Director: Giancarlo
Santi
Notable Cast: Lee Van
Cleef, Alberto Dentice, Jess Hahn, Horst Frank, Marc Mazza, Klaus Grunberg,
Antonio Casale, Dominique Darel
When you have a name like Lee Van Cleef attached to a film,
there’s a solid chance that the film will be entertaining. Partner him up in a
spaghetti western and you know you’re going to have a decent time. In a film
like The Grand Duel, which in itself
is a rather mediocre affair, Van Cleef devours the scenery with a nuanced and intense
persona that immediately makes the film watchable, no matter how mundane the
plotting is or how the tone of the film can shift. This is the experience an
audience is going to have with The Grand
Duel. Compared to the many, many other spaghetti westerns that Van Cleef
starred in, this one does certainly falter in quality and engagement with its
audience. Even with its issues, western fans will want to partake in the film
for a handful of reasons and that’s on top of this latest chock-full Blu Ray
release from Arrow Video.