[REVIEW] Day Of Anger (1967) Blu-Ray

By: Frenchie Pred
Rated: M
Runtime: 111 min (extended) / 95 min
What to Expect: One in the top 10 spaghetti western ever

This spagetti features two icons, the manly and mighty Lee Van Cleef and Italian actor Giuliano Gemma, who sadly
passed away recently. On top of this great cast, a great story, which is quite different from the usual spagetti stories, of course it keeps the basics, the greed, the gunfights, and the epic and fantastic music composed by Riz Ortolani who also passed away recently.Morricone would be proud.

The regular fans always praise Sergio Leone movies and they’re right about that, but there are out there a dozen of other spaghettis or American westerns that are similar in terms of quality or at least entertainment.Day of Anger is fucking awesome. The replayability is huge. Directed by Tonino Valerii who worked with Sergio Leone several
times, and sadly passed away too. This little gem tells the tale of a young guy named Scott, he doesn’t have a last name, and is the son of a whore.He gets a few bucks because he retrieves barrels of piss and shit from the people of Clifton.

Almost everyone treats him like a piece of shit, and his only dream is to one day buy a real gun. He has a wooden gun and does a lot of training secretly.

One day a stranger Frank comes to town (LVC) and treats Scott like a real human being, he even give him a last name, and invites him for a drink in the saloon, of course the owner and customers want Scott to disappear and start to bully him, things get hot and the customer who just became the father of twins, is snuffed out.

Frank later leaves the town and Scott follows him, he wants to be like him and learn. Frank accepts and team up with Scott, and he’s gonna become a ruthess criminal like his aging mentor, but Frank has an agenda, he’ll be back to take Clifton over and become the new master of the town. Scott only friend is killed in the process and he’s gonna have to
make a decision: to stay on Franks side or avenge his old friend.

This western is very cool because almost every character is a bad guy, and the good guys are kinda grey. The gun fights are good and inventive, with really neat angles. There is also an epic duel with rifles and on horse, and the coolest stuff is the gimmicks, the 10 lessons that LVC teaches to Scott.

Arrow recently released the bluray with a big chunk of extras and also propose the shorter theatrical version and the
extended version (and believe me, all the scenes that were cut are excellent, and even very important to the story and the characters.) The extended version is not new but with this quality, it is. And the old Blu Ray really deserved an upgrade!

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:

– Brand new restoration from the original 35mm Techniscope camera negative High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation of both versions of the film: the original Italian theatrical release, and the shortened version that was screened internationally

– Original uncompressed mono audio, with English or Italian soundtracks
on the longer cut and an English soundtrack on the shorter one
– Newly translated English subtitles for Italian audio and optional
– English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for English audio
– Brand new interview with screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi
– Brand new interview with Tonino Valerii’s biographer Roberto Curti
– Previously unreleased 2008 interview with Tonino Valerii
– Deleted scene
– Theatrical trailers
– Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork
by Reinhard Kleist
– Booklet featuring new writing on the film by Howard Hughes
(author of Spaghetti Westerns), illustrated with original poster designs

DETAILS:

Region: A+B/1+2
Rating: TBC
Cat No: FCD1048
Duration: 114/ 86
Language: Italian/English
Subtitles: English SDH
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audio: 2.0 PCM