...but really, when a film offers this much guilty fun, who cares?

The Alan Young Pictures region 2 disc represents my first exposure to this semi-notorious Spaghetti, which does for ZATOICHI what FISTFUL OF DOLLARS did for YOJIMBO, and I can honestly say it was everything I'd hoped it would be. What a difference from the only other Baldi Italo Western I'd seen, TEXAS ADDIO: where that film seemed a remarkably ramshackle affair aiming more for an ersatz American feel than the typically eccentric Leone-era brutalism for which the genre is celebrated, BLIND MAN really hits the exploitation mark. You've got a blind, wisecracking, amoral gunslinger hero with a seeing-eye horse, evil cackling Mexican bandits (including Ringo Starr, for a little extra lysergic credit), post-WILD BUNCH blood squib explosions and Gatling-gun slaughter, AND (fanfare please) 50 (count 'em!) naked Euro starlets onscreen simultaneously for a Jess Franco-style WIP sequence which earns this disc's ridiculously-low 10 Euro price tag by itself. (I haven't seen the American re-cut, but from all I've heard I'm missing nothing -unlike the film itself, which apparently had all its most exploitable elements gouged away to make it more palatable for delicate gringo sensibilities.)

The Italian DVD offers two separate audio options, a simple 2.0 rendering of the original mono track (perfectly serviceable, if a little thin and reedy) and a brash 5.1 remix which really sounds pretty decent, although the pickier amongst you may gripe at the amplified hum which underpins some quieter passages (it's there in the original mono rendering at a lower level too, and sounds like a consequence of a poor original soundtrack recording rather than a new problem introduced by the disc's producers). Thankfully, despite the absence of any English audio or subs, there is an Italian subtitle option which got me through 80% of the dialogue with few problems - although, once Blind Man (Tony Anthony) starts waxing poetic in his confrontations with the villains, I have to admit most of it went whizzing over my head, stronzo Inglese that I am.

The 16x9 image quality is excellent, apparently the result of a full restoration carried out with the help of (IIRC) Venezia 61 and the Prada Foundation, who also had a hand in Raro Video's recent MILANO CALIBRO 9 (and, for all I know, some of their other titles as well) - apart from a slight overscan issue with the opening titles, the framing looks perfect. And this is a pretty striking-looking film, I must say: Baldi uses the 'scope frame very well, and there are some nice visual touches (the funeral sequence, where the villain has had his adobe stronghold painted black, contrasting nicely with the white robes of the ecclesiastics gathered around the coffin - what did Lang say about 'scope and funerals?*) which make this a solid entry in the Spaghetti stakes. The image is very sharp and colourful, and it makes you wonder how a disc like this can retail at such a paltry price when titles in the Colt Collection command almost twice the price with zero restoration whatsoever... Hmmm.

I'm so glad I picked this disc up: it provides something of a missing link for me in the history of the Western All'Italiana, ever since I read the Medveds' scathing nonsense about the film in the Golden Turkey Awards. (Their grounds for the film being "bad", it seems, stem entirely from its relentless violence and unprogressive attitudes to women. They'd be amused, I'm sure, by the "Per Tutti" rating awarded the film by the current Italian censor - the equivalent of a "suitable for all" certificate. Like E.T.-THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL. Love it.) And the cover art is great, too. I'd encourage anyone to chase this one down - it's exactly the kind of reprehensible trash that makes life worth living. :P


* Oh, and Baldi also includes a scene with a snake, too. Somebody alert Cahiers du Cinema.