A Fistful of Dynamite
Encyclopedia
Duck, You Sucker! also known as A Fistful of Dynamite and Once Upon a Time… the Revolution, is a 1971 Zapata Western film directed by Sergio Leone
and starring Rod Steiger
and James Coburn
.
It is the second part of a trilogy of epic Leone films including the previous Once Upon a Time in the West
and the subsequent Once Upon a Time in America
, released thirteen years later. The last western film directed by Leone, it is considered by some to be one of his most overlooked films.
. Juan Miranda (Rod Steiger
), a Mexican outlaw leading a bandit family, meets John (Sean) Mallory (James Coburn
), an early Irish Republican
explosives expert on the run from the British
. Noting his skill with explosives, Juan relentlessly tries to make him join a raid on the Mesa Verde national bank. John in the meantime has made contact with the revolutionaries and intends to use his dynamite in their service. The bank is hit as part of an orchestrated revolutionary attack on the army organized by Doctor Villega (Romolo Valli
). Juan, interested only in the money, is shocked to find that the bank has no funds and instead is used by the army as a political prison. John, Juan and his family end up freeing hundreds of prisoners, causing Juan to become a "great, grand, glorious hero of the revolution".
The revolutionaries are chased into the hills by an army detachment led by Colonel Günther Reza (Antoine Saint-John
). John and Juan volunteer to stay behind with two machine guns and dynamite. Much of the army's detachment is destroyed while crossing a bridge which is machinegunned by them and blown to bits by John. Col. Reza who commands an armoured car, survives. After the battle, John and Juan find most of their comrades, including Juan's family and children, have been killed by the army in a cave. Engulfed with grief and rage, Juan goes out to fight the army singlehanded and is captured. John sneaks into camp where he witnesses executions of many of his fellow revolutionaries by firing squad. They had been informed on by Dr. Villega, who has been tortured by Col. Reza and his men. This evokes in John memories of a similar betrayal by Nolan (David Warbeck
), his best friend, whom John kills for informing. Juan faces a firing squad of his own, but John arrives and blows up the squad and the wall with dynamite just in time. They escape on a motorcycle John is driving.
John and Juan hide in the animal coach of a train. It stops to pick up the tyrannical Governor Don Jaime (Franco Graziosi
), who is fleeing (with a small fortune) from the revolutionary forces belonging to Pancho Villa
and Emiliano Zapata
. As the train is ambushed, John, as a test of Juan's loyalty, lets him choose between shooting the Governor and accepting a bribe from him. Juan kills Jaime, and also steals the Governor's spoils. As the doors to the coach open, Juan is greeted by a large crowd and again unexpectedly hailed as a great hero of the revolution, the money taken away by revolutionary General Santerna (Rik Battaglia
).
On a train with commander
s of the revolution, John and Juan are joined by Dr. Villega, who has escaped. John alone knows of Villega's betrayal. They learn that Pancho Villa's forces will be delayed by 24 hours and that an army train carrying 1,000 soldiers and heavy weapons, led by Col. Reza, will be arriving in a few hours, which will surely overpower the rebel position. John suggests they rig a locomotive with dynamite and send it head on. He requires one other man, but instead of picking Juan, who volunteers, he chooses Dr. Villega. It becomes clear to Villega that he knows of the betrayal. John nonetheless pleads with him to jump off the locomotive before it hits the army's train, but Villega feels guilty and stays on board. John jumps in time and the two trains collide, killing Villega and a number of soldiers.
The revolutionaries' ambush is successful, but as John approaches to meet Juan, he is shot in the back by Col. Reza. An enraged Juan riddles the Colonel's body with a machine gun. As John lies dying, he continues to have memories of his best friend, Nolan, and a young woman both apparently loved. John recalls killing Nolan after being betrayed by him to the law. Juan kneels by his side to ask about Dr. Villega. John keeps the doctor's secret and tells Juan that he died a hero of the revolution. As Juan goes to seek help, John has a flashback to his time in Ireland with Nolan and a girl whom they both were in love with; knowing his end is near, sets off a second charge he secretly laid in case the battle went bad. The film ends with Juan staring at the burning remains, asking forlornly: "What about me?"
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When Once Upon a Time in the West
was released, Leone had said he would not have made another western for some time, because he had grown tired of all the things associated with the genre, such as horses and firearms. In fact, when the project first began Leone didn't intend to direct the picture himself. Peter Bogdanovich
, his original choice for director, soon abandoned the film due to perceived lack of control. According to Leone, Sam Peckinpah
agreed to direct the film after Bogdanovich's departure, only to be turned down for financial reasons by United Artists. Leone's collaborators Donati and Vincenzoni, noting the director's frequent embellishment of the facts concerning his films, claim that Peckinpah did not even consider it - Donati claimed Peckinpah was "too shrewd to be produced by a fellow director". Leone then recruited his regular assistant director
Giancarlo Santi to direct, with Leone supervising proceedings, and Santi was in charge for the first ten days of shooting. However, Coburn and Steiger refused to play their roles unless Leone himself directed, and the producers pressured him into directing the film. He agreed, and Santi was relegated to second unit
work.
The inspiration for the firing squad scene came from Francisco Goya
, and in particular from his set of prints The Disasters of War
. Leone showed the prints to director of photography Giuseppe Ruzzolini in order to get the lighting and colour effects he wanted. The film is believed to have been influenced by Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch
, and it shares some plot elements with Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
, a western also starring Coburn and released a year later.
, but the studio wanted a bigger name for the lead, so James Coburn was recruited. Clint Eastwood
was also approached by Leone for the role, but he saw it as just a different take of the same character
he had already played in the Dollars Trilogy
, and he also wanted to part with the Italian film industry, so he declined the offer and starred in Hang 'Em High
. George Lazenby
was then approached to play the role, but he declined. The role of Juan Miranda was written for Eli Wallach
, but Wallach had already committed to another project with Jean-Paul Belmondo
. After Leone begged Wallach to play the part, he dropped out of the other project and told Leone he would do his film. However, the studio never wanted Wallach; they wanted an actor who had more international appeal, and they already had Rod Steiger
signed on by that point. Leone offered no compensation to Wallach, and Wallach subsequently sued. A young Malcom McDowell, then mostly known for the film if...., was considered for the part of Nolan.
, Spain
. Some of the locations used previously featured in Leone's Dollar Trilogy films; for example, the Almería
Railway Station, used for the train sequence in For a Few Dollars More
, returns in this film as Mesa Verde's station. The flashback scenes with Sean and friends were shot at Howth Castle in Co. Dublin, and Toner's Pub on Baggot Street, Dublin.
At first, Leone was dissatisfied with Steiger's performance in that he played his character as a serious, Zapata
-like figure, but once Leone explained his mistake they were both content with the result. As filming progressed, Leone modified the script: as he did not originally plan on directing Duck, You Sucker, he thought the script was "conceived for an American filmmaker". Duck, You Sucker! was one of the last mainstream films shot in Techniscope
.
: Leone himself said that the Mexican Revolution in the film is meant only as a symbol, not as a representation of the real one, and that it was chosen because of its fame and its relationship with cinema, and he contends that the real theme of the film is friendship:
Another theme is amoral non-engagement: Juan is very loyal to his family (consisting of his six children, each from a different mother), but he cannot be trusted by anyone else. He is also very cynical about priests, and he doesn't care about codified law. This relates most closely to those aspects of Southern Italian life observed by Edward Banfield
and others.
The film also explores the relationship between Mexican bandits and peasant communities at the time of the revolution, idealised by figures like Juan José Herrera
and Elfego Baca
, which Leone may have had in mind in his creation of the character of Juan.
, who collaborated with Leone in all his previous projects. Elvis Mitchell
, former film critic for the New York Times, considered it as one of Morricone's "most glorious and unforgettable scores". He also sees "Invention for John", which plays over the opening credits and is essentially the film's theme, "as epic and truly wondrous as anything Morricone ever did". A CD version was never released in the United States, though many tracks can be found in Morricone's compilation albums. Music was recorded in April 1971 and second recording sessions in August/September 1971. A 35th anniversary OST was issued in 2006 with previously never released recording session and alternate takes.
on its first run.
. Of the 19 critical reviews of the film collected by the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes
, 16 were favourable (84% of the reviewers). The Chicago Reader praised it for its "marvellous sense of detail and spectacular effects". The New York Observer
argues that Leone's direction, Morricone's score and the leads' performance "ignite an emotional explosion comparable to that of Once Upon a Time in the West
". In Mexico, where the film is known as Los Héroes de Mesa Verde, it was refused classification
and effectively banned until 1979 because it was considered offensive to the Mexican people and the Revolution.
about the nature of revolutions and class struggle. Theatrical prints were generally of poor quality, and the film was marketed as a light-hearted western, not at all as Leone intended it, and it did not succeed in gaining press notice. In part because of this, United Artists reissued the film under the new name of A Fistful of Dynamite, meant to recall the notoriety of A Fistful of Dollars
. According to Peter Bogdanovich, the original title Duck, You Sucker! was meant by Leone as a close translation of the Italian title Giù la testa, coglione! (translated: "Duck Your Head, Asshole!"), which he contended to be a common American colloquialism
. (The expletive coglione (a vulgar way to say "testicle") was later removed to avoid censorship issues.) One of the working titles, Once Upon a Time… the Revolution, was also used for some European releases.
In 1989, Image Entertainment
released the film on laserdisc
, including some material cut from the original US version and lasting 138 minutes. This version was released in Europe as Once Upon a Time… The Revolution, again intended to evoke an earlier Leone film, Once Upon a Time in the West.
Subsequent re-releases have largely used the title A Fistful of Dynamite, although the DVD appearing in The Sergio Leone Anthology box set, released by MGM in 2007, used the original English language title of Duck, You Sucker!.
In 2003, following the restoration of Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
, MGM re-released the film in higher-resolution with an enhanced soundtrack for the complete 157-minute cut. The restored version had a brief art house theatrical run in the U.S. and was packaged in a two-disc DVD special edition, which was not made available in the U.S. market until 2007.
Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter most associated with the "Spaghetti Western" genre.Leone's film-making style includes juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots...
and starring Rod Steiger
Rod Steiger
Rodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...
and James Coburn
James Coburn
James Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,...
.
It is the second part of a trilogy of epic Leone films including the previous Once Upon a Time in the West
Once Upon a Time in the West
Once Upon a Time in the West is a 1968 Italian epic spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone for Paramount Pictures. It stars Henry Fonda cast against type as the villain, Charles Bronson as his nemesis, Jason Robards as a bandit, and Claudia Cardinale as a newly widowed homesteader with a...
and the subsequent Once Upon a Time in America
Once Upon a Time in America
Once Upon a Time in America is a 1984 Italian epic crime film co-written and directed by Sergio Leone and starring Robert De Niro and James Woods. The story chronicles the lives of Jewish ghetto youths who rise to prominence in New York City's world of organized crime...
, released thirteen years later. The last western film directed by Leone, it is considered by some to be one of his most overlooked films.
Plot
The setting is 1913 Mexico at the time of the RevolutionMexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...
. Juan Miranda (Rod Steiger
Rod Steiger
Rodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...
), a Mexican outlaw leading a bandit family, meets John (Sean) Mallory (James Coburn
James Coburn
James Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,...
), an early Irish Republican
Irish Republicanism
Irish republicanism is an ideology based on the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic.In 1801, under the Act of Union, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merged to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
explosives expert on the run from the British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
. Noting his skill with explosives, Juan relentlessly tries to make him join a raid on the Mesa Verde national bank. John in the meantime has made contact with the revolutionaries and intends to use his dynamite in their service. The bank is hit as part of an orchestrated revolutionary attack on the army organized by Doctor Villega (Romolo Valli
Romolo Valli
Romolo Valli was an Italian actor.Valli was born in Reggio Emilia. He was one of the best known Italian actors from the 1950s to his death. He worked both for the stage and the silver screen...
). Juan, interested only in the money, is shocked to find that the bank has no funds and instead is used by the army as a political prison. John, Juan and his family end up freeing hundreds of prisoners, causing Juan to become a "great, grand, glorious hero of the revolution".
The revolutionaries are chased into the hills by an army detachment led by Colonel Günther Reza (Antoine Saint-John
Antoine Saint-John
Antoine Saint-John is a French actor.Born in Avignon, France, he found work as a stage actor until the early '70s, when he began working on films. Most of his films are virtually unknown outside of Europe...
). John and Juan volunteer to stay behind with two machine guns and dynamite. Much of the army's detachment is destroyed while crossing a bridge which is machinegunned by them and blown to bits by John. Col. Reza who commands an armoured car, survives. After the battle, John and Juan find most of their comrades, including Juan's family and children, have been killed by the army in a cave. Engulfed with grief and rage, Juan goes out to fight the army singlehanded and is captured. John sneaks into camp where he witnesses executions of many of his fellow revolutionaries by firing squad. They had been informed on by Dr. Villega, who has been tortured by Col. Reza and his men. This evokes in John memories of a similar betrayal by Nolan (David Warbeck
David Warbeck
David Warbeck was a New Zealand actor best known for his film roles in Europe.-Career and move into Italian cinema:...
), his best friend, whom John kills for informing. Juan faces a firing squad of his own, but John arrives and blows up the squad and the wall with dynamite just in time. They escape on a motorcycle John is driving.
John and Juan hide in the animal coach of a train. It stops to pick up the tyrannical Governor Don Jaime (Franco Graziosi
Franco Graziosi
Franco Graziosi is a retired Italian actorEntering film in 1960 he has some 27 Italian film and TV appearances between then and 2004...
), who is fleeing (with a small fortune) from the revolutionary forces belonging to Pancho Villa
Pancho Villa
José Doroteo Arango Arámbula – better known by his pseudonym Francisco Villa or its hypocorism Pancho Villa – was one of the most prominent Mexican Revolutionary generals....
and Emiliano Zapata
Emiliano Zapata
Emiliano Zapata Salazar was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution, which broke out in 1910, and which was initially directed against the president Porfirio Díaz. He formed and commanded an important revolutionary force, the Liberation Army of the South, during the Mexican Revolution...
. As the train is ambushed, John, as a test of Juan's loyalty, lets him choose between shooting the Governor and accepting a bribe from him. Juan kills Jaime, and also steals the Governor's spoils. As the doors to the coach open, Juan is greeted by a large crowd and again unexpectedly hailed as a great hero of the revolution, the money taken away by revolutionary General Santerna (Rik Battaglia
Rik Battaglia
Rik Battaglia is a retired Italian film actor. He was born at Corbola, near Rovigo, Veneto....
).
On a train with commander
Commander
Commander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...
s of the revolution, John and Juan are joined by Dr. Villega, who has escaped. John alone knows of Villega's betrayal. They learn that Pancho Villa's forces will be delayed by 24 hours and that an army train carrying 1,000 soldiers and heavy weapons, led by Col. Reza, will be arriving in a few hours, which will surely overpower the rebel position. John suggests they rig a locomotive with dynamite and send it head on. He requires one other man, but instead of picking Juan, who volunteers, he chooses Dr. Villega. It becomes clear to Villega that he knows of the betrayal. John nonetheless pleads with him to jump off the locomotive before it hits the army's train, but Villega feels guilty and stays on board. John jumps in time and the two trains collide, killing Villega and a number of soldiers.
The revolutionaries' ambush is successful, but as John approaches to meet Juan, he is shot in the back by Col. Reza. An enraged Juan riddles the Colonel's body with a machine gun. As John lies dying, he continues to have memories of his best friend, Nolan, and a young woman both apparently loved. John recalls killing Nolan after being betrayed by him to the law. Juan kneels by his side to ask about Dr. Villega. John keeps the doctor's secret and tells Juan that he died a hero of the revolution. As Juan goes to seek help, John has a flashback to his time in Ireland with Nolan and a girl whom they both were in love with; knowing his end is near, sets off a second charge he secretly laid in case the battle went bad. The film ends with Juan staring at the burning remains, asking forlornly: "What about me?"
Cast
- Rod SteigerRod SteigerRodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...
as Juan Miranda, an amoral Mexican peonPeonThe words peon and peonage are derived from the Spanish peón . It has a range of meanings but its primary usage is to describe laborers with little control over their employment conditions.-English usage:...
leading a band of outlaws mostly composed of his own children. He does not care about the revolution at first, but he's deceived by John into joining it. - James CoburnJames CoburnJames Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,...
as John H. Mallory, an Irish Republican ArmyIrish Republican ArmyThe Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary military organisation. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916...
revolutionary and explosives expert. Wanted for killing British forces in occupied Ireland, he flees to Mexico where he ends up getting involved in another revolution. - Romolo ValliRomolo ValliRomolo Valli was an Italian actor.Valli was born in Reggio Emilia. He was one of the best known Italian actors from the 1950s to his death. He worked both for the stage and the silver screen...
as Dr. Villega, a physician and commander of the revolutionary movement of Mesa Verde. - Franco GraziosiFranco GraziosiFranco Graziosi is a retired Italian actorEntering film in 1960 he has some 27 Italian film and TV appearances between then and 2004...
as Governor Don Jaime, the corrupt and tyrannical local governor. - Antoine Saint-JohnAntoine Saint-JohnAntoine Saint-John is a French actor.Born in Avignon, France, he found work as a stage actor until the early '70s, when he began working on films. Most of his films are virtually unknown outside of Europe...
as Colonel Günther "Gutierez" Reza, a ruthless commander leading a detachment of FederalesMexican ArmyThe Mexican Army is the combined land and air branch and largest of the Mexican Military services; it also is known as the National Defense Army. It is famous for having been the first army to adopt and use an automatic rifle, , in 1899, and the first to issue automatic weapons as standard issue...
; he's the main villain of the film. - Rik BattagliaRik BattagliaRik Battaglia is a retired Italian film actor. He was born at Corbola, near Rovigo, Veneto....
as General Santerna, a commander leading the Mexican revolutionary army. - David WarbeckDavid WarbeckDavid Warbeck was a New Zealand actor best known for his film roles in Europe.-Career and move into Italian cinema:...
as Nolan, John's best friend, also an Irish nationalist; appears only in flashbacks.
Development
Once Upon a Time in the West
Once Upon a Time in the West is a 1968 Italian epic spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone for Paramount Pictures. It stars Henry Fonda cast against type as the villain, Charles Bronson as his nemesis, Jason Robards as a bandit, and Claudia Cardinale as a newly widowed homesteader with a...
was released, Leone had said he would not have made another western for some time, because he had grown tired of all the things associated with the genre, such as horses and firearms. In fact, when the project first began Leone didn't intend to direct the picture himself. Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich is an American film historian, director, writer, actor, producer, and critic. He was part of the wave of "New Hollywood" directors, which included William Friedkin, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino, and Francis Ford Coppola...
, his original choice for director, soon abandoned the film due to perceived lack of control. According to Leone, Sam Peckinpah
Sam Peckinpah
David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was an American filmmaker and screenwriter who achieved prominence following the release of the Western epic The Wild Bunch...
agreed to direct the film after Bogdanovich's departure, only to be turned down for financial reasons by United Artists. Leone's collaborators Donati and Vincenzoni, noting the director's frequent embellishment of the facts concerning his films, claim that Peckinpah did not even consider it - Donati claimed Peckinpah was "too shrewd to be produced by a fellow director". Leone then recruited his regular assistant director
Assistant director
The role of an Assistant director include tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, maintaining order on the set. They also have to take care of health and safety of the crew...
Giancarlo Santi to direct, with Leone supervising proceedings, and Santi was in charge for the first ten days of shooting. However, Coburn and Steiger refused to play their roles unless Leone himself directed, and the producers pressured him into directing the film. He agreed, and Santi was relegated to second unit
Second unit
In film, the second unit is a team that shoots subsidiary footage for a motion picture. Its work is distinct from that of the first unit, which shoots all scenes involving principal actors...
work.
The inspiration for the firing squad scene came from Francisco Goya
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker regarded both as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was a court painter to the Spanish Crown, and through his works was both a commentator on and chronicler of his era...
, and in particular from his set of prints The Disasters of War
The Disasters of War
The Disasters of War are a series of 8280 prints in the first published edition , for which the last two plates were not available. See "Execution". prints created between 1810 and 1820 by the Spanish painter and printmaker Francisco Goya...
. Leone showed the prints to director of photography Giuseppe Ruzzolini in order to get the lighting and colour effects he wanted. The film is believed to have been influenced by Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch is a 1969 American Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah about an aging outlaw gang on the Texas-Mexico border, trying to exist in the changing "modern" world of 1913...
, and it shares some plot elements with Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is a 1973 Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson. Co-star Bob Dylan composed multiple songs for the movie's score and the album Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid was released the same year.The film was noted for...
, a western also starring Coburn and released a year later.
Casting
The role of John Mallory was to be played by Jason RobardsJason Robards
Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
, but the studio wanted a bigger name for the lead, so James Coburn was recruited. Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
was also approached by Leone for the role, but he saw it as just a different take of the same character
Man with No Name
The man with no name is a stock character in Western films, but the term usually applies specifically to the character played by Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy."...
he had already played in the Dollars Trilogy
Dollars Trilogy
The "Dollars Trilogy" , also known as the "Man with No Name Trilogy", refers to the three Spaghetti Westerns starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Sergio Leone: A Fistful of Dollars , For a Few Dollars More , and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly .A Fistful of Dollars is an unofficial remake of...
, and he also wanted to part with the Italian film industry, so he declined the offer and starred in Hang 'Em High
Hang 'Em High
Hang 'Em High is a 1968 American Western film directed by Ted Post and produced and co-written by Leonard Freeman. It stars Clint Eastwood as Jed Cooper, an innocent man who survives a lynching, Inger Stevens as a widow who helps him, Ed Begley as the leader of the gang that lynched him, and Pat...
. George Lazenby
George Lazenby
George Robert Lazenby is an Australian actor and former model, best known for portraying James Bond in the 1969 film On Her Majesty's Secret Service.-Early life:...
was then approached to play the role, but he declined. The role of Juan Miranda was written for Eli Wallach
Eli Wallach
Eli Herschel Wallach is an American film, television and stage actor, who gained fame in the late 1950s. For his performance in Baby Doll he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe nomination. One of his most famous roles is that of Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...
, but Wallach had already committed to another project with Jean-Paul Belmondo
Jean-Paul Belmondo
Jean-Paul Belmondo is a French actor initially associated with the New Wave of the 1960s.-Career:Born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, west of Paris, Belmondo did not perform well in school, but developed a passion for boxing and football."Did you box professionally very long?" "Not very long...
. After Leone begged Wallach to play the part, he dropped out of the other project and told Leone he would do his film. However, the studio never wanted Wallach; they wanted an actor who had more international appeal, and they already had Rod Steiger
Rod Steiger
Rodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...
signed on by that point. Leone offered no compensation to Wallach, and Wallach subsequently sued. A young Malcom McDowell, then mostly known for the film if...., was considered for the part of Nolan.
Filming
Exterior filming mostly took place in AndalusiaAndalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. Some of the locations used previously featured in Leone's Dollar Trilogy films; for example, the Almería
Almería
Almería is a city in Andalusia, Spain, on the Mediterranean Sea. It is the capital of the province of the same name.-Toponym:Tradition says that the name Almería stems from the Arabic المرية Al-Mariyya: "The Mirror", comparing it to "The Mirror of the Sea"...
Railway Station, used for the train sequence in For a Few Dollars More
For a Few Dollars More
For a Few Dollars More is a 1965 Italian spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Gian Maria Volonté. German actor Klaus Kinski also plays a supporting role as a secondary villain...
, returns in this film as Mesa Verde's station. The flashback scenes with Sean and friends were shot at Howth Castle in Co. Dublin, and Toner's Pub on Baggot Street, Dublin.
At first, Leone was dissatisfied with Steiger's performance in that he played his character as a serious, Zapata
Emiliano Zapata
Emiliano Zapata Salazar was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution, which broke out in 1910, and which was initially directed against the president Porfirio Díaz. He formed and commanded an important revolutionary force, the Liberation Army of the South, during the Mexican Revolution...
-like figure, but once Leone explained his mistake they were both content with the result. As filming progressed, Leone modified the script: as he did not originally plan on directing Duck, You Sucker, he thought the script was "conceived for an American filmmaker". Duck, You Sucker! was one of the last mainstream films shot in Techniscope
Techniscope
Techniscope or 2-Perf is a 35mm motion picture camera film format introduced by Technicolor Italia in 1963. The Techniscope format uses a two film-perforation negative pulldown per frame, instead of the standard four-perforation frame usually exposed in 35mm film photography...
.
Themes
Despite the politically charged setting, Duck, You Sucker! was not intended as a political filmPolitical cinema
Political cinema in the narrow sense of the term is a cinema which portrays current or historical events or social conditions in a partisan way in order to inform or to agitate the spectator...
: Leone himself said that the Mexican Revolution in the film is meant only as a symbol, not as a representation of the real one, and that it was chosen because of its fame and its relationship with cinema, and he contends that the real theme of the film is friendship:
Another theme is amoral non-engagement: Juan is very loyal to his family (consisting of his six children, each from a different mother), but he cannot be trusted by anyone else. He is also very cynical about priests, and he doesn't care about codified law. This relates most closely to those aspects of Southern Italian life observed by Edward Banfield
Edward Banfield
Edward Banfield was the first railroad engineer who drove La Porteña during the first travel by rail in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1857. He was the first General Manager of the British-owned Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway between 1865 and 1872, founded in Argentina by Edward Lund in 1862...
and others.
The film also explores the relationship between Mexican bandits and peasant communities at the time of the revolution, idealised by figures like Juan José Herrera
Las Gorras Blancas
Las Gorras Blancas were a group active in the American Southwest in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Founded in April 1889 by brothers Juan Jose, Pablo, and Nicanor Herrera, with support from vecinos in the nearby communities of El Burro, El Salitre, Ojitos Frios, and San Geronimo...
and Elfego Baca
Elfego Baca
Elfego Baca was a gunman, lawman, lawyer, and politician in the closing days of the American wild west. Baca was born in Socorro, New Mexico just before the end of the American Civil War to Francisco and Juana Maria Baca. His family moved to Topeka, Kansas when he was a young child...
, which Leone may have had in mind in his creation of the character of Juan.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack of Duck, You Sucker! was composed by Ennio MorriconeEnnio Morricone
Ennio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI, , is an Italian composer and conductor, who wrote music to more than 500 motion pictures and television series, in a career lasting over 50 years. His scores have been included in over 20 award-winning films as well as several symphonic and choral pieces...
, who collaborated with Leone in all his previous projects. Elvis Mitchell
Elvis Mitchell
Elvis Mitchell is an American film critic, host of the public radio show The Treatment, and visiting lecturer at Harvard University. He has served as a film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the LA Weekly, The Detroit Free Press, and The New York Times...
, former film critic for the New York Times, considered it as one of Morricone's "most glorious and unforgettable scores". He also sees "Invention for John", which plays over the opening credits and is essentially the film's theme, "as epic and truly wondrous as anything Morricone ever did". A CD version was never released in the United States, though many tracks can be found in Morricone's compilation albums. Music was recorded in April 1971 and second recording sessions in August/September 1971. A 35th anniversary OST was issued in 2006 with previously never released recording session and alternate takes.
Performance
The film was moderately successful in Italy, where it grossed 2 billion lireItalian lira
The lira was the currency of Italy between 1861 and 2002. Between 1999 and 2002, the Italian lira was officially a “national subunit” of the euro...
on its first run.
Reception
Duck, You Sucker! failed to gain any substantial recognition from the critics at the time of debut, especially compared to Leone's other films, winning him only a David di Donatello for Best DirectorDavid di Donatello for Best Director
-1965:*Francesco Rosi - Il momento della verità *Vittorio De Sica - Matrimonio all'italiana -1966:*Alessandro Blasetti - Io, io, io...e gli altri...
. Of the 19 critical reviews of the film collected by the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, 16 were favourable (84% of the reviewers). The Chicago Reader praised it for its "marvellous sense of detail and spectacular effects". The New York Observer
New York Observer
The New York Observer is a weekly newspaper first published in New York City on September 22, 1987, by Arthur L. Carter, a very successful former investment banker with publishing interests. The Observer focuses on the city's culture, real estate, the media, politics and the entertainment and...
argues that Leone's direction, Morricone's score and the leads' performance "ignite an emotional explosion comparable to that of Once Upon a Time in the West
Once Upon a Time in the West
Once Upon a Time in the West is a 1968 Italian epic spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone for Paramount Pictures. It stars Henry Fonda cast against type as the villain, Charles Bronson as his nemesis, Jason Robards as a bandit, and Claudia Cardinale as a newly widowed homesteader with a...
". In Mexico, where the film is known as Los Héroes de Mesa Verde, it was refused classification
Motion picture rating system
A motion picture rating system is designated to classify films with regard to suitability for audiences in terms of issues such as sex, violence, substance abuse, profanity, impudence or other types of mature content...
and effectively banned until 1979 because it was considered offensive to the Mexican people and the Revolution.
Release history
The film was originally released in the United States in 1972 as Duck, You Sucker!, and ran for 121 minutes. Many scenes were cut because they were deemed too violent, profane or politically sensitive, including a quote from Mao ZedongMao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
about the nature of revolutions and class struggle. Theatrical prints were generally of poor quality, and the film was marketed as a light-hearted western, not at all as Leone intended it, and it did not succeed in gaining press notice. In part because of this, United Artists reissued the film under the new name of A Fistful of Dynamite, meant to recall the notoriety of A Fistful of Dollars
A Fistful of Dollars
A Fistful of Dollars is a 1964 Italian Spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood alongside Gian Maria Volonté, Marianne Koch, Wolfgang Lukschy, Sieghardt Rupp, José Calvo, Antonio Prieto, and Joseph Egger. Released in Italy in 1964 then in the United States in...
. According to Peter Bogdanovich, the original title Duck, You Sucker! was meant by Leone as a close translation of the Italian title Giù la testa, coglione! (translated: "Duck Your Head, Asshole!"), which he contended to be a common American colloquialism
Colloquialism
A colloquialism is a word or phrase that is common in everyday, unconstrained conversation rather than in formal speech, academic writing, or paralinguistics. Dictionaries often display colloquial words and phrases with the abbreviation colloq. as an identifier...
. (The expletive coglione (a vulgar way to say "testicle") was later removed to avoid censorship issues.) One of the working titles, Once Upon a Time… the Revolution, was also used for some European releases.
In 1989, Image Entertainment
Image Entertainment
Image Entertainment, Inc. is an independent licensee, producer and distributor of home entertainment programming and film & television productions in North America, with approximately 3,000 exclusive DVD titles and approximately 250 exclusive CD titles in domestic release, and approximately 450...
released the film on laserdisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
, including some material cut from the original US version and lasting 138 minutes. This version was released in Europe as Once Upon a Time… The Revolution, again intended to evoke an earlier Leone film, Once Upon a Time in the West.
Subsequent re-releases have largely used the title A Fistful of Dynamite, although the DVD appearing in The Sergio Leone Anthology box set, released by MGM in 2007, used the original English language title of Duck, You Sucker!.
In 2003, following the restoration of Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a 1966 Italian epic spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach in the title roles. The screenplay was written by Age & Scarpelli, Luciano Vincenzoni and Leone, based on a story by Vincenzoni and Leone...
, MGM re-released the film in higher-resolution with an enhanced soundtrack for the complete 157-minute cut. The restored version had a brief art house theatrical run in the U.S. and was packaged in a two-disc DVD special edition, which was not made available in the U.S. market until 2007.