DREAMASTER wrote:I read that the R1 CE has Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 mono and that the previous edition had English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono .
Which of them was originaly heard when it was shown on the theatrical release ?
The film was shot without live sound and the dialogue was added in post-production, as with most Italian films of this period; so technically, both the English and Italian dubs are equally 'legitimate'.
The English dub on the 'Collector's Edition' is complicated by the addition of newly-recorded English dialogue (in 5.1) for the portions of the movie that were originally never dubbed into English (which a few years ago were dubbed by Eastwood, Wallach and a Lee Van Cleef soundalike for the film's rerelease to cinemas); I guess that's why the original English mono dub isn't offered on the CE, as it would involve downmixing these newly-dubbed sequences and then matching this modern-sounding audio with the original 1966 English mono dub. However, as a purist I'd have preferred them to include the original mono dub and then add in the Italian dialogue (with optional English subtitles) for the portions of the movie that during the film's original release were never dubbed into English, in the manner that Anchor Bay, etc, used to present the longer Italian edits of films such as CITTA VIOLENTA and PROFONDO ROSSO.
Frankly, I don't like the English 5.1 track, which contains some new foley work, that is presented on the DVD releases of the longer edit of the film (I know the film inside out, having seen it on the big screen many times at revival screenings prior to the recent rerelease, and so the new 5.1 track seems out of place to me), and although the Italian dub is more resonant in some ways (e.g. in the Italian dub Angel Eyes acquires the much more poetic name Sentenza - 'Sentence', which signifies punishment or justice) I find it hard to watch Eastwood, Wallach and Van Cleef dubbed into Italian. As a consequence, I find myself watching the first DVD release of the film (which includes the shorter cut of the movie with the English mono dub) more often than the recent CE of the longer edit.
But then, I'm strange like that
