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Category:    Home > Reviews > Western > Drama > Spaghetti Western > Man, Pride and Vengeance (1968/Blue Underground Blu-ray)

Man, Pride and Vengeance (1968/Blue Underground Blu-ray)



Picture: B+ Sound: B+ Extras: B+ Film: B



If you're a fan of the Spaghetti Westerns or the classic tale of Carmen, the 1968 film Man, Pride, and Vengeance is one you won't want to miss!Packed with excellent cinematography, editing, and all around fun. Starring Franco Nero (the original Django (reviewed elsewhere on this site)) and whom also had a cameo in Tarantino's Django Unchained), Tina Aumont, Lee Burton, and the infamous Klaus Kinski of Herzog fame. Blue Underground has done a pristine job of adapting this film to the Blu-ray format, bringing new life to this Spaghetti Western classic!

The premise of the film is a Spanish army officer, Don Jose (Nero), stationed in Seville, meets and begins a relationship with a mysterious gypsy, Carmen (Aumont). After he discovers she has cheated on him with his Lieutenant, he kills the officer and flees the city with Carmen. He recovers from his wounds and is forced to begin the life of a bandit. His relationship with Carmen is confusing but just - he doesn't know why he loves his woman but he does. The film has all the classic thematic elements of a western including robberies, smuggling, bandits, beautiful women, and stagecoaches! Ironically, this film takes place in and was filmed in Spain which seems to be pretty uncommon for most films in this Western sub genre. Also, on a cool side note, this is the first European filmed western in which his real voice was used as post WWII Italy had a practice (until recently) of post-recording all dialogue.

Despite some grain throughout, which goes with the age of the film, it really looks splendid on Blu-ray disc with a sharp 1080p high definition transfer in a 2.35 X 1 widescreen aspect and a lossless, restored DTS-HD MA 1.0 Mono track in Italian and English versions. The 2-perf Techniscope film negative has been transferred beautifully to the digital format, however is not without some artifacting, which doesn't bother me.

Extras include a feature length audio commentary by fans/journalists C. Courtney Joyner & Henry C. Parke, an interview with Nero & Vittoro Storaro (the future cinematographer genius was a camera operator on the film in the featurette Franco, Vittorio & Luigi, as well as a Still Gallery and Trailers.

I highly recommend this Blue Underground release, especially if you are a fan of Nero's classic Django flicks!



- James Harland Lockhart V

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