This is a film I have always liked even though it didn’t do as well at the box office as Sergio Leoni’s other big westerns. I’ve always been interested in this movie due to the amount of stories behind it as well as the different versions that were released.
Released in 1971, the intended version released by Leone was 34 minutes longer than the US version. More cuts were made in the US in order to give it a PG rating. As well as the different versions, there was often confusion about its title. The directors intended title was Duck you sucker which was his English interpretation of the Italian original title, Giu’ la testa. In the French territory’s it was known as once up a time the revolution to link with current political trends at the time as well as to coincide with the huge success of Once upon a time in the west. The US and UK decided to opt for an association with the dollars films and redubbed the film, A fistful of dynamite.
When it was released in America, it was done so briefly with its original title, Duck you sucker, before being withdrawn and re-released as a fistful of dynamite which it remained so until the release of the restored special edition DVD which I’ll come to later. The US version was cut further with the removal of all political content. First to be cut was the opening quote by Mao Tse Tung followed by Rod Steiger’s character urinating on an ants nest. Many scenes were shot but never included in any released version of Duck you sucker, stills from the MGM achieves offer a glimpse into these scenes, first, the dynamiting of the church, (now back in the fully restored DVD). However, this restored scene was preceded by another scene, Juan, angry at the blowing up of his caravan, marches Mallory across the desert, very much like Tuco does with Clint Eastwood in the good the bad and ugly. When a dehydrated Mallory comes to a small spring, before he can get a drink from it, one of Juan’s Sons urinates in it. This missing scene explains the discontinuity at the start of the church scene where Mallory appears tired, dazed and confused but with the preceding scene still missing, the film still has no explanation of his condition in the blowing up of the church scene.
The script called for a different order of scenes after the blowing up of the bridge. In the original script, after the bridge is blown, Dr Villega goes to a rebel safe house to look after a sick man, there he is captured by the Mexican commander Guiterez. There follows a stylised torture scene, the film’s most famous missing scene, still never restored into any version released, but I’ve included some images taken from the MGM achieves. Villega resists giving any information but eventually caves into the demands as the torture becomes too much. Back at the safe house, John & Juan learn that the Dr has been captured, Juan hurry’s to warn the rest of the rebels while John tracks Villega to town and sees him at the execution of their former confederates, then John returns to the cave to discover what Juan already knows, that Villegas confession resulted in a second massacre, all of Juan’s family.
In the US release, other cuts were made to speed up slower sections of the film, moments of violence and profanity. In the Irish pub, John shoots once but kills both policemen, in the theatrical release, two shots are fired as they are in my print. The rape of the woman from the caravan is cut completely, around four minutes worth. Another short cut is a provocative dialogue spoken by Vallega played by Romolo Valli. Other snippets were done to pick up the pace, the scene of the massacre in the cave is cut by three minutes. The most disturbing scene, (fully restored in the DVD) is the spectacle of a mass killing by the army at a train station. The US version is cut by half, over 30 seconds, the American version defiantly avoids political violence wherever possible.
There is also a confusion of names of James Coburns character. The posters of the day insist the name is Sean Mallory, not John. As heard in the words of “Sean Sean Sean” in Ennio Morricone’s score throughout the movie, in the film he is repeatedly identified as John Mallory. Sean can be used as an anglicized version of John. Even in the Irish newspaper in the movie he is referred to as John Mallory. In the film, aside the music lyrics, the only time you hear the name Sean is just before John’s first flashback of Ireland when he is caught off guard when Juan asks him his name. Coburn answers “Sean”, then corrects himself and says, “John”. Johns daydreaming suggests that Sean was his friend back in Ireland played by David Warbeck, in the script though this character is only referred to as Nolan.
The point of the flashbacks are to show that John is filled with nostalgia and guilt, they share the kind of spiritual transference that in Leonie movies only happens at the point of dying. The repeated name Sean in Morricone’s music score expresses John’s melancholy and disillusion, if James Coburns name is Sean it is only in spiritual sense.
The long three and half minute final flashback restored to the DVD is Leonie’s, original cut. Many countries cut it out all together, the American and UK cut was trimmed to just 30 seconds as in my print. Before Mallory kisses the girl, it cuts back to the gunfight, (similar to that in Once upon a time in the west). The flashbacks in Sergio Leonie’s earlier films filled in back stories for the characters, but each also revealed an ironic narrative twist. The restored flashbacks in this film reveals a new twist. In the cut versions the audience think he’s reminiscing of a happier time before the betrayals. In the full restored version with the full length flashback we see a new twist. It shows the audience a three way love triangle, a mutual girlfriend. We now see John kiss the girl but then the mood of Morricone’s music completely changes as the girl stops kissing John and starts kissing Sean, the music changes to the more sober theme heard in the death scene in the pub. The flashback is no longer John’s solitary happy memory, John was kissing the girl with enthusiasm, now she is happy to be kissing Sean. The cut away to John smiling but on his own shows him to now be the odd one out, as his smile slowly turns the image slowly goes out of focus.
This extended scene now opens up the probability that Sean informed on John to the British because of jealously. Before we saw this full extended scene we assumed that Johns killing of Sean was justified as we were led to believe he was an informer, but why all the way through this film was John feeling so guilty if he was innocent? Now we know, he killed his friend Sean out of jealously. Sean was also informing the police because he too, was jealous. This also links John closer to the pitiful Villega, a fellow guilty informer from the torture scene which regrettably is still not in any version. John’s ghosts have followed him all the way to Mexico.
Sergio Leoni films have always been subjected to huge cuts in the name of speeding things up. The restored DVD is so much better and things become much clearer.
What I have here is an American TV print which was formally owned by my friend Hugh Scott. The print is on low fade stock and is excellent in quality. I would love to have been able to get hold of a scope theatrical version but this is absolutely fine. I don’t generally like TV versions, but this is an odd one. It has the original title, Duck you sucker, and in the pub scene, two shots are fired not one as in most TV edits so that’s a good start for me. What I intend to do is get around 6 to 8 minutes restored back to make this one much better, the main scene being the massacre at the train station. The logistics of this scene with the camera panning the whole width of the station as this massacre is taking place with the train coming in from the top of the screen must have been a logistics nightmare to set up and on the DVD extras is worth a look at.
Hugh Scott knew I was looking out for this film but this was one of his secrets, I never knew he had a copy. The film was released in theatres as 138 minutes. The extended DVD runs for 150 minutes while this 4:3 TV edit runs for 128 minutes. When I finish with it in the coming months it will run for around 138 but will contain scenes never shown before the restored DVD was released as well as edits for violence restored back in and it make this copy unique like my Blues brothers print. This should be enough to make it a much more satisfactory version. This one was clearly for an after 9pm airing as a fair amount of the edits for violence I thought would be missing are actually in here. When it is done, I will add to this thread.
The b/w images are, one from when John has been marched across the desert as he goes to drink from the spring before one of Juan’s sons urinates in it, and the other three are of the torture scene. Both of these scenes are still missing from any version, it isn’t known if they still exist.

Very nice print there Tom.
One of my favorite westerns especially with the music by Morricone.Some say its too drawn out but personally I like the way the film is constructed to get to know the characters.
There is another version ,that being the laser disc one which runs over three discs I'm not sure if this is complete or same as the dvd release.
For your info in case you don't have the magazine Cinemretro,they did a big piece on Fistfull back I think in 2018 I will try and find my copy and photo copy it if you don't have same.

Thanks Gwyn, that'll be great thank you.
The most complete version available at present time is the UK DVD 150 minutes, still 7 minutes short of the intended cut by the director, the problem now is that if the footage of Mallory being marched across the desert and the torture scene is lost forever then this current 150 minutes cut will be the nearest to complete available.
The American cut to 121 minutes was intended to make the film a fast action movie, in that sense it does do the job, however, I agree, the fuller cut is a better movie and does explain things much better. The full uncut flashback near the end is the one where you understand the character of Mallory and why he is full of guilt all the way through the film, Leone should have been like other directors who would allow their films to be cut or altered, Leone shot very long scenes in many of his films, but never irrelevant ones.
This particular version I have would need too much put back in to be the full version and to do it would make it unviable cost wise, however, around 8 minutes will make a huge difference to this print.
Having said that, anyone who watches this print but hasn't seen the full version, or knows anything about the history of this film will see it as a good action packed movie, but there will be confusion in parts as scenes that explain the characters are either cut out or shortened.
The casting information found on wiki is an interesting read as well,
"Casting the lead roles of Duck, You Sucker! proved to be a difficult process. The role of John Mallory was written for Jason Robards who played Cheyenne in Once Upon a Time in the West, but the studio wanted a bigger name for his character. Clint Eastwood was then approached by Leone for the role, but he saw it as just a different take of the same character he had already played in the Dollars Trilogy, and he also wanted to end his association with the Italian film industry. As a result, he declined the offer and starred in Hang 'Em High instead. George Lazenby was then approached to play John, but he declined. A young Malcolm McDowell, then mostly known for his performance in if...., was considered for both John and Nolan, John's Irish friend, but Leone eventually settled on James Coburn to play John. Coburn had previously been considered for other Leone projects, including A Fistful of Dollars and Once Upon a Time in the West. He had also previously been considered for a role in another United Artists-financed Zapata Western, Sergio Corbucci's The Mercenary, but Franco Nero was later cast in what was originally his role.
The role of Juan Miranda was written for Eli Wallach, based on his performance of Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but Wallach had already committed to another project with Jean-Paul Belmondo. After Leone begged Wallach to play the part, he dropped out of the other project to play Juan. However, Rod Steiger owed the studio another film and they refused to back the picture unless Steiger was used. Leone offered no compensation to Wallach, and Wallach subsequently sued.
Leone was initially dissatisfied with Steiger's performance in that he played his character as a serious, Zapata-like figure. As a result, tensions rose between Steiger and Leone numerous times, including an incident that ended with Steiger walking off during the filming of the scene when John destroys Juan's stagecoach. After the film's completion, Leone and Steiger were content with the final result, and Steiger was known to praise Leone for his skills as a director".

Defiantly, one of Leone's best westerns by far, (IMO).

I've begun my own expansion and clean up of this print. Going through the first few reels I've now removed those little silver markers, these can be a pain to get off but they are gone.
I also found a few short sections where the sound track had been covered to drop out a few choice words, namely when Coburns characters says. "for Christ's sake". When I viewed the film these words were simply dropped out, seriously, did this offend people in the states on TV? Fortunately, these skinny strips that were stuck over the optical track simply peeled off, a gentle wipe with some isopropyl alcohol and the original sound is now back on with no pointless drop outs. This is the first time I've seen this 1mm wide strip used in this way.
Each 1600ft reel had 2 or 3 splices and these have all been re-dun with jackro tape which gives the cleanest, thinnest and best splices. I was surprised that a couple of them had the sprocket holes completely covered which is a bit beyond me.

Next to do will be to add in the additional 8/9 minutes when it arrives and this will vastly improve the film and without the TV cuts.
Two scenes will be restored back to their full length one of which is currently 30 seconds but with the new footage will be just over two minutes, it doesn't sound a lot but in that minute and a half a lot happens, there will also be extra restored footage from the special edition disc. My aim in the coming months will be to add in some footage that was not seen in any version before the discs were released in 2005, (similar project to my Blues Brothers print).