Bring
Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia
(1974/Peckinpah/United Artists/MGM/Twilight Time Limited Edition
Blu-ray)/Easy Money: Life
Deluxe (2013 aka Easy
Money 3/Flatiron/Cinedigm
DVD)/A Fever In The Blood
(1961/Warner Archive DVD)/Vendetta
(2013/Inception DVD)/Violent
Road (1958/Warner Archive
DVD)
Picture:
B/C/C+/C/C+ Sound: B-/C+/C+/C+/C Extras: B/C-/D/C+/D
Films: B/C/C/C+/C
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Bring
Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia
Blu-ray is a limited edition from our friends at Twilight Time and
only 3.000 copies will be made, while A
Fever In The Blood
and
Violent Road
are now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive
series. All can be ordered from the links below.
The
following films involve various degrees of manhood and masculinity
gone haywire, so we brought them together for your consideration....
Sam
Peckinpah's Bring
Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia
(1974) is an ever-underrated thriller with plenty of dark overtones,
dark happenings and masculinity at its more self-destructive end.
The title character has made the daughter of a powerful man pregnant
and he wants him dead, so he offers $1 Million U.S. for him to be
killed (beheaded) and Bennie (a great lead performance by the late,
great Warren Oates) takes up the offer, dragging his girlfriend with
him, but he is not the only one seeing dollar signs and bloodshed. A
couple of gay killers (Gig Young & Robert Webber) want the cash
too and they make up a series of money-hungry parties who are
interested in this business development.
The
film pulls no punches in its view of many wastelands of people,
poverty, hopelessness, dashed dreams, adulthood gone sour and what
greed can do. The supporting cast is fine and Kris Kristofferson
turns up in an early performance before becoming a big star as an
unsavory biker whose partner and he do whatever they want and are a
sick pair unto themselves. Peckinpah may have lost control of his
abilities to show and say what he wanted to cinematically on Straw
Dogs
(see the Blu-ray elsewhere on this site), but he was back in power to
show his dark side of manhood here and the film remains one of his
best.
Extras
include another nicely illustrated booklet on the film including
informative text and essay by Julie Kirgo, while the Blu-ray discs
adds two feature length audio commentary tracks with film scholar
Nick Redmond (one with Gordon T. Dawson, the other with Paul Seydor,
Garner Simmons & David Weddie), 6 TV Spots, an Original
Theatrical Trailer, Isolated Music Score of the great music for the
film by Jerry Fielding and three featurettes: Passion
& Poetry: Sam's Favorite Film,
A
Writer's Journey: Garner Simmons with Sam
Peckinpah in Mexico
and Promoting
Alfredo Garcia.
Jens
Jonsson's Easy
Money: Life Deluxe
(2013 aka Easy
Money 3)
is the end of a trilogy that began with the impressive Easy
Money
(2010) which Martin Scorsese backed with the Weinsteins upon its U.S.
release a few years ago. We covered it at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12107/Easy+Money+(2010/Weinstein+Company/Anchor+
By
this film, Joel Kinnaman's JW has become a secondary character (and
that's more of him than the books apparently had at this point) so he
shows up a few times in between the multiple storylines of the other
characters, some of whom were n the first film. This makes for some
good storytelling, but (the second film notwithstanding) is a bit of
a comedown since their stories are not as intriguing despite the
efforts and talents of some fine Swedish actors. Some shots and
scenes do work though and are worth sitting through the whole 127
minutes to check out, but make sure you see the first two films in
order before this one to get the best impact.
Extras
include a Behind The Scenes featurette and Deleted Scenes.
Vincent
Sherman's A
Fever In The Blood
(1961)
pits judge Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Dom Ameche and Jack Kelly against
each other when a brutal murder takes place and the suspect may be
totally innocent. Thanks to the press, who wants blood, some feel
the suspect is just disposable and what to use him as a bloody
stepping stone to more power, save the judge with a conscious. A
young Angie Dickinson shows up as his love interest and the film has
its moments, but the results are mixed when all is said and done,
even with a somewhat abrupt ending. Still, it is worth a look
because it has its moments and also stars Herbert Marshall, Ray
Danton and then-newcomer Carroll O'Connor in a nice turn.
There
are no extras.
Stephen
Reynolds' Vendetta
(2013) is the beginning of another action trilogy, but this time, one
set in England as
an older married couple (Emma Samms, Tony Denham) are brutally
assaulted, molested, tortured and killed by a particularly deadly
group of drug dealing youths out of control. They have killed the
same way before (including setting the victims on fire), but in this
case, they chose the wrong couple as their son (Danny Dyer) is an
elite of the British military out for revenge no matter what and does
not care one bit about what he does or the consequences.
However,
it gets worse as the killers are still way too confident they can
kill who they want and get away with it, a new police detective out
for himself makes this situation even worse and soon, the federal
authorities will have to get involved. This has some great moments,
but to make it a trilogy, the last reel or so of the film is
compromised and that hurts what was building up to be an amazing
actioner that deals with the dark side of Britain today as much as
anything. This can get very brutal, but it all (in a rare case)
stays within the context of the narrative. Dyer handles the fight
scenes exceptionally well and could be a big star down the line.
This one is definitely worth going out of your way for, despite its
flaws and limits.
Extras
include a feature length audio commentary track, a Deleted Scene and
an Original Theatrical Trailer.
Howard
W. Koch's Violent
Road
(1958) is an earlier, lesser-known remake of Clouzot's Wages
Of Fear
(reviewed elsewhere on this site) before William Friedkin's Sorcerer
(1978, which just hit Blu-ray)
with Brian Keith, Dick Foran and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. taking the leads
as part of the team transporting deadly explosives over rough terrain
where there are usually no real roads, plenty of chances for rock
slides & boulders and where any mistake can be deadly. Instead
of a dark thriller like the Friedkin remake or political parable of
greed gone deadly, this one is a melodrama with some suspense saved
only by its cast, good acting and decent outdoor sequences. Not very
memorable, it is a curio worth a look, but if the makers were trying
to avoid left-of-center ideology, you'd think they'd offer more
action and less boredom.
There
are no extras.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Alfredo
can show the age of the materials used at times, but this is far
superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film with great
shot after great shot including nice locales, impressive compositions
and it just looks as good as anyone could hope for. Director of
Photography Alex Phillips Jr. (Sunburn,
Fade
To Black
(1980), The
Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday)
is an underrated cameraman who could create thick density in his
shots and yet keep a sense of naturalism. This is some of his best
work.
Tying
for second place are the black and white anamorphically enhanced 1.66
X 1 image (miscredited as 1.78 X 1 on the back of the case) black &
white image on Fever looking
pretty good despite some flaws and limits and the
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 black and white image on Road
which also comes from a solid print, both showing how great
monochrome filming can be. That leaves the anamorphically enhanced,
HD-shot color 2.35 X 1 images on Money and Vendetta
having some good shots, but also one too many soft shots throughout
that brings them down a bit.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix on Alfredo
should not sound as good as it does, but it sounds really good for
its age and the isolated stereo score by Jerry Fielding even more so.
That leaves the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes on Money
and Vendetta
sounding good if not great, but the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on
Fever has more clarity than expected and is able to compete with the
newer films since they have their soundfield limits and more than a
few dialogue-based moments. I bet they'd sound better in lossless
mixes. This leaves the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Road
not sounding as good, sometimes seemingly down a generation and the
disappointment here, save that blaring truck horn which somehow
sounds loud and clear.
You
can order
the Bring
Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia
limited edition Blu-rays, buy them while supplies last at this link:
www.screenarchives.com
… and
to order either of the Warner Archive DVDs, go to this link for them
and many more great web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
