El Puro / La taglia è tua … l’uomo l’ammazzo io (Edoardo Mulargia, 1969)

Here’s the screenshots from the South African DVD:







Nice widescreen print but terribly cut unfortunately. Probably the same cut as the French DVD.

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El Puro, la rançon est pour toi will be shown on television in France next week, Wednesday, November 16, OCS Géants. Indicated runtime: 86 minutes.

There are some very good weird moments and occasional excellent camera shots (as in another Mulargia’s piece Go With God, Gringo). The pace is really slow and the movie might feel protracted. It is simply not stylish enough to make the slow tempo justice. For that you need at least consistent inspired camerawork and great musical score. The limited budget did not allow that to happen. The music is derived from FoD, it’s simple, sounds ok, but there are only few tracks, which is not sufficient and many scenes feel empty for that reason. Robert Woods is really good as El Puro and the actors who played madmen were not half-bad either. Though I did not care much about the story which tried to be somewhat psychological and that was not exactly strength of Italian westerns. We all know alcohol is drug, do we not. I don’t need to watch a guy, who stares minutes at the bottle. There are better ways how to show alcohol addiction than that.

Wow!.. that scene really got you hot and bothered, heh! --Anyways, viva El Puro!

Nah, not bothered, just bored, it’s too slow. Now I want to watch that Family guy scene. :joy:

Interviewed ten years ago by Peter J. Hanley for his book Behind-the-scenes of Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, a true labor of love, Fabrizio Gianni was less definite about his contribution to the creation of the so-called “Man with No Name” character. He said he first met Sergio Leone in Munich while being involved in Camillo Mastrocinque’s comedy Volles Herz und leere Taschen (Full Hearts and Empty Pockets, Italian title: … e la donna creò l’uomo), a German-Italian coproduction, starring Thomas Fritsch, Senta Berger and Alexandra Stewart, shot in Rome and at the Bavaria Film studios in Geiselgasteig (near Munich) in 1963. Gianni (p. 145):

“During the lunch, I told [Sergio Leone] about an idea of mine, about a cowboy who always has a cigar in his mouth. I don’t assume paternity of this character, but I certainly told him about this story. I don’t know if he got the idea from me or if he got it from someone else.”

Unfortunately – yet understandably, given the focus of his book – Hanley didn’t ask Gianni about his involvement in La taglia è tua … l’uomo l’ammazzo io. By the way, Gianni can be seen in Behind-the-scenes of Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly on page 138 in a photograph showing the film crew’s football team.

@Toscano, when you got Gianni’s autograph, did you talk to him?

Does anyone know where I can get the English dubbed El Puro DVD R? I was about to buy it last week from cultaction (where I’ve bought several of the more obscure spags from in the past) and the site wouldn’t open claiming it was ‘under construction’, and for some weird reason it still is almost two weeks later. I’m not sure what’s going on there. Anyway I’ve looked all over the net but can’t find any sign of the DVD and any help in the right direction would be appreciated.

Check out Stanton’s post June 16 2016 on this thread.

That’s a great story - thanks for sharing!

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Can I download it onto a DVDR or just onto a computer? Sorry for the stupid question, I’m useless with technology.

You can download it on your PC, and then you can also burn it on a DVD-R. If you can’t watch it directly from a hard drive.

Much obliged Stanton. I’m off to Asda to get some discs as soon as I finish work

As far as I remember I also had to unzip it after downloading.

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[quote=“Bill_Willer, post:352, topic:795”]
I was about to buy it last week from cultaction [/quote]

Cult Action seems to be back up and running.

I’m tempted to buy their ‘Requiem for a Gringo’ disc to accommodate me until RetroVision bring out their blu-ray.

I managed to download El Puro thanks to Stanton and Morgan but I’m glad it’s back because there’s still a few others I’m after.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a copy of ‘El Puro’, but was I fortunate enough to see it on ‘Youtube’ a year, or so, ago.

The whistled theme, by the late, great, Alessandro Alessandroni, will haunt you for days…

There’s an English language version on you tube available which also includes a handful of Italian language scenes (presumably cut scenes). EL PURO - YouTube

The picture quality varies throughout but if anyone’s not seen it, it’s well worth seeing.

That’s the exact version from the Cult Action DVD. I’m glad it’s been put up on YouTube.

After all that bleeding searching I did it ends up on Youtube. Sod’s law :grin:

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But the picture quality looks poorer than on my Tijuana disc.