Duck, You Sucker! / Giù la testa (Sergio Leone, 1971)

Yeah, From Noon Till Three is one of my favourite American westerns, hard to fault it

I got an impression of how it would have been from watching ‘Viva la muerte… tua!’

I don’t think I agree with that. Its failure to find much of an international audience undoubtedly stemmed from it often being egregiously cut and its awful release names - the English ones of “Duck, You Sucker!” and “A Fistful of Dynamite” being prime examples. In France, where it actually received a great title “Il était une fois la révolution” and contained everything except the extended final flashback (which unless I’m mistaken Leone cut after the Rome premiere anyway - much like the grotto scene in GBU), it fared much better.

Once Upon A Time There Was A Revolution wasn’t weak at all. And the casting was great.

The enigmatic touch of the names; ‘Juan’ and ‘Sean’… represent the average ‘John’s’: the nameless men who are swept-up in revolutions they have no control over.

Looking back, ‘Sucker’ worked in the script. It elevated the ‘peasant’ or ‘peon’ connotations that Juan was used to… Being called a ‘sucker’ in the moment before the explosion made him an equal with the men and forces around him.

I’ve always considered this to be Once Upon a Time…The Revolution, not DYS or AFOD. To me this, West and America are a trilogy as much as the dollars films, maybe even more so.

1 Like

I can definitely see the logic in this.

I know it might sound a bit silly because they all feature different characters and settings, and they can never be released as a box set because they’re all owned by different studios but they do have a lot of similarities. SPOILERS They all feature an alliance/friendship between two men that begins after the film has started, one of whom dies (or in America’s case ‘dies’) before the ending, they all feature thwarted attempts at living the American dream, they all feature a key death scene that takes place off screen, and they all make siginificant use of flashbacks. There isn’t an overarching story but they’re definitely linked thematically.

1 Like

Whether he originally intended them to be a trilogy or not, just like the “Dollars” trilogy, by the time he started to make the third one he had come to view them as a trilogy. There’s a French interview with him regarding the French dubbing of DYS where he mentions that he is going to make his third part of the trilogy called OUATIA.

I remember watching that brief interview with him (I think) on the OUATIW DVD, where he said they wanted him to make another western before he made OUATIA, and he said he then thought of starting a new trilogy. It’s hard to tell whether he meant before or after making West, but I think given the thematic similarities between the first two films I’d guess he had the idea when he was making DYS at the latest.

It’s this one - you need to understand French however:

Bonjour and Ca va are about as far as my French goes :grin: Still interesting to watch though.

He sort of did. Twice. Only their names are Cacopoulos and Max Lozoya.

Interesting - where did you read that?

Even more interesting - how can we see that?

1 Like

I thought Pezzotta was right, but later I found this Adnkronos report from August 1996 according to which the Telepiù version, aired on 7 September, included only the conclusive flashback.

I remember reading that for the first time in a Corriere della Sera article, several years ago.

According to Ennio Morricone that man was his brother-in-law! (see below)

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:e3MKNg5hyw8J:www.ilgiornale.it/news/spettacoli/sergio-leone-voleva-togliermi-finale-pugno-dollari-1278157.html+&cd=21&hl=it&ct=clnk&gl=it&client=firefox-b-ab

1 Like

Thanks JC! I’m now going to post the comment about DYS over at the Sergio Leone Web Board to see what response it gets.

The verdict:

Comparisons at the bottom of the review
http://10kbullets.com/reviews/a/a-fistful-of-dynamite-aka-duck-you-sucker-kino-lorber-bluray/

Thanks for the link … no obvious differences then in print quality.

Oh but you get… reversible cover art.

1 Like

Plus Alex Cox, no doubt rambling on incoherently and trying to shoehorn in references to his own dismal ‘Straight to Hell’, as he did on the commentary for ‘Shalako’

PS: How do I get this guy’s job !!! :wink:

1 Like

Be exceedingly opinionated and contradictory, and remember to drone on about how “silly” things are, and how much better you would’ve done them. Bonus points if you make lots of factual errors :+1:

1 Like