Joe Kidd

[WongWei]

just watched Joe Kidd on AMC HD . the PQ was good ,wondering if anyone knows if it has release date for Blu-ray?

[SDon1969]

Originally Posted by WongWei

just watched Joe Kidd on AMC HD . the PQ was good ,wondering if anyone knows if it has release date for Blu-ray?

Hah! I, too, was watching Joe Kidd last night as I tried to get to sleep. Gotta love the Eastwood westerns. But sorry, I have heard nothing of a Joe Kidd blu treatment.

[Brad1963]

Not heard anything, but you can buy it in a Collection from Universal on DVD;

Clint Eastwood Western Icon Collection (High Plains Drifter/Joe Kidd/Two Mules For Sister Sara)

It is around $14.00 at Amazon.

I have the set and it up-coverts quite nicely. It appears that Universal has remastered this films in High Def. Perhaps one day they will release a Eastwood set on Blu ray.

[Slasherob]

https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=13110

Two Mules for Sister Sara & Joe Kidd Blu-rays
Posted January 29, 2014 03:15 PM by Webmaster

Universal 100thUniversal Studios Home Entertainment has announced the Blu-ray release of two westerns starring Clint Eastwood: director Don Siegel's Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) and director John Sturges and screenwriter Elmore Leonard's Joe Kidd (1972). The duo arrive on Blu-ray on April 1st.

Two Mules for Sister Sara

Official Synopsis: Eastwood plays a hard-hitting drifter who rides into town and single-handedly rescues a local nun (Shirley MacLaine) from a gang of attackers. After meeting a band of Mexican revolutionaries bent on resisting the French occupation of Mexico, the cowboy and Sister Sara decide to join forces with the freedom fighters and set off on a deadly mission to capture the enemy's garrison. Ending with a violent climax, this action-packed western classic cemented Eastwood's status as a true cinematic superstar.

Two Mules for Sister Sara is presented in 1080p with a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track. Extras include:
Digital HD UltraViolet Digital Copy
Theatrical Trailer

Joe Kidd

Official Synopsis: Eastwood stars as former bounty hunter turned hired gunslinger who finds himself in the middle of a range war in rough and rugged New Mexico. Following an armed uprising by local Mexican revolutionary Luis Chama (John Saxon) who claims his people have been cheated out of their land, Kidd is hired by wealthy land baron Frank Harlan (Robert Duvall) to crush the rebellion. Kidd and his employer's interests are soon at odds, though, when he falls for a beautiful Hispanic rebel.

Joe Kidd is presented in 1080p with a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track. Extras include:
Digital HD UltraViolet Digital Copy
Theatrical Trailer

[Markgway]

Why are Joe Kidd and Sister Sara allowed to retain their mono tracks yet High Plains Drifter is robbed of its?

[Robert George]

Originally Posted by Markgway

Why are Joe Kidd and Sister Sara allowed to retain their mono tracks yet High Plains Drifter is robbed of its?

I'm only speculating, but I would guess that "High Plains Drifter" would be considered (by the studio) popular enough to warrant the added expense of a remix/remaster of the soundtrack and the other titles are not.

BTW, what you consider "robbery" most people in the industry consider improving. I know, I know, you don't get that. But, you probably don't understand that a mono soundtrack on a movie of that age is going to be seen by people that make movies as a limitation, either of technology or budget, and spending the money to create a modern, multichannel soundtrack is actually showing that one considers that "old" movie to actually be worthy of spending new money on.

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by Robert George

I'm only speculating, but I would guess that "High Plains Drifter" would be considered (by the studio) popular enough to warrant the added expense of a remix/remaster of the soundtrack and the other titles are not.

But that's not really a valid reason to not include the original mono track too.

[Robert George]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

But that's not really a valid reason to not include the original mono track too.

That depends on one's perspective. If "you" had just spent thousands of dollars to create a soundtrack that is considered (by "you") to be superior to the older one, what would be the logic to use the inferior one?

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by Robert George

That depends on one's perspective. If "you" had just spent thousands of dollars to create a soundtrack that is considered (by "you") to be superior to the older one, what would be the logic to use the inferior one?

I'm not sure why you're thinking it has to be one in place of the other, rather than the option of having both, There's little reason why they couldn't include the English mono in addition to the 5.1 upmix. By your logic, Universal should have only included their new 7.1 upmix with Jaws, rather than the option to have both 7.1 and mono.

[Robert George]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

I'm not sure why you're thinking it has to be one in place of the other, rather than the option of having both, There's little reason why they couldn't include the English mono in addition to the 5.1 upmix. By your logic, Universal should have only included their new 7.1 upmix with Jaws, rather than the option to have both 7.1 and mono.

I personally don't think that. I'm only attempting to offer a possible explanation why some titles with remastered soundtracks don't include the option of the original audio, that based on my personal conversations with several disc producers over the years. The people producing home video media don't all have the same opinion on such things, but many do.

I'm referring mostly to the studio people that make these sort of decisions, not necessarily the contractors that do the transfers, encodes, and authoring. The technical people, for the most part, would probably look at this sort of thing the way many of the people on this forum do, but they have to follow the instructions of their clients (the studios). It is easier to understand why this sort of thing happens this way when you take into account that the majority of the people making decisions on what goes on a disc and what doesn't are motivated by a number of factors with the desire to preserve some nostalgic element of a film falling way down the list of priorities, if it is even considered at all.

Most of the people that are doing disc production on the studio side will look at a mono soundtrack as something to be fixed, not something to be preserved.

[Markgway]

Why is it acceptable, nay desirable, to remix a mono audio track, but considered blasphemy to colourise a black and white film? Surely the motive behind both actions - to modernise, to revamp - is the same? To me both are blind revisionism, trying to take something classic and pass it off as contemporary. Universal and co. won't get my money when they so blatantly don't care for my custom. My anamorphic R2 DVD of HPD contains the original mono and that'll have to do for now.

[Early Memphis]

Originally Posted by Markgway

Why is it acceptable, nay desirable, to remix a mono audio track, but considered blasphemy to colourise a black and white film? Surely the motive behind both actions - to modernize, to revamp - is the same? To me both are blind revisionism, trying to take something classic and pass it off as contemporary. Universal and co. won't get my money when they so blatantly don't care for my custom. My anamorphic R2 DVD of HPD contains the original mono and that'll have to do for now.

That's an absurd comparison as the changes are not even comparable - as anyone can have their amp fold the audio signal down to mono but can't adequately adjust for colorization. The answer, as has been stated on countless threads already (and as MifuneFan made clear), is to include both the Remastered 5.1 track and the original mono for those so in love with mono that they can't live without it. Personally, I think mono tracks on modern equipment suck, but I strongly believe that they should always be included for those that want them - especially when changes to the sountrack have been made, a 'la Terminator. And if you want to stick to playing a coaster instead of upgrading and setting your amp to mono - on a track that hasn't been altered - that's ... your problem.

[bigG71]

Is the US disc pretty much identical to the UK region free version?

[Sky_Captain]

It more than likely has a proper menu, as opposed to the symbols and icons that we now get on Universal's European menu systems.

I picked up the UK disc for £3.50 this week, via CEX. Quite pleased with that, nearly paid a tenner for it a couple of weeks ago.

[Russell OWen]

I watched the Kino Lorber release of Joe Kidd on blu-ray a few nights ago and now have read the just published review of it by Dr. Svet Atanasov. The overall review is ultimately summed up as a minimum recommendation to merely RENT-IT. Dr. Atanasov obviously has lukewarm appreciation for what I always enjoyed as a guilty pleasure film. I favor Joe Kidd largely for two reasons. The first being it's a Clint Eastwood western and second that it's an Elmore Leonard written western. I cannot believe that Dr. Atanasov made no mention of the latter whatsoever because I believe Leonard's association is key to the ultimate demise of the film's success. And less to do with Eastwood and Sturges apparently having on-set directorial or personality clashes throughout the filming of Joe Kidd.

Leonard and Hollywood were still in transition away from the moribund Western genre in 1972. There was little enthusiasm for another Western then except with typecast actors like Eastwood. I believe most of the cast were merely "phoning in" their parts. And Leonard was filling his Western script with numerous repeated genre cliches that he would eventually also incorporate into his more modern lone wolf detective screenplays and novels. For instance, the throwing the bad guy down the stairs in Joe Kidd and replayed in Get Shorty. (Chili Palmer surely saw Joe Kidd do it.) Or the entire third act of Joe Kidd getting John Saxon's character Chama to the sanctuary of a courthouse or jail so that all is again right in the world that the script encompasses. Which also made up the entire plot of Leonard's 3:10 to Yuma. Lastly, 1972 was when social woke-ism was again being promoted with Hollywood haphazardly catching on to identity politics. Caucasian John Saxon shamelessly misappropriating a cultural role clearly suited for a genuine Hispanic actor, which there must have been at least one such B- grade actor other than Saxon available at the time. (Danny Trejo must have been starting his career in San Quentin at that time.) And doing so in a film that was trying to highlight such impolitic slights to ethnic and racial sensibilities. Shades of Cesar Chavez also in Mr. Majestyk played by Charles Bronson or Paul Newman playing a blue-eyed half-breed Indian in Hombre.

With the exception, I think, of Hombre with its unavoidable sociopolitical moral narrative, most of Leonard's novels and screenplays were inexcusably poorly adapted to film. That is something I have never understood since they were very much all clearly written with a movie contract in mind. The reception Joe Kidd received at the box office, not to mention home video, has been no different than the reception of the aforementioned Mr. Majestyk (1974) and 3:10 to Yuma (1957), or The Big Bounce (1969), The Moonshine War (1970), Valdez is Coming (1971), Stick (1985), and 52 Pick-Up (1986) all of which also featured box-office draw lead actors and directors yet were less than successful with audiences. Lack of enthusiasm seemed to be typically the treatment his scripts universally received from directors other than Sturges. Leonard was, I think. pigeon-holed as at best just a TV Movie screenwriter and a pulp fiction novelist. Joe Kidd was basically relegated to similar status with repeated showings on broadcast television. Leonard's stories seemed destined for little deserved respect until the huge success of Get Shorty (1995). Leonard capitalized on his displeasure with his treatment by Hollywood utilizing the audiences appetite for mockery of Hollywood stereotypes. (The obvious appeal of John Travolta resurrecting and refining his iconic Vinnie Barbarino character for Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction (1994) and again the following year with the even smoother Chili Palmer for Get Shorty no doubt had a lot to do with its success.) That one film made Leonard mainstream and recognized overnight more so than did his prolific writing greatness. But even then still be overshadowed by younger and hipper screenwriters like Quentin Tarantino on film and many such novelists as Carl Hiassen in writing sardonic crime fiction. Tarantino then elevated Leonard to bigger success by adapting Leonard's novel Rum Punch into Jackie Brown (1997) as something of an homage to a fellow pulp fiction giant. Which Hollywood quickly added to with Out of Sight (1998), eventual remakes of his earlier The Big Bounce and 3:10 to Yuma, the TV series Justified and currently Get Shorty, all giving Leonard belatedly much more deserved respect.

Overall, I believe Joe Kidd was as successful as it was capable of being, regardless of the involvement of Eastwood and Sturges. The script was mostly at fault. Dr. Atanasov is probably correct that Clint Eastwood could have made a difference in the director chair as well as lead actor relieving John Sturges of any culpability in the perhaps inevitable failure of Joe Kidd.


Russell Owen

[Jorvic]

Watched this a few times now, and it improves with each viewing.