Yeah I agree with this explanation. Ripping off her clothes would be like using a lantern to draw out the flies.
Very, very funny:
… and so true …
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I remember reading about the end credits thing, is all that fixed anywhere?
Maybe the funniest usage of that clip I’ve seen so far 
Yes, I liked especially that GBU pan&scan part and the OUTA pissed by on by a cow VHS. Probably the same cow which pissed on the recent GBU Blu …
But this scene wasn’t in any of the theatrical releases, not even in the US release print. It was put in later in one of the shorter US versions, because there the scene in the desert saloon was cut. And without that scene, which explains that he was wounded (and remember, ghosts don’t bleed 
), one can indeed think he was a ghost, cause the first scene was so directed that one must think that all were dead.
This scene wasn’t in the script, but I assume that Leone shot it because he was uncertain if he really could make such a daring exposition without irritating the audience too much.
But it wasn’t originally intended to be there, and only thanks to the sloppy recreation of the theatrical version by Paramount we now have to deal with it.
It also adds a little big of ambiguity to Bronson’s role in that while he most likely was simply wounded and survived (as the saloon sequence shows), it does hint at the idea that he was perhaps mortally wounded but did not die because he needed to seek avengeance. It is similar to the character of Noodles in Once Upon a Time in America who most likely did not dream all the events in the film, but the end scene still introduces that possibility in our minds.
They seemed to have experimeted quite with the plot, the characters, scenes that were or were not inserted, etc. There’s for instance also a scene (that was never part of any version as far as I know, but was nevertheless filmed at a certain moment) of Harmonica being beaten up by the sheriff and his men, because they hold him responsible for the massacre at the McBain farm:
“When Jill tries to leave Sweetwater in the morning after Cheyenne’s visit, she runs into Harmonica. He has a very nasty, coarsely stitched injury in his cheek that is not accounted for, and for which there was no time to be received, stitched, and the stitches removed again. (Special Edition DVD has a deleted scene in which Harmonica is beaten up, which explains the injury, but it is a continuity mistake within the regular movie.)”
Source:
I’d love to see that scene as well as the socorro sequence in GBU. I’m glad they’re not in the films as they’d probably ruin the pacing a bit, but they’d be interesting to see regardless. Is there any hope or are the negatives long gone?
This deleted scene isn’t on any DVD. Photos exist which prove that it was filmed, but so far nobody has seen it. Don’t know if it exists in some vault.
I don’t think there was much experimentation. The screenplay was simply much too long, and Leone began to shorten it on the set together with Donati.
This particular scene was one of those which were already filmed (but luckily cut out), while other scripted scenes were never shot. It is incredible that Leone wanted all these not really necessary scenes to be aprt of teh film.
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Back in 1970 when OUTW was released in Norway, we watched it time and again at the cinema. Every night the same happened: At the end, when Harmonica rode out, on with the lights, people starting to leave the cinema and the film came to a halt (may be the guy in the machine room couldn’t get home to his missus soon enough). But one night it didn’t (may be the guy was in the loo), and the film went on till the end. So you actually saw Harmonica riding out with a dead Cheyenne over the horseback. So rumors started that Harmonica killed Cheyenne at the end of the film, probably for the bounty. Outrageous! At least the long version cleared up that misunderstanding …
Ha, ha interesting story.
Long version means in Norway a cut version was released , a version which skips Cheyene’s death scene?
Yes, along with the desert cantina scene.
And you got the Rising scene instead?
I assume that more scenes were cut than only these 2, similar to the UK version or the later US version.
Was it a success in that cut version?
No, this scene was not in the Norwegian 1970 release either. I have tried to find out the running length of this version, so far without success. But the film was a success, although some of the fans of the dollar films thought it to arty. It was the first film I saw more than ten times in the cinemas (and so far the only one). GBU was not shown in Norway. You had to go to Goteborg to see that one.
So no “rising” scene showing Harmonica getting up and no cantina scene showing him with the bullet wound… basically in Norway at least, Harmonica was a fully-fledged ghost.
We didn’t see him as a ghost. We just assumed he had survived the shoot-out with Frank’s men. Norwegians are not as superstitious as Americans. 
In the UK version according to Frayling 2 more scenes were cut:
-
Desert Cantina scene (14 min)
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Frank and Morton talking at Frank’s hideout in the hills, the one in which Frank kicks away Morton’s crutches (2 min)
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When Frank discovers his dead men after Cheyenne’s escape), the part where he walks inside the train is missing (75 sec)
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Cheyenne’s death (4 min)
The UK version had a 144 min runtime, and it is puzzling why they left the long riding away ending intact, when most of the cuts only were made to make the film shorter.
In the US version (also 144 min), which was firstly cut a few weeks after it was released uncut, instead of # 3 the scene was missing in which Jill at her first night on the McBain ranch hears Harmonica playing outside and shoots with a shotgun into the dark (1 min). And a short scene from the end was cut, cause it shows Harmonica with the dead Cheyenne. Also the first scene was trimmed by 70 sec, the very same 70 sec which are still missing on all home video versions released by Paramount.
A year later a version appeared, which now contained the Rising scene as explanation for Harminica’s survival and ended earlier with a freeze frame, instead of Harmonica riding away with Cheyenne’s body in the distant.
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Did they cut this scene and keep Cheyenne’s death scene?