The latter day Lee Van Cleef spaghetti western GRAND DUEL comes back to Blu-ray from Arrow Video.

The stage coach into Gila Bend is held off by the locals with gunfire not because escaped murderer Philipp Wermeer (Peter O'Brien aka Alberto Dentice) – wrongfully accused of killing Ebenezer Saxon (Horst Frank, THE HEAD), “The Patriarch” of the Saxon family who killed his prospector father – is rumored to be hiding out in town but because of the presence of bounty hunters (or “vultures” as they are described) eager to collect the three-thousand dollar reward on Wermeer’s head. Ex-sheriff Clayton (Lee Van Cleef, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK), who just happens to be traveling on the stage coach, knows the identity of the real killer and is trailing Vermeer to keep him from getting caught by bounty hunters or by the Saxon brothers who want Wermeer out of the way because of his sway on the locals (and to lay claim to his father’s silver mine, the whereabouts of which are still unknown). The Saxons are eager to rush Wermeer to the hangman when they catch him, but the revelation that Clayton knows who really killed their father gives marshal Eli Saxon (Marc Mazza, MY NAME IS NOBODY) pause and his brothers – psychotic dandy Adam (Klaus Grünberg, MORE), and politically-ambitious David (Horst Frank in a dual role) – desperate to get Clayton out of the picture too.

One of the later – although certainly not one of the lesser (or the better for that matter) – spaghetti westerns, GRAND DUEL is entertaining yet uneven. After a rather slow start, the film gets interesting not for its action scenes but for its plot twists which expertly set the viewer up for one revelation only to veer left (the revelation is surprising but it opens up a bunch more holes in the plot that turn one of the principals into kind-of-a-jerk). The titular grand duel is a bit of an anticlimactic letdown, followed up by an all-too-contrived and convenient wrap-up. Santi had served as an assistant director on Sergio Leone’s epics THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY (with Cleef) and ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST as well as Giulio Petroni’s DEATH RIDES A HORSE, but would only helm three features including this one (although he would assist Luigi Cozzi on his two Hercules films for Cannon in the 1980s), and his direction is at its best when he keeps the camera static and lets the actors do the work (sure they’re all dubbed, but Van Cleef, Frank, Mazza, and Grünberg have expressive faces, as do Antonio Casale [DUCK YOU SUCKER] as the Saxon’s chief henchman Hole and Anna Maria Gherardi [Bertolucci’s 1900] as David’s wife [seething silently as the dinner conversation takes on a sexist tone]). Santi's aping of Leone with the framing and movement of Vulpiani and the editing of Roberto Perignani (A LONG RIDE FROM HELL) never reach the level of obsessiveness that Leone invested to ratchet up the suspense of his best set-pieces, but his most successful attempt is the opening sequence where Clayton strolls into Gila Bend and exposes the hiding places of the bounty hunters lying in wait for Wermeer.

Van Cleef is better utilized elsewhere, or at least paired with a more interesting co-star (his acrobatic skills aside, O’Brien is bland). The Saxon brothers are the more interesting characters here, particularly Mazza – whose memory of his father’s death segues to some stylish black-and-white flashback sequences – and Frank putting his arrogant smirk to good use throughout. Dominique Darel (one of the not-so-virginal sisters of ANDY WARHOL’S DRACULA) is on hand as Wermeer’s love interest with a surprising connection to the Saxons; but she’s as superfluous to the plot as most women are in spaghetti westerns. The supporting cast of characters is suitably colorful (partially thanks to the film's Italian/French/West German co-production status that also assembled an interesting collection of lead actors here). On the stagecoach, there’s a respectable-looking dowager-type who is actually Saxon City brothel proprietor Madame Oro (Elvira Cortese escorting a new girl (Alessandra Cardini, DOWN THE ANCIENT STAIRS) to town, a fey dandy (Hans Terofal, THE COUNTESS DIED OF LAUGHTER) who turns out not only to be the town’s new undertaker but also quite the unrequited horndog, and a larger-than-life grizzled stagecoach driver Bighorse (Jess Hahn, THE NIGHT OF THE FOLLOWING DAY). Gastone Pescucci (BOCCACCIO 70) is also memorable as the crotchety innkeeper with a toothache at Silver Bells. Sergio Bardotti only scored one film before (SUMMERTIME KILLER) and the extras reveal that the Morricone-esque score as principally the work of arranger/conductor "Luis Enriquez" aka Luis Enriquez Bacalov (DJANGO).

Not released in the United States until 1974 by Cinema Shares, GRAND DUEL was available in a number of PD editions usually from the shorter TV version, with East/West's double feature with BEYOND THE LAW uncut (PAL-converted) and anamorphic widescreen. The first official releases came almost concurrently with Mill Creek putting out a barebones Blu-ray double feature with KEOMA while Blue Underground put out a DVD with a commentary and half-hour western trailer reel. Arrow Video has souped-up both films for separate Blu-ray releases, with GRAND DUEL coming to 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray from a new 2K scan of the original camera negative. The new master is not as massive improvement over the earlier one. The earlier master looked slightly warmer and in comparison with the new one seems to have diluted the colors subtly with skintones looking a tad pinker here, the whites of Adam's suit whiter, and more detail in the rocky scenery and rustic woodwork of the sets that seemed more recessed in the older master. The earlier DVD and Blu-ray releases only included the English dub which is featured here in uncompressed LPCM 1.0 along with the Italian track and optional English SDH and English subtitle translations. The Italian or English credits sequences can be played with the feature via seamless branching. The English title card here is THE BIG SHOWDOWN like that of the Mill Creek edition while the Blue Underground DVD featured the GRAND DUEL title card.

The Blue Underground DVD featured an audio commentary by filmmaker C. Courtney Joyner (LURKING FEAR) and blogger Henry Parke who gave an enthusiastic discussion which had its shortcomings in the film's background, the Italian supporting cast and crew, and the particulars of Italian production during the era. Arrow includes a new commentary by film critic, historian and theorist Stephen Prince who may have had access to the video interviews also included on the disc for production anecdotes but also puts his own spin on the latter days of the spaghetti western, the decadent phase in which most of the output veered towards the more comical and surreal with THE GRAND DUEL straight-faced even with hippie-ish addition Dentice doing some of the acrobatics you might see in an entry like ANY GUN CAN PLAY, as well as Van Cleef's waning Italian career. He also notes the influence of THE WILD BUNCH, the contribution of editor Perignani and his background in both continuity editing and Pasolini-inspired experimental editing, and the additions by Santi to Ernesto Gastaldi's screenplay (notably the choreography of the opening sequence).

"An Unconventional Western" (31:40) is an interview with director Santi who discusses working under Leone who had announced that he would be the director of A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE only for Rod Steiger to insist that Leone helm it. Although Santi would work on the film – and be needled by Steiger throughout – he and Leone faked a spat for him to go on his own way whereupon he started work on Michelangelo Antonioni on TECHNICALLY SWEET which was to be shot in the Amazon with Jack Nicholson in the lead (he would later star in Antonioni's THE PASSENGER but it is not the same project). That project fell through but Santi remembered Dentice when he was asked to direct THE GRAND DUEL. He also offers up his opinions on Quentin Tarantino's homages (or theft) to Italian films including sequences from THE GRAND DUEL. In "The Last of the Great Westerns" (25:37), screenwriter Gastaldi focuses minimally on the film itself and more on the boom years of Italian genre filmmaking when producers would call him up with treatments and he was in demand because he could meet deadlines. "Cowboy by Chance" (35:32) is an interview with actor Dentice who got his start in musical theater and a Bob Dylan-scored beat opera with singer Tito Schipa Jr. which was seen by director Steno who cast him in the Toto film CAPRICE, ITALIAN STYLE. He was in India when he was called back to audition in the Antonioni film and was raising funds to return to India when he was asked to audition for THE GRAND DUEL. He also discusses working with Santi and Van Cleef, as well as the origins of his "Peter O'Brien" stage name.

"Out of the Box" (29:02) is an interview with producer Ettore Rosboch (SHOOT FIRST, DIE LATER) who recalls that the film came about because co-producer Henry Chroscicki (DAY OF ANGER) – who later created the camera company Technovision – had a contract with Van Cleef but no script. He had been commissioned by Carlo Ponti to producer TECHNICALLY SWEET where he met Santi. He also mentions that Leone consulted on the film (Santi does not mention but Gastaldi's recollections of how Tonino Valerii's reputation suffered when producer Leone told the press he contributed to MY NAME IS NOBODY may be the reason). "The Day of the Big Showdown" (21:07) is an interview with assistant director Harald Buggenig who was hired because he could speak German, Italian, and English allowing him to interpret between the cast and Santi. "Saxon City Showdown" (15:32) is a video appreciation by academic Austin Fisher who looks at the film as a critique of capitalism and fascism, noting the more political bent of westerns in the second half of the genre's heyday but also how some elements had been carried over from the original Leone films, particularly FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE. "Two Different Duels" (15:38) is a comparison of the original Italian version and the longer German version DREI VATERUNSER FÜR VIER HALUNKEN which features several brief additions, some extended shots and some shorted ones. This material was not available in the Italian vaults and not available for remastering, so the variations are presented here side by side with the English/Italian version with some explanatory text (like the featurette done to discuss the differences between the American and international versions of Jose Ramon Larraz's WHIRLPOOL in Arrow's BLOOD HUNGER set).