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Writer-director Sergio Sollima gives us one of the best 'political' Italo westerns from the pre- May '68 era... with two top stars in great form, Gian Maria Volontè and Tomas Milian. This two-disc German import has both the long and short versions of the movie in HD, with full language options for each. Face to Face (Faccia a faccia; Von Angesicht zu Angesicht) Region A+B Blu-ray Explosive Media (Alive) 1967 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 93, 112 min. / Street Date April 29, 2016 / available at Amazon.de / E 21,93 Starring Gian Maria Volontè, Tomas Milian, William Berger, Jolanda Modio, Gianni Rizzo, Carole André Ángel del Pozo, Aldo Sambrell, Antonio Casas, Lidia Alfonsi, John Karlsen, Gastone Moschin, G&eacutge;rard Tichy. Cinematography Raphael Pacheco Film Editor Eugenio Alabiso Original Music Ennio Morricone Art Direction and sets Carlo Simi Written by Sergio Donati, Sergio Sollima Produced by Arturo González, Alberto Grimaldi <Directed by Sergio Sollima

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Wow,...

This week on Off The Shelf, Ryan is joined by Brian Saur to take a look at the new DVD and Blu-ray releases for the week of October 6th, 2015, and chat about some follow-up and home video news.

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The improvements are easy to see, but so too is the fairly drastic alterations to the framing. As noted, screenshot captures have been selected to match, as identically as possible, the same shot from both versions. Even in shots where there’s absolutely no horizontal or vertical movement in the camera – stills, essentially – there’s a noticeable shift upwards and leftwards.

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In some alternate dimension, it’s Lee Van Cleef who rocketed to squinty-eyed fame after The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Clint Eastwood just kept doing spaghetti westerns in Europe, never to be seen in a serape again and starring in movies like Captain Apache.

I don’t know much about Van Cleef, and why he favored working in Italy and Spain. I’m guessing it was because Hollywood would only give him villainous roles, and he wanted to be the laconic badass who got the girl. Overseas, he was a star. But it also meant he had to make films like Captain Apache where all that presence is completely and utterly wasted. But hey, he did get to sing the theme song! (See, he is Bizarro World Eastwood.)

The plot is incomprehensible. Van Cleef informs us over the theme tune (I’m not kidding) that they call him...