3 film, 4 disc collection of early 1970s Spaghetti Westerns with three of the genre's favourite stars. Koch Media R2 German boxset.
Summary
Born
in the early 1960s, the genre really hit its peak in 1965 with famous
entries from Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci. By the 1970s however, it
was starting to fade out with endless slapstick and self-parody films.
Fortunately, among the mix there were still some good titles, and the
genre hung on for another seven years before being put to rest.
The origins of the Halleluja title, present on all three films in this set, are rather mixed: throughout the Euro-cult era, from Pepla to Gialli, film titles were not just translated in different countries, but often completely changed - thus a film like Pochi dollari per Django (1966) [Some Dollars for Django], became Django kennt kein Erbarmen [Django Knows no Pity] in Germany, and Alambradas de Violencia [Wire Fences of Violence] in Spain. Many German titles came to incorporate the word Halleluja to mean simply a 'hurrah' - including La Più Grande Rapina del West (1967), known in Germany as Ein Hallelujah für Django, and the word stuck.
Thus for two of the films in this collection, the word is simply a part of the title - Ein Halleluja für Camposanto [A Hurrah for Composanto] and Sando Kid spricht das letzte Halleluja [Sando Kid saves the last Hurrah]. However, to complicate matters, producer Dario Sabatelo shot two films in which the main character was actually named Hallelujah - They Call Me Hallelujah, included here, and Return of Halleluja (1972) both starring George Hilton, and there was a low budget exploitation production entitled Alleluja & Sartana Are Sons... Sons of God (1972) shot around the same time.
The
Euro-cult stars Gianni Garko, George Hilton, Peter Lee Lawrence and
William Berger play the lead roles, and there are plenty of familiar
genre faces.
Who is it for?
Spaghetti Western fans should
certainly enjoy this collection, but genre newcomers will probably find
a lot better and more well known films to watch first.
The DVDs
Visuals
All films are in Original Aspect Ratios (2.35:1 and 1.78:1) and Anamorphically Enhanced. The picture quality is strong throughout.
Audio
All discs
have Italian and German mono soundtracks that sound fine. The German tracks are missing in a few scenes, replaced by Italian.
Subtitles
All the discs include German and English subtitles for the Italian tracks.
Extras
All of the discs include original theatrical trailers and poster/stills galleries.
The They Call him Cemetery disc
includes a 25 minute documentary about director Anthony Ascott
including interviews with the director, and actors George Hilton and
Gianni Garko. With English and German subtitles.
They Call Me Hallelujah includes an 8mm version of the film, in German only, running to about 30 minutes.
The
boxset includes an Audio CD containing the soundtracks to They Call Me Halleluja (1971), and the sequel Return of Halleluja (1973) - very good quality, stereo recording.
The boxset also includes a detailed booklet about religion in the Spaghetti West, all in German.
Packing
A fold-out digipack contained in a slipcase.
Region
Region 2 - PAL
Other regions?
Some films have releases in other countries. None superior.
Cuts?
All films are believed to be fully uncut. Prints are a mix of German and Italian.
Summary
Three solid films, ranging from quite serious American style (Raise Your Hands Dead Man) to pure comedy (They Call me Halleluja), all recommended to genre fans.
A strong set of prints
with good audio and subtitles. The interview feature is very
interesting and the soundtrack CD is a good addition. The only slight
downside, for
some, is the absence of English dub tracks.
