I agree with some of your points there, the middle felt very episodic but by the end it was great 
Although it is largely forgotten in mainstream circles it still remains one of the essential SW’s ever made!
“nuff said”
Van James
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I finally had a chance to watch the remastered edition tonight and this film was even better than I remembered, and that’s saying a lot for a film I hold in such high regard.
I wouldn’t consider it’s slightly episodic nature to be a negative as that is the nature of all manhunt, chase, revenge or quest films; and that’s a large percentage of SWs. After all THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY could also be called episodic and GBU is one of the finest movies ever made.
Also this movie proves how important good actors are to a film, and Milan very very good. Imagine this film with Gilbert Roland and George Hilton - yes it would still be good, but it wouldn’t be great.
Another thing this film has that lesser spaghetti’s lack is character developement. By the end Cleef has changed, he has learned something about himself and become a better man for having know Milan. And the audience perception of Milan has changed, thus casting a new light on things he did early in the movie (for example: when he was playing with the 13 year old girl he was just playing with the little girl, it’s the preacher who was the villan as he had four wives and one of them was the 13 year old).
My thought for the day: if you have not seen the full length restored LA RESA DI CONTI you owe it to yourself to do so. Throw away the crappy public domain DVDs. Retire your video tape of the edited television version.
I wouldn't consider it's slightly episodic nature to be a negative as that is the nature of all manhunt, chase, revenge or quest films; and that's a large percentage of SWs. After all THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY could also be called episodic and GBU is one of the finest movies ever made.
Many spaghettis have episodic stories, it’s nothing unusual at all, and often very fitting!
Are you talking about the Franco Cleef reconstruction or the Koch Media version? I have Franco’s version and was wondering how it compares to Koch release.
I think he talks about the Franco Cleef edition. Probably there is no Koch version on US TV!?
In the US about 15 were cut from THE BIG GUNDOWN to make it shorter for theatrical release.
Also in the US people have to sit through commercial interuptions every ten to fifteen minutes when watching a movie. Can you imagine what that’s like? So the US TV version of THE BIG GUNDOWN has had another 10 or so minutes cut out of it so that it’s only 80 minutes long.
When a movie is scheduled to run for two hours on US television (say 9 PM to 11 PM) the movie has to be about 80 minutes long so it can be stopped often enough to show 40 minutes worth of advertisements!
There’s a lot on the Koch DVD that someone who has only seen the movie on US TV has never seen before.
I also own the franco cleef version its 106 minutes,how long is the koch version?
It’s around 106 mins!
I saw this film last night in a theater in NYC, with Death Rides a Horse. This is a great film. It has to be one of LvC’s best SWs and he has some nice costumes. Tomas Milian was great was Cuchillo. I had seen Run Man Run first and really liked the way he plays the character. Sollima is a great director, too bad he only did the three SWs. I liked that it had the social and political overtones, but it didn’t take away from the action. This has to be one of the best SWs, although my girlfriend likes Run Man Run better.
Great movie. Lee Van Cleef is great in this one and Tomas Milian is too. The funniest part is when Lee Van Cleef tells the Mormon guy that he’s relieved about his daughter being safe. Hahahaha. I think the ending was guilty of tying up too many loose ends. As Sollima said on the Run Man Run DVD, he prefers not the finish the whole story when the movie ends. I prefer this one to Run Man Run, which is really good.
My faviourite non-Leone spaghetti, I love this movie:)
Koch Media is releasing their DVD sometime this year.
Hopefully it will contain English subtitles
I have yet to see this movie :-/
just rewatched it. what a great score! I prefer the English opening song to the Italian version, but it’s definitely mindblowing
I don’t like the singing.
Would be much better in an instrumental version.
I think I dislike every song which were used in SWs in the credit sequences.
really? I think that’s part of the whole spaghetti western thing, the james bond like opening credit sequences. they are in the spirit of their time. i love it
Same here ;D
Yes they’re wonderful, but didn’t Stanton mean he just doesn’t like the vocal singing in spaghetti main-themes ???
Not that he doesn’t like the credits or the music ???
I love the singing themes. Johnny Yuma, Stranger (Any Gun Can Play), even A Gringo Like Me (Duello Nel Texas).
They are kitsch but I love them.