The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (4KUHD) [4K UHD]

MGM released a DVD edition of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" in the late 1990s, but it had few extras, a mono soundtrack, and a scratched print. Finally, MGM has given Sergio Leone's Western epic the double-disc special edition it deserves. The print is restored and as clear as I've ever seen it, the sound is now an astonishing 5.1 Surround (listen to the glass falling off Tuco after he springs through the window in the opening sequence!) nineteen minutes of footage from the Italian original have been restored, and the discs are packed with extras. Even the packaging is great: a sturdy interlocking box, with the DVDs kept in the upper and bottom parts of the two lids. Also inside the box are cards containing posters for the film in five different countries.The film, like most of the European Westerns of the 1960s, was critically disregarded in its day. The New York Times said of it: "the most expensive, pious, and repellent movie in the history of its peculiar genre. There is scarcely a moment's respite from the pain." It's amazing how people missed the brilliance of this movie, which turned Western conventions upside down in such a wonderfully bizarre, European way. Now the film is considered a classic, and only Sergio Leone's own "Once Upon a Time in the West" (another great 2 DVD set, by the way) has more respect in the genre. Leone's strange style -- stretched out time, obsession with close-ups and extreme wide-shots, focus on rituals, and use of Morricone's wild and avant-garde score -- are all in full force in this tale of three treasure-seekers searching for a cache of gold coins on the Texas-New Mexico border during the Civil War. The implacable and unflappable 'hero' Blondie (Clint Eastwood), the crazy comic bandit Tuco (Eli Wallach), and the calculating immoral sadist Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef) cross each other's paths amidst the senseless violence of the war. Leone perfectly contrasts the self-interested men with the greater backdrop of the tragedy of war. It's a strangely emotionally affecting picture despite its focus on three men who are detached from normal society and seem not to care about anything but money. So many individual scenes stand out for their virtuosity that the movie a parade of "greatest hits." Most astonishing of all is "The Ecstasy of Gold" sequence where Tuco dashes madly through a cemetery, looking for the grave that might hold the gold. Morricone's music here is especially overwhelming.Chances are you've seen the film and love it. What about the new scenes and the extras?Nineteen minutes of footage have been restored that were never shown in the American prints. The scenes integrate perfectly into the film, and after seeing them once, you won't be able to imagine they were ever missing. Among the scenes are Angel Eyes visiting a destroyed fort; Tuco hiring bandits to help him chase Blondie; Blondie and Angel Eyes having a face-to-face when they first set out together to find the gold; and some extra conversation between Tuco and Blondie in the desert. However, these scenes were never dubbed into English in the 1960s. Therefore, the DVD producers had to newly dub them. Eli Wallach and Clint Eastwood do their own voices. An actor named Simon Prescott does the imitation of the deceased Lee Van Cleef. Admittedly, Wallach and Eastwood no longer sound the same, but I couldn't imagine someone else imitating their voices -- it couldn't have been done any other way. Prescott is pretty good as Angel Eyes, if a bit more gravelly.The extras...Disc 1 has audio commentary by Richard Shickel, a film historian who wrote Eastwood's biography and also did commentary on Leone's "Once Upon a Time in America" DVD. His comments can be pretty dry, and he focuses mostly on Leone's style and techniques instead of on background information on the filming itself. Nonetheless, there are many interesting insights, and Shickel manages to say a lot during the three-hour running time.Most of the extras are on Disc 2:"Leone's West" -- A 20-minute documentary about the making of the film. Includes interviews with Shickel, producer Alberto Grimaldi, author of the English dialogue Mickey Knox, and best of all, Eastwood and Wallach. There's some very interesting info and memories here, mostly from Knox and the two actors."The Leone Style" -- A 23-minute documentary, really just an extension of the first one. It spends more time on Leone's unusual techniques. The same interviewees appear here."The Man Who Lost the Civil War" -- A 14-minute documentary that was produced separately from the DVD. It makes no mention of the movie, but is about its historical backdrop: the disastrous General Sibley campaign in Texas. Sibley appears in the film briefly, and this short documentary gives the viewer an important insight into the world of Blondie, Tuco, and Angel Eyes."Reconstructing The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" -- An 11 minute look into the painstaking work involved with fixing the picture and sound, restoring the cut scenes, and re-dubbing it."Il Maestro: Ennio Morricone" -- 8 minutes; mostly an interview with music scholar John Burlingame about the film's score. At the end of the feature, you can choose to listen to an audio-only twelve-minute lecture by Burlingame that provides a much more in-depth analysis of the music."Deleted Scenes" -- Two scenes couldn't go back into the film. The extended torture scene had a damaged negative, so here it is in its rougher state. An apparently lost scene is reconstructed through text, stills, and clips from the French trailer.Finally, there's a gallery of posters, the original trailer, and MGM tossing in some gratuitous advertising for their other films.Don't miss this DVD. Not only is it one of the great action films and one the great westerns, but it's the kind of release that the DVD format was invented for!

THE FILM:The Good, The Bad and the Ugly is a legendary film that is considered by many to be the greatest Western ever made. It spawned entire new genera of Western films called the "Spaghetti Western" and in many ways re-invented (or at least reinvigorated) Western films at the time of its release. The film, which is now over 40 years old, was considered to be horribly violent upon its release (pretty ironic considering the content in films now-a-days). There can be no doubt that all these years later director Sergio Leone was a master craftsman who has gone on to inspire countless film-makers such as Quinton Tarantino.THE STORY:The Good (Clint Eastwood), The Bad (Lee Van Cleef) and The Ugly (Eli Wallach) is the story of three men with the same goal: to capture a hidden treasure. But in order to do so, they'll have to make their way through the battered, Civil War-torn United States. Each character has varying personality traits that make their titles seem a bit off-beat, particularly Tuco. It's a story where good and bad aren't so cut and dry and the grey in the middle is the soup of the day. Now back when this film was made, most cowboys were baby-faced good-men so this shade of gray was indeed a rarity. The original American release was cut due to time constraints. Thankfully, those cuts have now been added back into the film so that we may enjoy this classic as it was meant to be seen. It's a three-hour epic takes us through a Wild Western world that is ravaged by the Civil War: North vs. South; brother vs. brother. Though the war rages on throughout the film, the characters themselves, while affected, are never truly involved in it. Instead, all three are after gold and out for themselves.THE BLU-RAY:I'm new to the Blu-Ray market but I can tell you that this is by far the best disc I have purchased so far. The video looks amazing, multiple audio tracks abound and there are tons of extras including a terrific commentary from Christopher Frayling.Video is bright and clear. You really wouldn't know this movie is 40 years old. The remastering process is simply incredible and it's something that I hope is given to all older films of this caliber in the future. The audio is crisp and clean with multiple language tracks to choose (English: Mono, 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio, Spanish & French: 5.1 Dolby Digital, Italian mono) and two commentary tracks, one which is very good and one that is rather dull.CONCLUSION:This is how Blu-ray discs should be presented. The film is terrific and the amount of bonus content is staggering. No doubt, you'll be coming back to this disc several times before it's all said and done. The Good, The Bad, The Ugly still remains THE Wild Western film. It's a standard that few titles old or new can match.