As I was reaching this classic, I noticed something odd in the lower left corner of the picture when Sergei leaves Roman’s hideout early in the film. He looks to be wearing a blue jacket and is clearly not one of Paco’s apostles. He must obviously be a crewman, walking in the frame, completely chill.
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I can’t make out what we’re looking at in this pic … what is the precise time in the film? Thank you 
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Sorry for the late reply. It is what I think is a crew member in the lower left corner of the frame. While I cannot check the time stamp right now, it happens when Sergei is leaving Paco´s hideout early in the morning (after “I don´t want anybody to feel sorry for me” and before Kowalski gets ambushed by Curly). I don´t know how easy it would be able to see on a non-HD picture.
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Watched it last week end it an amazing western with Franco Nero, Jack Palance and Tony Musante
Enjoyed it a lot
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There are two very similar scenes in this one and in Django (1966). Eduardo Fajardo and his gang are waiting in ambush in both films.
In Django they shoot down General Hugo and the other Mexicans. In The Mercenary however when they are about to shoot Paco, Kowalski intervenes and shoots Fajardo and his men. A bit like Nero shoots Fajardo on the graveyard at the end of Django.
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A Professional Gun is the films English title, right?
In America it was called The Mercenary?
I read somewhere that it was a success in America at the box office when it was released there in 1970.
But there was some American guy on this forum, who was around at the time, he saw Leone’s films in the theater. But he had never even heard of any of Corbuccis films in America around 1970.
Was The Mercenary a success in the US or was it just some obscure film who ran a short time?
For some reason the remaining (digital) evidence that we have points to mostly The Mercenary, but we have one poster with the other title, but you can’t discern whether that’s de-facto a UK poster
There are also lobby cards, I started adding some: Mercenario, Il/Pictures - The Spaghetti Western Database
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It’s quite possible that a film of this period gets re-released under an alternate title, when it hasn’t done well first time around.
There seemed to be quite a few double features, with the ‘Spag’ on the lower part of the bill, at this time … often with really unsuitable main features.
Stupid too from a cineaste point of view, as the first film is in Scope, the 2nd movie standard 1.85 ratio.
I’ve seen this on DB posters for ‘The McKenzie Break’ / ‘Sabata’
‘Hitler - My Part in his Downfall’, and ‘Adios Sabata’
… plus this one, better known to us as, ‘It Can be done … Amigo!’
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Is Arch Stanton this films biggest fan? 
I like the His Masters Voice billboard you can spot during the duel in the arena. 
no, of course, I think Sombrero’s point (and then mine) or rather, question, was, which of the film’s titles was primarily a UK title and which one a US title
Oh … that’s easy, ‘A Professional Gun’ UK title - ‘The Mercenary’ USA
A Professional Gun is also the name given to UK releases of the Morricone soundtrack, plus Big Box VHS release.
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Maybe …
But in that extract the “no no no” does not come from Rasputin, but from the Monk (the Monaco).
Corto would have liked Il mercenario, of course, he’s a brother in mind, only that Kowalski is a real cynic, not like Corto, who is only such on the surface to shelter behind.
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Extremely well executed big budget dumb episodic action SW with almost unrecognizible Nero who is fun to watch as a high IQ spoiled mercenary, Musante as a low IQ paesant turned ruthless bandit and weird Palance who is there just so he can be killed in a duel near the end. He even gets a plot armour for that reason.
It doesn’t have any real story. They just ride and from a village to a village and because it has really nothing to say either and there is no likeable character it is quite emotionless SW. This is all about action action action and the action is big.
After years I even forgot the movie continued after the duel for another 10 minutes. It is a bit redundant and it just shows they did not know how to conclude the relationships between the main characters on a high note.
One alternate title that I have never seen on a poster, video release, billing or what so ever is The Great Silence as “The Big Silence”, which is the title of choice for Alex Cox whenever he speaks about the movie.
It could just be a force of habit since Big is the more common translation of Grande. I’ve never seen any physical UK release/marketing material use ‘The Big Silence’.
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It was billed in the '90s on BBC2 as ‘The Big Silence’ - which sounds better in English anyway. I’m pretty sure it was also the title on the prints. The screening in 1990 was the UK TV premiere.
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/65ccbfc3b15396cda48a924b70cd0aeb
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/c6464461952f32dedfa30d6b550ec9d7
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