Invitation to a
Gunfighter
Picture: C-
Sound: C Extras: C- Film: B-
Yul Brynner became one of the most popular gunslingers
during a stint of popular and even semi-popular Westerns during the 60’s, which
started off nicely with The Magnificent
Seven, now a classic and even 1964’s Invitation
to a Gunfighter. Although not
nearly as good, the film does have some really good moments and for those that
are fans of Westworld and Futureworld, this was of course where
most of the inspiration came from for Brynner to reprise his role as the steely
cold gunfighter.
The storyline here is actually a bit more detailed and
bigger themed than you typical Western.
It deals with your typical setup, but actually has more going for it
than meets the eyes. Our story falls
around the time of the aftermath from the Civil War and one town in particular
that fought for the Union is now behaving in radical and racists ways. They have hired a man (played by Brynner) to
kill a powerful Confederate man in their midst, but as time turns it would seem
that his heart has shifted against those that hired him for the kill, so where
will his ultimate loyalty lie?
Unfortunately for a decent film the DVD treatment is poor,
and that is no exaggeration. Even if
you have low standards you will still find this issue to be below average on
just about every level. Starting with
the weak 1.66 X 1 non-anamorphic transfer the picture lacks detail and depth in
nearly every shot. You can tell this is
generations old and appear to be from an analog source, mostly looks like a VHS
copy of the film smacked onto DVD. The
black levels are off, skintones are exaggerated with loads of grain and
softness to make the print suffer.
Sound is a lacking 2.0 Dolby Digital Mono that goes hand in
hand with the poor picture. Once again
it’s a shame that a good film has to look and sound this bad. While the sound is never harsh or distorted
you can definitely notice some fidelity issues and other mixing problems that
just don’t lend themselves well to the DVD format. Compression and a lack of depth make the mix seem old and weak,
which a new mix done properly could alleviate if time was well spent doing so.
The best recommendation here is to only check out the
movie at some point, but hopefully this DVD edition will not have to be the
means to do so. Maybe one day a more
superior version will exist, so if you’re a fan it’s a tragedy you will have to
wait till then.
- Nate Goss
