Fans have waited a long time to buy a boxed set of Clint Eastwood’s early spaghetti westerns by Sergio Leone. featuring Clint as the iconic loner with no name. The wait is over. The boxed set, officially titled Clint, available June 1, 2010, Eastwood in The Man With No Name Trilogy hits a bullseye.

This collection belongs in every home film library. Leone’s trilogy of lowbudget, high-impact films, set in the American West (but filmed in Spain and directed by an Italian), made Eastwood a major movie star with a following that forced Hollywood to sit up and take notice. Up until that time he was known only for his roles on TV, most notably as Rowdy Yates in the series, Rawhide.

I interviewed Eastwood before the Academy Awards in 2005 when he had been nominated for Best Director and Best Picture for Million Dollar.  I asked how important to his films was the music in each. “Very Baby important,” he told me, holding me with that famous Eastwood gaze that says, “Nothing matters right now except our conversation.” He went on to explain that he wrote the music himself. “I was very careful not to allow the music to overwhelm the visuals but to support them,” he said, adding, “I learned that from Ennio Morricone.”

When I recalled that Eastwood had made a name for himself with the Sergio Leone films, Eastwood brightened. “It was Morricone who wrote the music for the three spaghetti westerns,” Eastwood said. “If you’ve seen them you know the music.”

The first in the series, A Fistful of Dollars, hit U.S. movie houses in 1964. The stage was set for the former television actor to become an international sensation as the rough-hewn, silent Man with No Name.

The footloose renegade with a wacky sense of humor, a cheroot clenched in his teeth, and a squint that made villains squirm, caught the fancy of moviegoers and they became his fans for life. Those fans are now graybeards, and they’re still loyal. They, and anybody else who likes movies with Clint Eastwood, are in for a treat.

writer/director Akiro Kurosawa’s film, Yojimbo.” That cynical samurai tale, in the hands of Sergio Leone, gets a different setting, the American West. The tale, which maintains the inner stuff of legend and iconic characters, works on a visceral level.

The follow-up film, For a Few Dollars More, teams Eastwood with Lee, who played the villain opposite Gary Cooper in High Noon.

In Dollars, Leone’s classic tale of revenge, Van Cleef again plays the villain to perfection.

The third film, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, is set in the American Civil War where violence is a given. Added to that conflict is buried gold, and classic criminals in a conspiracy that involves double-crosses and trayals that play out in a tension-filled finale with enough gun fights to satisfy any action fan.

(Catalog # M121526)

● The Christopher Frayling Archives: A Fistful of Dollars

● Commentary by Film Historian Christopher Frayling

● A New Kind of Hero

● A Few Weeks in Spain: Clint Eastwood on the Experience of Making the Film ● Tre Voci: A Fistful of Dollars

● Not Ready for Primetime: Renowned Filmmaker Monte Hellman discusses the Television Broadcast ● The Network Prologue with Actor Harry Dean Stanton

● Location Comparisons: Then to Now ● 10 Radio Spots ● Double Bill Trailer ● Theatrical Trailer

(Catalog # M121528)

● The Christopher Frayling Archives: For A Few Dollars More

● Commentary by Film Historian Christopher Frayling

● A New Standard: Frayling on For A Few Dollars More

● Back for More: Clint Eastwood Remembers For A Few Dollars More

● Tre Voci: For A Few Dollars More

● For A Few Dollars More: The Original American Release Version

● Location Comparisons

● 12 Radio Spots

● Theatrical Trailer 1

● Theatrical Trailer 2

(Catalog # M121527)

● Commentary by Film Historian Richard Schickel

● Commentary by Film Historian Christopher Frayling

● Leone’s West

● The Leone Style

● The Man Who Lost the Civil War

● Reconstructing The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

● IL Maestro: Ennio Morricone and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly – Part One

● IL Maestro: Part Two

● Deleted Scenes

â—‹ Extended Tuco Torture Scene

â—‹ The Socorro Sequence: A Reconstruction

● Easter Egg #1 Uno, Due, Tre

● Easter Egg #2 Italian Lunch

● Easter Egg #3 New York Actor

● Easter Egg #4 Gun in Holster

● Theatrical Trailer

● French Trailer

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., through its operating subsidiaries, is actively

engaged in the worldwide production and distribution of motion pictures,

television programming, home video, interactive media, music and

licensed merchandise. The company owns the world’s largest library of

modern films, comprising around 4,100 titles. Operating units include

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc.,

United Artists Films Inc., MGM Television Entertainment Inc., MGM

Networks Inc., MGM Domestic Networks LLC, MGM Distribution Co, MGM

International Television Distribution Inc., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Home

Entertainment LLC, MGM ON STAGE, MGM Music, MGM Worldwide Digital

Media, MGM Consumer Products and MGM Interactive. In addition, MGM

has ownership interests in international TV channels reaching nearly 120

countries. MGM ownership is as follows: Providence Equity Partners (29%),

TPG (21%), Sony Corporation of America (20%), Comcast (20%), DLJ

Merchant Banking Partners (7%) and Quadrangle Group (3%). For more

information, visit www.mgm.com.

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC (TCFHE) is a recognized global industry leader and a subsidiary of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, a News Corporation company. Representing 75 years of innovative and award-winning filmmaking from Twentieth Century Fox, TCFHE is the worldwide marketing, sales and distribution company for all Fox film and television programming, acquisitions and original productions on DVD, Blu-ray Disc Digital Copy, Video On Demand and Digital Download. The company also releases all products globaly for MGM Home Entertainment. Each year TCFHE introduces hundreds of new and newly enhanced products, which it services to retail outlets from mass merchants and warehouse clubs to specialty stores and ecommerce throughout the world.

Van Cleef

The post CLINT EASTWOOD -Hollywood Behind-The-Scenes first appeared on River View Observer.