Indicator in the UK has announced a new limited edition Blu-ray release of the classic Spaghetti Western The Big Gundown starring Lee Van Cleef.
Released in 1966 the same year as Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Sergio Corbucci’s Django, The Big Gundown is a classic spaghetti western. Directed by the great Sergio Sollima (Face to Face, Violent City) this brutal film elevated western regular Lee Van Cleef to his first ever starring role.
When bounty hunter Jonathan Corbett (Van Cleef) is hired to track down a Mexican peasant who has been accused of an appalling crime, he is initially outwitted by the wily bandit. However, the relationship between the two men soon takes an unexpected turn and they team up to take on railroad baron Brockton.
With a brilliant score by the legendary Ennio Morricone, this has become one of the most iconic and loved Italian Westerns and here is presented in a new 2K remastered special edition.
Special Features are –
- Three feature presentations: La resa dei conti (110 mins): the original Italian theatrical version, presented with both Italian and English soundtracks; the original US theatrical version (90 mins); and the extended US cut (95 mins) with scenes added for television broadcast
- Original mono audio
- Audio commentary with writers and film experts Barry Forshaw and Kim Newman on the Italian theatrical version (2022)
- Audio commentary with film historians C Courtney Joyner and Henry Parke on the extended US cut (2013)
- Spaghetti Western Memories (2012): documentary in which director Sergio Sollima and actor Tomas Milian revisit this much-heralded western
- Tomas Milian: Acting on Instinct (2013): the genre-film star revisits The Big Gundown and reveals some of his acting secrets
- Stephen Thrower on ‘The Big Gundown’ (2022): the author and musician on the unique qualities of Sollima’s classic
- Austin Fisher on ‘The Big Gundown’ (2022): the author of Radical Frontiers in the Spaghetti Western: Politics, Violence and Popular Italian Cinema situates the film in the wider context of the genre
- Isolated music & effects tracks
- Original US theatrical trailers
- Original Italian theatrical trailer
- TV spots
- Image galleries: production stills and promotional material
- New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
- Limited edition exclusive 80-page book with a new essay by Italian cinema expert Roberto Curti, archival interviews with Lee Van Cleef, Tomas Milian, and Sergio Sollima, extracts from the film’s promotional materials, an examination of the work of co-screenwriter Franco Solinas, an overview of contemporary critical responses, and full film credits
- Limited edition exclusive poster
- UK premiere on any home video format
- Limited edition of 5,000 copies
