This stuff is gold … thanks once again, Montero.
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Absolutely! I second that…
Well done, Montero…please keep it coming… 
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An article by Sergio Leone plus an interview with Vivienne Chandler and a couple of reviews from the UK. By and large the reviews were more positive than for ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’. It opened in London on 15th September 1972.
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The article from the Rochester Chronicle echoes one of my mysteries about this film, shot in the Summer of 1970 but not released until October 1971. Why did it take so long to come out? Leone’s films were usually Christmas movies. When it was filmed They Call Me Trinity had not been released. Neither had Companeros. It then came out competing against Trinity Is Still My Name and presumably suffered at the box-office as a result. Duck You Sucker is a lot more serious than Companeros and if it had been released in Christmas 1970 might have wiped the box-office floor.
A few observations:
The whole Juan/John thing is taken from Viva Maria (the original Zapata movie) when you have Maria and Marie which becomes Maria and Maria. When Juan asks Sean his name, he says ‘Sean’ and then when Juan expresses confusion my take on this was that Sean says ‘John’ to placate Juan and tell him what his name is in English. So Juan and Sean become Johnny and Johnny like Maria and Marie become Maria and Maria.
The scene in which the bank robbery occurs is very similar to the bank robbery scene in The Mercenary (same writer) in which Kowalski sits at a cafe across the road from the bank and crosses off actions on a piece of paper. Kowalski even drinks out of an egg - which Guttiriez does later in Duck You Sucker.
I thought Maria Monti was dressed up to look like Barbara Rush in Hombre. This has a similar scene in a stagecoach in which the bourgeois passengers are disgusted by the ‘hero’. I think Rush even uses the words ‘I can’t imagine’.
Also, the scene in which Coburn holds open his coat to reveal dynamite was taken from Sabata.
Despite the numerous borrowings and crude humour, the film is a masterpiece. It works on so many different levels; as a literally dynamite action film, a critique of the Hollywood Mexican revolution genre, a critique of the Zapata revolution sub genre; a WW2 allegory and an allegory on social revolution in contemporary Europe.