring motorcycles or a kind of groovy score, one which sounds quite reminiscent of some of the late sixties television themes being done by the likes of Dave Grusin or Lalo Schifrin.

The Climber Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Little Joe's Adventures in Europe (1080p; 28:39) is a fascinating interview with Joe Dellasandro done in 2017 exclusively for this release. He addresses his time with Warhol, but spends more time detailing his film career and personal life in Europe.

The Climber Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Fans of Dallesandro will probably be more willing to cut The Climber sufficient slack to get by the film's less than artful moments, but one thing this film has in abundance one way or the other is charisma, as well as a really notable and quite specific feel for place and time. The plot is about as hackneyed as they come, but Dallesandro and Casini compete quite effectively with some Italian scenery to at least keep the eyes entertained. Arrow's release offers excellent technical merits, and while there aren't a surplus of supplements, the extended interview with Dallesandro is great.