Verdict
Summary
A stylish, but shockingly cruel and nasty spaghetti western that used Sergio Leone’s Man With No Name trilogy and flipped it on its ear by injecting a spirit of sadism and torture into the mix, and director Sergio Corbucci’s take on the genre is to bring it down to earth as much as possible, giving the proceedings an earthy, fugly pass, which makes it all the fresher.
Plot: A loner gunslinger toting a coffin around ends up in a backwater town overrun with a gang and Mexican banditos and gets caught up in the midst of their war with each other.
Review: A muddy, barren wasteland sprawls ahead of Django (Franco Nero), an unkempt gunslinger who’s toting unusual baggage: a filthy looking coffin that has seen some mileage. On a whim he saves a prostitute (Loredana Nusciak) from being murdered (or worse) as she’s being whipped and degraded by a red scarf wearing gang of men in the outskirts. Django annihilates them in rapid fashion with his six-shooter and takes the woman to the nearest town where she’s welcomed by the hookers in the saloon. As Django is resting and enjoying a meal, the local warlord, a white thug who loves murdering Mexicans in cold blood, walks through the doors with five of his red scarfed men, and they pick a fight with Django because they’re sure it was he who killed their brethren. Sure enough, Django makes short order of them, leaving the warlord to run off and gather as many of his men as he can, which leads to a slaughter, thanks to the Gatling gun Django’s been lugging around in the coffin. Later, Django joins the other side: a Mexican gang of banditos who steal a stash of gold from the Army, and it’s at this point that Django decides to steal the gold for himself, but it won’t be an easy score, and there will be consequences for his mistakes.
A stylish, but shockingly cruel and nasty spaghetti western that used Sergio Leone’s Man With No Name trilogy and flipped it on its ear by injecting a spirit of sadism and torture into the mix, and director Sergio Corbucci’s take on the genre is to bring it down to earth as much as possible, giving the proceedings an earthy, fugly pass, which makes it all the fresher. Nero made a perfect antihero, and this film spawned a franchise that went at least 30 sequels and spin-offs, but Nero didn’t return to the series until many years later. This is as equally iconic a spaghetti western as any of the three Clint Eastwood pictures by Leone, and yet it’s harsher and meaner than those.
Arrow Video’s presentation of Django has finally been released after some complications with some legalities, but I’m pleased to report that their 4K scan offers the film in a pristine transfer that is quite glorious to behold. Arrow offers the film in a Blu-ray steel book edition as well as a multi-disc 4K Blu-ray edition that has tons of bonus material, plus a bonus film Texas Adios with Nero. As I understand it, this is a hot item and is very limited, so grab it while you can.
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Bonus Materials
- 2-DISC 4K UHD BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
- 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation of Django, in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation of Texas, Adios
- Uncompressed Mono 1.0 PCM audio
- Original English and Italians soundtracks
- English subtitles for the Italian soundtracks
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtracks
- Six double-sided collector’s postcards
- Double-sided fold-out poster
- 60-page perfect-bound book featuring writing by Howard Hughes and Roberto Curti, and original reviews
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sean Phillips
- DISC 1 – DJANGO [4K UHD BLU-RAY]
- Audio commentary by film critic, historian and theorist Stephen Prince
- Django Never Dies, an interview with star Franco Nero
- Cannibal of the Wild West, an interview with assistant director Ruggero Deodato
- Sergio, My Husband, an interview with Sergio Corbucci’s wife Nori Corbucci
- That’s My Life: Part 1, an archival interview with co-writer Franco Rossetti
- A Rock ‘n’ Roll Scriptwriter, an archival interview with co-writer Piero Vivarelli
- A Punch in the Face, an archival interview with stuntman and actor Gilberto Galimberti
- Discovering Django, an appreciation by spaghetti westerns scholar Austin Fisher
- An Introduction to Django by Alex Cox, an archival featurette with the acclaimed director
- Gallery of original promotional images from the Mike Siegel archive
- Original trailers
- DISC 2 – TEXAS ADIOS [BLU-RAY]
- Audio commentary by spaghetti western experts C. Courtney Joyner and Henry C. Parke
- The Sheriff is in Town, an interview with star Franco Nero
- Jump into the West, an interview with co-star Alberto Dell’Acqua
- That’s My Life: Part 2, an archival interview with co-writer Franco Rossetti
- Hello Texas!, an appreciation by spaghetti western scholar Austin Fisher
- Gallery of original promotional images from the Mike Siegel archive
- Original trailers