The Sergio Leone Anthology (1967)

Wow!, 4 great Sergio Leone classics restored in all their glory Worth "the few dollars more"!!!

Wow,If you're a fan of Sergio Leone or spaghetti westerns in general,than this great 4 film set is a no brainer type purchase!!! Each film gets the royal 2 dvd treatment(the film on the fist disc while the second disc each has more extras than you shoot a six gun at,absolutely remarkable,it;s time that these claccis films got the red carpet treatment!!!It includes the famous "Dollars/Man With No Name Trilogy(Fistful Of Dollars,Few Dollars More and The Good The Bad and the Ugly) complete and restored Starrring the onne and only Clint Eastwood!!! And for the first time in the US,"Duck Your Sucker AKA "A fistful of Dynamite". All in anamorphic widescreen!!! For just a few dollars more you can have this set that's so much better than the previous "Man With No Name" 3 DVD set from 1999,In fact this one actually cost me less than the 1999 one I bought originally,is it worth the upgrade,the answer is a solid YES!!! If you have not bought these classic before,get this 8 DVD set and you're in for a treat!!! Recommended!!! Five stars!!! Two thumbs up!!! A+ July 25, 2008

good deal

I purchased this as a Father's day gift for my husband. I thought I was getting a good deal for the money. The movies are not really what I typically enjoy, but my husband has really loved watching them. July 10, 2008

WHAT A DIFFERENCE...40 SOME YEARS MAKE

You know, when these spaghetti westerns came out, movie critics hated these movies, with a passion. Judith Crist, who was a TV Guide critic, wouldn't even write a complete sentence. Now, the same movies are considered western movie masterpieces. Unfortunately, Sergio Leone isn't alive to hear this about his movies, but fortunately, he already knew that his movies were masterpieces. You know, it's interesting, that many of great directors never won Oscars. Orson Welles, John Ford, even Alfred Hitchcock. It's nice to know, that Sergio Leone is in good company. June 8, 2008

An almost perfect boxed set

Among the truly great movie directors, few have a smaller body of work than Sergio Leone. He really only directed seven movies, and the first of those, The Colossus of Rhodes, is a standard sword-and-sandals flick with little of the true Leone touch. After that, he would make his mark with five westerns and finish with one of the great gangster films, Once Upon a Time in America. It is, however, the westerns that Leone really excelled, making some of the best in the genre. These so-called "Spaghetti Westerns" (because they were Italian-made) actually exceed in quality most of the ones made in the U.S. The Sergio Leone Anthology contains four of these five westerns.

All three of the "Man With No Name" trilogy are included. This is a bit of a misnomer; although all three movies star Clint Eastwood (in roles that would make him a major movie star), he does not play the same character. In the first film, A Fistful of Dollars, Eastwood plays a mercenary gunfighter who plays both sides in a gang war in a small Mexican town. A re-make of Yojimbo, this movie was made on a small budget, but already, in the first film in which Leone could truly express himself, he has created a minor masterpiece. As with all the movies in this set, this film comes with tons of extras including commentaries and behind-the-scenes material; especially amusing is an incompetent attempt by a TV studio to add a prologue to give the movie a bit of moral standing.

The follow-up, For A Few Dollars More, ups the ante by including Lee Van Cleef as a rival bounty hunter whose motives may be more complicated than the mere pursuit of money. And both Eastwood and Van Cleef would be back for the third "Trilogy" movie, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. In my opinion, this may be the best western ever, and I doubt I'm alone (it rates consistently in IMDB's top ten movies). Eastwood is The Good, Van Cleef is The Bad and Eli Wallach is The Ugly, but good and evil are not really relevant terms here. It has been said that while in American Westerns, the hero is always the best with his gun, in Leone's Westerns, being the best with your gun makes you the hero, not any moral standing. The plot deals with the hunt for stolen Confederate gold during the Civil War; and while the previous films also conclude with grand showdowns, this movie has perhaps the best showdown in movie history (probably part of the reason it is one of the best films ever).

What's missing from the set is Once Upon a Time in the West, which rivals The Good, the Bad and The Ugly in quality. While this missing film deals with the end of the era of the gunfighter and the coming of civilization, the last film in the set, Duck, You Sucker, takes place after that era. Of all Leone's films, this is probably the least watched, and while good, it is bound to be a disappointment to those expecting another western like the earlier ones. Instead, this one has Rod Steiger as a bandit thief (very similar to Wallach's Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) who is converted against his will into a revolutionary by explosives expert and ex-IRA member James Coburn. Despite moments of humor, this is the darkest movie in the set, but also forms something of a thematic transition to the gangster era of Leone's final movie, Once Upon A Time in America.

Although this set suffers from the omission of Once Upon a Time in the West, it is still a great set well worth five stars. All the movies look great with once-deleted scenes again restored and plenty of extras: each set has two discs, making this an eight disc set. Even if you've seen these movies in other formats, you should pick up this set if you enjoy westerns at all. These are not just westerns at their best, they are movie-making at its best. May 5, 2008

Probably the greatest box set you will ever buy

Sergio Leone is easily one of the greatest directors to ever yell out "Action!". With The Sergio Leone Anthology, you get four of his best films. A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good The Bad and The Ugly, and Duck you Sucker (AKA, A Fistful of Dynamite). Each film is loaded with special features and is also presented in widescreen format. This ia must have for any spaghetti western fans. February 22, 2008

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