A Bullet for the General / ¿Quién sabe? (Damiano Damiani, 1966)

Yes, fair point, but the grotto scene you mention is a good example. The different versions of Leone’s films are well-documented, but ultimately it should come down to which version(s) Leone was personally involved in and sanctioned. We all know longer/extended does not necessarily mean better (Harmonica’s rising in OUATITW is a perfect example of this) nor does it necessarily mean desired by the director.

However, what I’m complaining about is when someone completely unrelated to the production, often in a foreign country, just randomly chops chunks out of the film to fit more showings in per day. I’m pretty sure Sollima had no say whatsoever in what happened to The Big Gundown and Face to Face in the United States for example; I doubt Damiani had any say with “A Bullet for the General” either.

As bad as it is, to be fair: that was (and is to some extent) how the business works/ed unfortunately

Of course.

In Germany there was a law that it is not a real SW if not at least a min is cut out. Better 10 min and more.

But German release companies were anyway so much more creative that their counterparts from other countries. Original dialogue? What for? We have better ideas …

:grin:

Actually I was just thinking about the “sad ending” to Minnesota Clay which is in many ways preferable to the the longer “happy ending” (although it misses that great final close-up of his glasses). Is the consensus that the “sad ending” was not the original one?

I don’t know, but the happy ending looks like it was a “producer’s idea” after he checked his bank account.

And it feels as wrong as the alternative ending from The Great Silence.

True, but the “happy” ending to The Great Silence doesn’t look like it had much effort put into it. I’d say the same about “happy” ending to Minnesota Clay except for that iconic shot of the glasses which shows at least some effort on Corbucci’s part. Maybe Corbucci wasn’t quite as cynical at this point so was more amenable to this “producer’s idea” as you say.

When I get a chance, I’ll take a look through some of my Corbucci interviews to see if he ever spoke about it.

Finally sat through this, and wasn’t incredibly impressed with the first half, ( the party/ singing scenes really aren’t my cup of tea, and the robbery scenes as well as the scene where they confront a crucified army officer looked average, but I thought the film picked up just after Don Felipe’s death. The scene in his house is rather long, and slowed the film down for me, and the scene that takes place in an automobile, isn’t much better.
Lou Castel plays a character motivated by greed and greed alone, and that makes for an excellent spaghetti character, plus I liked the outfits he wore.Kinski is a lunatic, and looks strange with long hair. The score isn’t bad but not as memorable for me. If it weren’t for the scene in the hotel, as well as final scene at the train station, I would have given the film a C- maybe C+, bad thought of it as an average leftist revolutionary film, directed well, but not as dynamic as Tepepa, nor as gritty as the mercenary. since the ending is quite strong, I’d bump it to a B-.

Martine Beswick, coolest revolutionary soldadera ever, turns seventy-seven today. Viva Adelita!

Birthday serenade by Amparo Ochoa, “La Adelita.”

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Saturday Evening I watched a few Spaghetti’s. Had some fun with Sartana and shivering with Se sei vivo Spara. Then I turned to Quien Sabe which I watched for half an hour untill the misses came home.
As I had seen this one before I knew what to expect and out of curiousity I re-read the thread to get to know your opinions of this movie. I have my own additional toughts.

First thing that I noticed at the credits was that the score was supervised by Ennio morricone. I had never noticed that before and this aspect was not mentioned in the thread. I knew of collaboration with Bruno Nicolai but had never heard of Morricone supervising Bacalov. On the internet I found some arguments that the producer wanted the name of Morricone because of his fame and therewith had this placed. Morricone would have been approached for the supervising job but rejected. He only heard the music in the finished movie.
And why supervision of the man who gave us the music of Django allready.
I think this is one of the best scores of Bacalov.
The only possible reference to Morricone are the drums of Chunco as sort of personal theme, something Morricone also did with movie characters (like the Jew’s harp used for Colonel Mortimer). In later movies characters even got there own theme.

As I look to this movie I think it deals with the changes wanted by revolution and how they work out - Quien Sabe - Who knows?
At the beginning of this movie Chuncho is a bandit who adores his general and wants to help him getting arms. Nino is just an assasin who tries to get close to the General and uses the gang of Chunco.
At the mercenary Paco is teached by the Polak the hard way to uderstand what the revoltion is about, experiencing poverty (as the Polak claims the captured money) and hunger / thirst (again, the Polak takes their water to shower). I think he does dat deliberately, as this is more education than learning how to fight.
Nino does not do such a thing. he is just there, despising Mexicans as is shown when he buys his train ticket. The contrast stays when they are traveling together. Chunco is allways sweaty with a beard on it’s way while Nino is clean in a suit. Also we never see Nino scheduling actions for the gang like the Polak did. All Nino wants to do is getting the General killed, that is shown when the gang heads for San Miguel while Nino do not wants to go there,
But through the behavior of Nino, Chunco learns his values and makes the transition to a “real revolutionary”.And where that will leed - Quien Sabe?

The only thing that bothers me is why Nino did not take a rifle along and had to steal one. He had the bullet with him. How sure would he be to get his hands on a solid sniper rifle…

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Watched this tonight, and when opening this thread, got the following question:

Are you sure you want to continue this old conversation?

Well, actually yes, don’t think I’ve posted on this thread before. Watching the uncut Italian with English subs, certainly consolidated it as top twenty for me. Now, I look forward to read this (looong) thread, which I haven’t read all of before either.

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Did you enjoy the endless discussion about whether or not it’s a western?

You caught me there. My opinion: When the gringo stays in Mexico, it’s a spaghetti western. When the gringo go back north, it’s an American western.

As a Brit if it’s set in the USA, Mexico or both its a western. DEATH HUNT with Charles Bronson is set in Canada but I see that as a contemporary Western.
But without meaning to to sound pretentious but I have heard Cox and others talk about Damiani’s leftist politics in his films like HOW TO KILL A JUDGE. But does anyone actually get his underlying messages? I don’t. JUDGE is an okay poliziotteschi and BULLET FOR THE GENERAL is an great entertaining SW to me anyway.

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What about Fago’s “O’ Cangaceiro” (with its bizarre apostrophe after the “o”, perhaps to differentiate it from the Lima Barreto film)? I’d class it as a spaghetti western (Milian stars after all), but many here wouldn’t because of the Brazilian setting.

That’s a new one to me. Regarding the Brazilian setting, I suppose it is a south western. Brazil has Guapos they are cowboys.

Gauchos. They’re only guapos if they’re good looking enough :slight_smile:

Cangaceiros were bandits in the northeast of Brazil.

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Sorry about the spelling, my mistake, I didn’t realise there was criteria for being a Brazilian cowboy(?). :confused: And thanks for telling me I love picking up trivia.

A nordestern to be exact…

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Published my revamped review of it

https://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/A_Bullet_For_The_General_BluRay_review

This movie’s page in the SWDb has been upgraded to the new “SWDb 3.0” format. Please have a look and let us know if there’s something you can add (information, trivia, links, pictures, etc.)

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