A Bullet for the General (2-Disc Special Edition) (1967)

Blue Underground's disc contains both the US and the 3-minute longer International versions of the film A Bullet for the General. These are separate 1080P transfers and NOT seamlessly branched sharing the same Blu-ray disc. There may be some very slight differences in the image quality between the two versions but it won't be a lot if any at all. I've made a couple of comparison captures below. The transfer seems a little inconsistent with some sequences showing that nice sheen of grain we often see with Blue Underground but there are a few spots that look waxy as if DNR were the culprit. This wasn't at all egregious and I'd say that overall the visuals are extremely impressive with great detail in close-ups and depth being displayed. Colors are bright with true skin tones. The 2.35:1 widescreen is used in a slick fashion and the the video comes across pleasing throughout most of the presentation.The US version offers a healthy DTS-HD Master 2.0 channel at 1906 kbps that is comparable to the DUB on the International version that also has the option of lossless Italian at equally as robust a transfer. Gunshots are piercing and the aggressive pats of the soundtrack seems easily handled by the uncompressed audio. The flatness is expected. We have an original score by Luis Bacalov and the iconic Ennio Morricone that supports the 'Spaghetti' aspects very well. There are optional subtitles both English (SDH) and English for the Italian version as well as French and Spanish. Region Free too.

Extras :

There isn't much more on the Blu-ray disc which is fairly filled with the two films but we still get a A Bullet for the Director Interview with Director Damiano Damiani running 50 minutes in Italian with English subtitles, plus some trailers and a stills and poster gallery. What is a significant supplement is a bonus DVD Gian Maria Volonte: Un Attore Contro running just shy of a whopping 2 hours. It has plenty of the actor/writer and fans of the genre will definitely want to indulge. This is a very nice documentary addition in Italian with English subtitles.

Review By Gary Tooze of DVD Beaver, Thanks Gary.

Following with the unlikely alliance of an opportunistic American (Lou Castel) and a Mexican bandit (Gian Maria Volonte) who sells arms to the rebels, the first half hour or so of Damiano Damiani's cult classic is more than a bit ropey. The director has difficulty establishing the relationship between the two leads and resorts to a succession of shoot-em-ups. Thankfully, these are better handled than the drawn out opening attack on the train carrying Castel's enigmatic gringo, in which too many of the ideas are in the script and too few in the execution.

If the first half is the usual running with the rebels territory, the film becomes more complex as it progresses. It is clear from the beginning that the gringo is working to his own agenda, and throughout the course of the film he steers the group towards it. Not interested in women, he professes to be interested only in money, yet at one point kills a rebel paymaster and throws away his cash. Yet even after his objective and the bandito's part in it become clear, the film manages to take the characters even further in an intriguing epilogue.

Both may be mercenary, but finally choose their own executioners, although in very different ways. Castel inadvertently because, despite ruthlessly killing those on both sides to achieve his end, he is ultimately not ruthless enough, Volonte voluntarily, passing judgement on himself when he realises the consequences of his actions.

Castel is a fairly anonymous lead as the 'ugly American', a potential flaw which the director manages to turn to the film's advantage. A moral void, he has no ideals and no scruples but is instead a remorseless pragmatist. The real undercurrents in their relationship are brought out by Volonte; his bandito, first seen literally banging his own drum, manages to avoid caricature. His growing politicisation is convincing, as is his spellbound look of (largely sexual) confusion at the gringo during a confrontation with a landowner. The audience's sympathies are never directly engaged, our involvement with the character more covert and accidental en route.

Hailed as the best of the political spaghetti westerns, A Bullet For the General doesn't quite live up to the epithet but is still a remarkable example of the genre. Co-writer Franco Solinas also wrote Battle of Algiers and Quiemada, and his revolutionary fervour is very visible in the film's parallels with America's covert overseas operations and the presence of a militant priest throwing hand grenades in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost (a less wired than usual Klaus Kinski as Volante's half-mad half-brother). The film even ends with a call to arms -"Don't buy bread, buy dynamite!"

Buy A Bullet for the General (2-Disc Special Edition) (1967) Now

Directed by italian director Damiano Damiani in 1967, A BULLET FOR THE GENERAL is a pure marvel released now in the DVD standard by Anchor Bay. Just two trailers as extra features but imperial sound and images justify a must-buy status for this movie.

Now for the actors. Gian-Maria Volonté is exceptional in the role of El Chuncho, a rather likeable outlaw who considers that the mexican revolution is a good opportunity to make money by selling rifles to the revolutionaries. His brother Klaus Kinski, as blonde as El Chuncho is black, is more disturbing as a priest convinced that social justice must be brought into this world by all possible means, preferably with the help of explosives and machine-guns. El Niño, the character played by the colombian born actor Lou Castel, is even more intriguing with his attitude à la Clint Eastwood. He's the meanest of all but nonetheless develops a strange friendship for his alter ego Volonté.

Four years before Sergio Leone's A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE, A BULLET FOR THE GENERAL is already visiting the mexican revolution but with an engaged point of view that doesn't leave unharm politicians, working-class people, wealthy ranchers, pistoleros, revolutionaries or americans. Great fun with food for the mind, what more can you expect from cinema ?

A DVD zone your library.

Read Best Reviews of A Bullet for the General (2-Disc Special Edition) (1967) Here

Spaghetti westerns are, in my opinion, generally the best fictional films about the American West. You can argue that John Wayne made a bunch of great movies about life in the Old West, and you would be right to say so, but for some reason the Italians captured perfectly the specific elements of the era that made their movies seem more realistic. The frontier was a dirty, violent place full of unsavory types trying to get rich quick. Italian westerns capture this mood expertly whereas American films portray characters whose outfits look like they just came back from the dry cleaners. Hollywood films also tend to apply a black and white dichotomy onto their characters, the old "good guys wear white, bad guys wear black" philosophy that obscures the reality of the time and place. Not so in Italian films, where even the good guys often have distinctly unsavory traits. It's too bad spaghetti westerns went the way of the dinosaurs a few decades back; I never tire of watching these films even though I am not an expert on the genre. "A Bullet for the General," part of the larger Anchor Bay "Once Upon a Time in Italy" spaghetti western box set, serves as an excellent example of how powerful the genre once was.

If you enjoy spag westerns, you're going to love "A Bullet for the General." Like many other spaghettis, the film takes place in Mexico during the raucous revolutions of the early twentieth century. Bandits roam the countryside robbing and killing under the guise of revolutionary armies seeking social change. One band, led by a scruffy looking Mexican named El Chuncho (Gian Maria Volonte), earns their living by stealing weapons and selling them to a powerful warlord named General Elias (Jaime Fernandez). El Chuncho's band preys on federal army patrols, trains, and any thing else that allows them to realize their goals. Along with his holier than thou former priest turned revolutionary brother El Santo (Klaus Kinski) and a beautiful woman named Adelita (Martine Beswick), El Chuncho and his thugs make a good living at what they do. When the group happens to rob a train loaded with armaments, they run smack dab into a dapper gringo named Bill Tate (Lou Castel), a mysterious man who initially poses as a prisoner so he can get into the good graces of El Chuncho's army. Amused by the American and thankful for his help in stopping the train, the group decides to take him on as a fellow bandit and revolutionary. Chuncho even nicknames him "El Nino" in the process because of his baby-faced good looks.

Tate's hidden agenda remains hidden for most of the movie, but in the meantime he earnestly joins the guerilla war in Mexico. El Chuncho's band takes the rifles off the train and holes up in a poor village until it's safe to transport the arms to Elias's headquarters in the mountains. Regrettably, the local villagers convince the desperados to dispatch the brutal local landowner, a truly revolutionary action leading to land redistribution amongst the poor. Since the federal government opposes such actions, the village is certain to encounter an invasion force of substantial size. Suddenly, and probably due more to the pretty local women than any altruistic reasons, El Chuncho and El Santo take an interest in protecting the village from annihilation. The rest of the gang decides money is more important than a heroic stand, and heads off to Elias's fortress with the weapons. The now former bandit leader cannot stand to miss out on any of the action (or the money), and before too long is off riding after Tate, Adelita, and the rest of his compatriots. The conclusion to the movie, with Tate's true mission in Mexico revealed and the subsequent bloodbath that follows, is classic spaghetti western grit. Until the very end, you're just not sure what's ultimately going to happen.

"A Bullet for the General" is most notable for its strident political themes. All spaghetti westerns engage in the old good versus evil debate, but by the late 1960s the directors and writers of the films in this genre began inserting left wing rhetoric and pro-socialist situations into the pictures, thus turning the Old West into a mirror image of the turbulent social movements of the 1960s. Whereas in earlier movies you might see good guys and bad guys battling over money, in films like "A Bullet for the General" you see the good guys protecting the poor from money-grubbing big business interests such as railroads, oil companies, and landowners. El Chuncho's conversion from a greedy bandit to a socially conscious revolutionary symbolizes the transformation the New Left hoped most members of society would eventually undergo in the real world. Even the Church takes a shot on the chin in the movie, as El Santo becomes more authentic when he rejects the passivity of the pulpit in lieu of a socially active gospel requiring violent action against the propertied classes.

Unfortunately, a few problems plague "A Bullet for the General." First, the filmmakers failed to utilize the full potential of the volcanic Klaus Kinski. There is an intriguing scene where we see El Santo roaring biblical quotations from a rampart while tossing grenades into a mass of troops, but for most of the movie his character simply disappears. Second, the dubbing is awful--truly, ear achingly awful. But the good outweighs the bad. Anchor Bay performed miracles with the pristine picture transfer, the story is intriguing, and there's plenty of good shoot 'em up action. The DVD unfortunately only contains two trailers as extras, but the movie's good enough that you won't miss the behind the scenes stuff and interviews usually included on most discs. "A Bullet for the General" is must see viewing for spaghetti western aficionados, and a good introduction to the genre for the beginner.

Want A Bullet for the General (2-Disc Special Edition) (1967) Discount?

Although I'm confident it's a minority opinion, I always felt that Gian Maria Volonte was the best part of A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More, though not in the same league as Eli Wallach would be in the classic finale of the trilogy. (Who is?) In 'A Bullet for the General', Volonte takes the lead in a better than average ensemble cast as El Chuncho, a bandit leader whose childish infatuation with the sainted General Elias makes him the perfect patsy when American Bill Tate (Lou Castel) is hired to send a bullet to the general.

First of all, if you are not already a fan of Italian westerns or at least look favorably on them then 'Bullet' is probably not going to change your mind. Hallmarks of the genre poor dubbing, convoluted storylines, gratuitous violence and over-emotive acting styles are all present and accounted for here, though to my mind, this film keeps the more grating elements in check. What we end up with, underneath it all, is a neat little psychological study that adds just enough flavoring to the excitement to push this film past average and make it a minor classic of the genre.

The dandy American, Tate, worms his way into El Chuncho's bandit gang, and it will be immediately apparent to all but the most obtuse that he has designs on something much larger than banditry and running guns for the Mexican Revolution. Once he is invited into the gang, he meets El Chuncho's half-mad half-brother El Santo (Klaus Kinski), Adelita (Martine Beswick), and the others, and is accepted more or less at face value after telling them that the train they have just raided was taking him to prison. From then on, Tate keeps pushing to see Gen. Elias a revolutionary leader hidden up in the mountains for whom El Chuncho is stealing guns.

Throughout the film, El Chuncho's fondness for Tate, whom he calls 'El Nino', causes him to sacrifice members of his original group until only these two are left to deliver the load of guns to Elias. Without giving away too many spoilers, in the end Tate both saves El Chuncho and at the same time betrays everything in which the bandit leader believes.

Subtlety is not a word that springs to mind when thinking about the action styles of Volonte or Kinski, and even though their actions remain over the top, both these two and Martine Beswick manage to imbue their roles with the hint of something more than two-dimensions. I'm trying not to over-praise here in the context of a basic action/western, they manage to convey more complexity than usual for this type of film, which I think really puts the entire effort on a higher plane. Lou Castel, as the american Tate, is, unfortunately, the odd-man out here. By design of the director or no, his acting style never resonated with me, or else it stood out at odds so distinctly from the others that it appeared out of place. His presence is the single most distracting element of the picture.

There is a very anti-American allegorical layer to this film those who expect to be offended by that may want to pass it by. El Chuncho, for all his violent, criminal savvy, is politically naive, and easily manipulated by Tate. Tate, on the other hand, represents the idea that any action is blessed as long there is a tall enough dollar sign behind it. When El Chuncho is placed between nationless greed and belonging to his people, though, he makes a choice that speaks for the entire film. I won't say that director Damiano Damiani completely avoids ham-fisted sentimentality this is an Italian western after all but within the context of the genre, I think it's excellently done, whether I agree with the subtext or not. Easily within the top ten of Italian Westerns that I've seen.

This Blue Underground release was nicely done not pristine, but nice. Both sound and picture were entirely serviceable, though the only extras included were trailers and a filmography of Damiano Damiani.

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