Lee Van Cleef in THE GRAND DUEL Available on Blu-ray May 7th From Arrow Video

By Tom Stockman | April 19, 2019

Lee Van Cleef in Giancarlo Santi’s THE GRAND DUEL (1972) will be available on Blu-ray May 7th From Arrow Video

The Grand Duel is an archetypal spaghetti western which boasts many of the genre s classic hallmarks including action-packed gunfights, wild stunts and an impressive climactic showdown…

Genre stalwart Lee Van Cleef (The Big Combo, Day of Anger) stars as a gnarled ex-sheriff called Clayton who comes to the aid of young Philipp Wermeer (Alberto Dentice), a fugitive framed for the murder of a powerful figure called The Patriarch. Clayton helps Philipp fend off attacks from bounty hunters in a series of thrilling shootouts before the two make their way to Jefferson to confront three villains known as the Saxon brothers, and reveal who really killed The Patriarch.

A complex tale of revenge penned by prolific giallo writer Ernesto Gastaldi (Torso, The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail), The Grand Duel benefits from a beguiling central performance from Lee Van Cleef and assured helmsmanship from Giancarlo Santi (assistant director to Sergio Leone on The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West). Add to this brew a memorable and tuneful score by composer Luis Bacalov (Django, Milano Calibro 9) and the stage is set for one of the grandest of all the Italian westerns.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

·  New 2K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative

·  High Definition Blu-rayTM (1080p) presentation

·  Uncompressed mono 1.0 LPCM audio

·  Original English and Italian soundtracks, titles and credits

·  Newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack

·  Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack

·  New audio commentary by film critic, historian and theorist Stephen Prince

·  An Unconventional Western, a newly filmed interview with director Giancarlo Santi

·  The Last of the Great Westerns, a newly filmed interview with screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi

·  Cowboy by Chance, an interview with the actor Alberto Dentice AKA Peter O’Brien

·  Out of the Box, a newly filmed interview with producer Ettore Rosboch

·  The Day of the Big Showdown, a newly filmed interview with assistant director Harald Buggenig

·  Saxon City Showdown, a newly filmed video appreciation by the academic Austin Fisher

·  Two Different Duels, a comparison between the original cut and the longer German cut of The Grand Duel

·  Game Over, an obscure sci-fi short film from 1984 directed by Bernard Villiot and starring The Grand Duel s Marc Mazza

·  Marc Mazza: Who was the Rider on the Rain?, a video essay about the elusive actor Marc Mazza by tough-guy film expert Mike Malloy

·  Original Italian and international theatrical trailers

·  Extensive image gallery featuring stills, posters, lobby cards and home video sleeves, drawn from the Mike Siegel Archive and other collections

·  Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matt Griffin

·  FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Kevin Grant and original reviews