Customer Reviews

Mean Guns 20 Movie Pack

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

(revised 3/16/10)
At some point, MILL CREEK ENTERTAINMENT's MEAN GUNS 20 MOVIE PACK underwent a revamp. Cover art was changed and four foreign-made westerns were deleted in favor of some ancient hour-length programmers.

MILL CREEK box sets offer good-to-average-quality audio and video transfers of public domain material at a most reasonable price.


TOUGH GUYS OF THE WEST is a similar set of films.


Parenthetical numbers preceding titles are 1 to 10 imdb viewer poll ratings.

(5.9) Any Gun Can Play (Italy-1967) - Edd Byrnes/George Hilton/Gilbert Roland
(5.7) Billy the Kid's Range War (1941) - Bob Steele/Al St. John/Joan Barclay/Rex Lease
(5.3) Boot Hill (Italy-1969) - Terence Hill/Woody Strode/Bud Spencer
(6.3) Buffalo Stampede ("The Thundering Herd") (1933) - Randolph Scott/Judith Allen/Buster Crabbe/Noah Beery/Harry Carey/Barton MacLane
(2.0) Cry Blood Apache (1970) - Jody McCrea/Joel McCrea (in a minor role)
(4.6) Dan Candy's Law ("Alien Thunder") (Canada-1974) - Donald Sutherland/Chief Dan George
(6.3) The Day Of The Wolves (1973) - Richard Egan/Rick Jason/Jan Murray/Frankie Randall
(4.9) Dead Aim (Mexico-1975) - Glen Lee/James Westerfield
(4.2) Deadwood '76 (1965) - Arch Hall Jr./Jack Lester/Liz Renay/Arch Hall Sr.
(4.8) Four Rode Out (USA/Spain-1971) - Sue Lyon/Pernell Roberts/Leslie Nielsen
(4.4) God's Gun (Italy/Israel-1976) - Lee Van Cleef/Jack Palance/Richard Boone/SybilDanning/Leif Garrett
(5.5) The Hanged Man (TV-1974) - Steve Forrest/Dean Jagger/Will Geer/Cameron Mitchell
(4.1) Joshua (1976) - Fred Williamson/Calvin Bartlett
(4.3) Kid Vengeance (Italy/Israel/USA-1977) - Lee Van Cleef/Jim Brown/Leif Garrett
(4.2) The Law of the 45's (1935) - Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams/Molly O'Day/Al St.John
(5.8) Rawhide (1938) - Smith Ballew/Lou Gehrig/Evelyn Knapp/Si Jenks
(3.9) Savage Guns (Italy-1971) - Robert Woods
(3.1) Savage Journey (TV-1983) - Maurice Grandmaison/Richard Moll
(4.6) This Man Can't Die (Italy-1967) - Guy Madison/Rik Battaglia/Rosalba Neri/Steve Merrick
(6.5) Yuma (1971) - Clint Walker/Barry Sullivan/Edgar Buchanan

There are a number of pretty good westerns in this five disc collection of 20 western motion pictures, however these movies have not been digitally remastered, nor has the Mono sound been converted into digital Stereo surround sound. DTS would have been nice :)

The Italian western 'Any Gun Can Play' staring Gilbert Roland as 'Monetero', George Hilton as 'The Stranger' and Ed Byrnes as 'Clayton' is well done, coupled with being in 'real' (((wide-screen))) makes this 1967 picture nice viewing.

The 1976 movie 'Mad Dog Morgan' begins in the 1850's Australian gold fields, quickly progressing to the Aussie prison system and expanding to the Outback. This very interesting film stars Dennis Hopper of all people, along with a fine Australian cast. The untamed Australian wilderness is used as a stunning backdrop throughout the movie. 'Mad Dog Morgan' is shown in 'full screen'.

The price for this movie collection is just right!

Mean Guns 20 Movie Pack

What makes these foreign made westerns so different from American made westerns is the grit--lots of grit. Keeping clean was not a priority or a possibility in the real West, nor is it in the so-called spaghetti film or those made in Spain or in Australia. So in that sense, the films in this pack are more realistic than Gunsmoke or Gene Autry or Roy Rogers productions. It should be noted, however, that the actors have sparkling snow capped teeth, a fact which stands out in faces that often appear as if they have been slathered with axel grease.

The plots are uncomplicated, which is similar to the American westerns. Bad guys are faced down with good guys and defeated. It's as simple as that. It's just that the good guys are a little more tarnished in the spaghetti westerns. There's little or no love interest to complicate things, and you almost always know exactly who the bad guys are by hat colors and facial hair.

In the most notable film of the lot, "They Call Me Trinity," Terrence Hill (an Italian with an Americanized name) is the best gunslinger that ever was or ever could be, and he has a shirt so sweaty and dirty that it should be put in the Smithsonian. He is so talented with a six-gun that he can shoot people behind him without looking. Honest. Along with his half-brother, an ersatz lawman, they seek to rid the un-named town of villains so that a group of religious settlers can live in peace. There's considerable comedy, to the point that this is a spoof of the western, almost a spoof of itself. The fight scene near the end turns into pure camp. There's never been a slugfest like that.

Dennis Hopper has the title role in "Mad Dog Morgan," a film made in Australia about the real 19th century bandit, Daniel Morgan. In Australia today there are historical markers to show Morgan's grave site and other places where he made his name as a murderer. The movie is a little disjointed, but it is of interest and has great scenery. Morgan's sidekick is an aborigine, sort of like Tonto to the Lone Ranger.

Anyone with an interest in western action films with a touch more of realism should have a look at this collection. It's worth the price, certainly. But art it is not.

I love this collection of movies.
I'm a big fan of the Spaghetti Western,
which is what almost all of these films
are.
The five star review does not mean
that these movies are all classics,
and there were one or two that I
did not care for,
but out of 20 films,
that's not bad.
Since I purchased this 4 disc set
for $5, that's $0.25 per film.
Great value.

An example of the value is a beautiful
wide-screen version of the excellent
"Any Gun Can Play" which sells as a single
film DVD on Amazon,
at the time of this review,
for $5-7 alone.

Many of the films had poor video
and audio quality and some had poor
dubbing, but that didn't bother
me too much.
Most of the films will not get
a TLC remastering because
DVD producers will not think it
profitable.
This set offers one a chance to see some
great European shoot-em-up "westerns"
for a small investment.

I have read reviews of people disatisfied with the lack of digitization or effective digitization of the old stuff; grainy audio and video. However, I find the graininess adds to the nostalgia of watching these old shoot 'em ups. This movie pack is action packed thru and thru. Puts me back in a place and time when movie watching allowed one to exercise their own imagination to experience the gore, guts, and intimacy. Through my imagination I can get as little or as much detail from a scene as I like. The all around classiness of the Ladies and the Tough Guys in dress and actions enhance my movie watching experienc. What is also amazing is realizing the very same hostilities then, exists now (technolgy has advanced but our psyches have an awful long way to go). How sexy are these Mean Guns in there rugged but always neat dress. The shoot outs allow for the gun with the best calculated accuracy to be the victor. Skill, planning and execution. Loving them!

it's a great dill. Sound is bad, but It's an old movies and picture is ORIGINAL, what is the best. It worth to see it. There are 20 bad and good movies. I like tham ALL. So, you can do too.

This is a collection of old westerns. I gave it to my son for christmas which he liked because he likes westerns. Awesome collection with some rare movies. 20 of them. Danny

Absolutely the worst movies I have seen, along with Spaghetti Westerns 20 Pack (see separate review). It doesn't deserve a one star rating! Every aspect of this set is completely unprofessional, including the music: It's terrible; acting, directing, cinematography, lighting, color transfer, audio quality . . . . . terrible everything! A complete ripoff at any price. The other reviews, with higher ratings are because the price is so cheap, have not done any favors to other buyers. You get what you pay for and I would not watch this mess again if Amazon paid me!! Because of the low price that I paid it is too costly for me to return it to Amazon so I have to cut my loses and toss it into the trash. I'm very disappointed with Amazon that they would sell junk this bad to anyone and even falsely promote it by sayong "over 31 hours of thrilling entertainment." Yah, it's about as trilling as watching grass grow!!! Shame on you Amazon. Mill Creek Entertainment created this 4 DVD mess with the talent and know how of a kindergardener and I will NEVER buy a product made by them again and maybe not even Amazon. This is nothing more than false advertising and lies to get customers to buy into "20 movies - actually 27 hrs, 15 min." at a very cheap price "featuring" Lee Van Cleef (only in two movies)! I think Amazon was just trying to clean out their warehouse and dumped this junk on it's customers so cheap no one can return them. No one associated with this "Movie Pack" should have made money including Amazon selling this crap to their good and loyal customers. Shame on you again Amazon!!!

If you have some extra money to throw away go buy a Hamburger. However, if anyone wants a real "Spaghetti Western" purchase The Clint Eastwood Star Collectiom - Fistful of Dollars/For a Few Dollars More/The Good, The Bad and The Ugly/and Hang'em High. A four DVD set is directed by Sergio Leone with music by Ennio Morricone, the masters of The Spaghetti Westerns, and it sells for just under $20.00 and "IS THE REAL DEAL!!"

I was looking forward to watching this collection however the picture quality is very poor in most of the movies.

At least three of these old movies may have been worth the low price of this DVD set, had it not been for the terrible video quality. They look as though they were re-recorded from very old, worn out and neglected (and even abused) tapes, and lost even more quality through the use of a very cheap file type conversion program. Though some of the movies might be good, this DVD set is not worth buying, because of the quality of the video; it's TERRIBLE!!!