The familiar theme for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly springs nicely from this mono transfer, but technological limitations keep everything very centralized. The sounds are basically clear and the dialogue is understandable, but this track lacks the complexity of two- and five-channel presentations. This DVD utilizes an adequate 2.35:1 widescreen transfer that includes some defects brought by age. Dirt and grain also appears intermittently, but they never detract too much from the overall experience. The most significant bonus with this release is the inclusion of seven deleted scenes that were removed from the original 1966 Italian release when it appeared overseas. They cover approximately 16 minutes and use a strong widescreen transfer. The additional extras include the original theatrical trailer and some production notes. The preview appears in a mediocre 2.35:1 widescreen transfer and includes some basic narration. The notes offer a page of minor behind-the-scenes details and two screens concerning spaghetti Westerns and Sergio Leone's trilogy. It's also impressive to note the 64 chapter cues, which give very specific access to the film.

MGM/UA first released a special edition of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in 2003, but it apparently took a little while longer for the company to recognize that the two earlier installments of Sergio Leone's Clint Eastwood trilogy were equally ripe for that kind of treatment. A Fistful of Dollars is present here in a gorgeous film-to-video transfer, one that was probably more expensive to do than the original movie (which was done on an extremely low budget) was to shoot. Every shot now shows the clarity and detail rivaling a still photograph, with the letterboxed (2.35:1) Techniscope image starting to crowd in on Cinemascope-level resolution. The chaptering is generous, as it was on the old low-priced DVD; and the sound is now good and loud and detailed, in ways it wasn't possible to achieve with DVDs in the late '90s. (Unlike the old single-disc DVD, there is no full-screen transfer on this disc, only the letterboxed version -- not that anyone with any sense would want the full-screen version; as the commentary by Christopher Frayling correctly points out, the widescreen image is used to frame most of the key scenes in this movie, and breaking that up destroys the intended compositions.) But the real treat -- beyond the best presentation that the movie has ever had in a home-viewing format -- lies with the extras. There's a glorious commentary track by scholar Christopher Frayling in which he delves into the historical background of the production -- we find out the reason why just about every shot and every scene was done the way it was (and it usually had to do with the low budget that director Sergio Leone was working with), as much about any of the actors as we've ever known, and we are walked through the reasons behind the special appeal of Italian-made Westerns, and Leone's movies in particular. Frayling ranges from cinema to art to literature, with detours into theology, popular culture, and a half-dozen other fields, and gives us the equivalent of a month's worth of film discussion in 101 minutes. And then, to top it off, he appears in one of the three background featurettes on the bonus disc, going into more detail. The other two featurettes put Eastwood on camera reminiscing about meeting Leone for the first time, and friends and colleagues recalling the director; and we get director Monte Hellman discussing his momentary career intersection with the movie, when he was hired to shoot a introduction for the film for its first telecast on ABC, a well-meaning but idiotic effort by the network to cast the Eastwood character's actions in a moral context. (Harry Dean Stanton is in the scene, but Eastwood was not, and an actor about a head shorter than he is can be seen in a similar outfit, his face obscured by shadow.) We also get trailers and radio spots for the movie. What we don't get, amazingly enough, is the original U.S. trailer for the movie, which was on the old single-disc DVD of the film. Instead, there's a double-feature trailer for the re-release of A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. This may seem like an oversight, but that original trailer was superb, and is good enough that this reviewer is saving the old DVD just because it is on it. The oversight is astonishing, given the thoroughness of the rest of the disc, and it also raises another question -- did the producers ever consider getting some of the European trailers for the movie, so we could see how it was marketed in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, etc., to compare how United Artists presented the picture here? That one flaw aside, it's impossible to complain about this set -- it's a beautiful total-immersion experience in the movie and the genre. The discs each open to an easy-to-use multi-layered menu, with the special features on each accessible quickly and simply, with the menu underscored by Ennio Morricone's music.