Il était une fois... la révolution

Here is a tragedy -- a great film doomed by a terrible title.

I saw this movie as "Duck, You Sucker" in the theater in 1972 or '73. I still have images and haunting music burned in my brain from it. It has, for one thing, one of the biggest real explosions ever filmed, an absolutely awesome blast using real high explosives that makes today's fiery spectacles pale. I think the whole production company was stunned by it, certainly Sergio Leone was, because he gives it the full treatment: multiple cameras and angles, wide shots, lots of screen time giving us lots of looks. And it's worth it. If you're not a war veteran, you've never seen anything like this.

But this film is much more than its fx. It's a deep, moving story told on the grand scale, with Oscar-class cinematography. It is both a major outdoor adventure and a small, intimate story. It has some of the quirkiest scenes, blackest humor and darkest betrayals, too.

Don't look for it on TV, unless Turner Classic Movies shows it "uncut." It was horribly mutilated in editing for television, and therefore unpopular and rarely shown. Get the original theatrical version, and watch it undisturbed. A party atmosphere would ruin it for you.

It's on my top-20 all time list!

A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE aka DUCK YOU SUCKER (5 outta 5 stars)

I think this is Sergio Leone's third greatest movie... right after Once Upon a Time in the West and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Most Leone fans rank this film a lot lower... but I think that's because they are only familiar with the shortened two hour version. Also, for the record, I absolutely loathe the re-titling... A Fistful of Dynamite... how lame! At least the original Leone title, Duck You Sucker was... distinctive. Even the French title (translation: Once Upon a Time... The Revolution) is kinda classy. But AFOD??? Gimme a break! This movie has absolutely nothing to do with A Fistful of Dollars so why even try to make the comparison?

Anyway, I loved this movie when I first saw it in the theatre in 1972 (age 12). I am pretty sure that what we saw at the time was the lengthy, uncut version... and I don't remember being bored at all. (The most common complaint about this movie is that it is slow and boring... heck, that's the most common complaint about EVERY Leone movie.) Rod Steiger and James Coburn play Sean and Juan, respectively a poor Mexican bandit and a fugitive Irish terrorist... who meet up in Mexico and become involved (against their wills) with revolutionary warfare in that struggling country. The movie is exciting, funny, dramatic, suspenseful and, well, just plain brilliant. This is Ennio Morricone's greatest film score and the way it meshes with Leone's visuals is simply amazing... particularly in my favourite scene... the bank heist. Juan and his young sons break into the Bank of Mexico, shoot it out with the guards and go from door to door, searching for gold and finding only political prisoners, until finally... oh, I can't give it away! See it for yourself. This is a movie filled with classic scenes: Coburn's arrival on the "motorsickle" and his confrontation with Steiger's gang... Steiger and Coburn with their machine guns... Steiger's final act of vengeance (which is severely chopped to bits in the short version... robbing it of its vicious power). Its been said that Steiger's comical accent is stereotypical and insulting... but I say NO! He is playing one of the richest and most complex characters of his career... with some of his greatest speeches ("And what happens to the poor people? They are DEAD!"). Not to slight James Coburn, who also does a fantastic job, but Steiger is the star of this one.

With Fistful of Dyanmite (a.k.a. 'Duck, You Sucker', a.k.a. 'Once Upon a Time in the Revolution', the second part of a 'trilogy'), legendary Sergio Leone puts together something experimental, even more so than the other films in his catalog. Here he now deals with war, but he still has the crime elements of his 'dollars' films; it somehow makes a very clear cut balance between bits of comedy within the tragedy worked in the story; it isn't very brutal, but it is graphic in the genre sense of the time. It's also one of his best films, if you happen to see it within its full running time (like most of Leone's films, this suffered drastic cuts in American versions, reducing critical character points and other Leone surprises).

A Leone film, however, can only be as strong as the leads pushing it up, as in the dozens and dozens of westerns and other films that inspired Leone. Here he uses two character actors (for the most part of their careers), but indeed very good and astute ones at playing their parts. Rod Steiger, who has been in classic films like On the Waterfront and The Pawnbroker, here is slightly like a maturer version of Tuco from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: he's still a bandit, with pillaging and beating and raping his way across the countryside, but he's also got a family to look after, who within his anti-hero heart are the most important things to him. Steiger's Juan is usually either surprised, quietly delighted, or agitated off to certain degrees. He plays this for all it's worth, but he also finds the best notes in the moments when he brings out laughs, and in the more sorrowful moments later on in the film.

There's also James Coburn, veteran of many, many films, given one of the great themes of any character in a Leone film by composer Ennio Morricone (there's some sort of instrument or distortion of one in his theme that calls for complete, unusual attention on the viewer). Coburn's Sean (err, John, depending) is a character with some ghosts, perhaps, in his past, and who unlike Juan is more interested in 'other' interests. Although Juan tries not to notice it until the sequence at Mesa Verde (which I won't reveal), Sean has been through a revolution in Ireland, and understand more or less what happens with it. He brings in Juan, after a rather strange yet hilarious encounter, into his web of revolutionary fighters, which doesn't go over to well with him at first. As their story unravels, Coburn still plays it like a pro, being the straight character to Steiger's very theatrical-like performance. He doesn't quite have the mystery an Eastwood or Bronson had in the other Leone films, but he does carry a certain quality about him that puts him in a needed place in the Leone cannon.

Speaking of which, one must not over-look how complex a film like this is in some ways. Leone was not originally the director (it went through the hands of Peter Bogdanovich and Sam Peckinpah before coming to him, coincidentally the opening scene with Juan is a cool homage to the Wild Bunch opening). Yet somehow he puts his stamp, and wonderful mark, on Fistful of Dynamite. This time more history is worked into the film- unlike the civil war acting like a harsh backdrop to the more 'fun' elements of the adventure in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, the war in this film affects the main character, and adds a serious tone to an otherwise standard genre picture.

The Steiger character, along with the audience, gets a look at a massive amount of death, or rather the images of the dead: a tower filled with soldiers blown at night, the powerful pans and camera moves across the bodies, real combat, and the suggestions of what goes into the revolution. But its not just the violence of battles that get into the film, its also the personal attitudes during the revolution- the bourgeois vs the peasants (one of Leone's masterstrokes at close-ups in montage is displayed when Juan is on the train with the near monstrous American wealthy early in the film). Leone manages to work in various and cinematic explosions, in-depth or testing close-ups, and sweeping long shots of soldiers, landscapes, and struggle.

Coming back to Ennio Morricone's score- this time, Morricone experiments with some styles of his talents. As when Leone uses a funny, almost cartoon-like, image above Sean from Juans' eyes of a 'Banco' sign (akin the a 'dollar' sign above cartoon characters), Morricone adds a church organ and choir to go along with it. There are also the uses of themes throughout the film, as in Leone's other films, that act like striking, beautiful calling cards. The opening theme is pounding; Sean's flashbacks are given the sumptuous qualities that go with the best (and worst) nostalgia; the scenes with action and suspense, though almost a little standard, still work far better than many standard score of today.

Fistful of Dynamite is entertainment on an epic scale, with a broader and somewhat deeper sub-text, and it comes out with flying colors. Some may not take to it; it could be argued that Steiger, much like Eli Wallach, isn't very convincing as a Mexican bandit, or that the shifting in tones is a little much, even conventional in a weird sense. But it's hard to argue the sense of control that Leone has over his environment in the film, the assuredness of style, and that at the least the parts are greater than the whole. For me, it's a film I've seen twice in one week (once to soak in and get more of the enjoyment, the second time to get even more out of it, and to notice the visual details), and I hope it gets better the next time around.

Sergio Leone sums up the entire Italian film industry by starting the film with a beautifully framed and composed shot of...Rod Steiger pissing on some ants. And thus starts his fifth and final Spaghetti Western that some people declare a classic while others declare it a failure. Sure, it's got virtually no plot and just sort of meanders along for two and a half hours, but it's got Rod Steiger as a Mexican and it's directed by Sergio Leone - it's great!

Rod plays Juan, a bandit leader who tricks his way onto a lush carriage full of rich folk who treat him like he's some kind of disease (amazingly acted by Steiger as he plays up to their bigoted expectations), before turning the tables on them and robbing them of everything they have - including the carriage. It's not long after that Juan meets Sean (or John), who of course is an ex-member of the IRA and loves blowing everything up.

Sean/John is played by James Coburn who is literally dressed from head to toe in dynamite, and Juan has a religious experience when he realises that Sean is the key to the bank that Juan has always wanted to break into. The problem these days is that the Mexican revolution is going on and there's soldiers everywhere...and Juan does not want anything to do with no revolution...

Although Leone takes his sweet, sweet time digging a plot out of this one, it's such a delight to watch Rod Steiger being Mexican. He slides from wide eyed peasant innocence to rage and his interactions with Coburn are hilarious (usually because Coburn tells him to shut up most of the time). And the cursing! Eeh - the language!

Speaking of Coburn, he's having a problem with flashbacks throughout the film - Irish flashbacks involving David Warbreck! Warbreck would go on to be a leading man in Italian films shortly but here he just seems to be involved on some confusing romantic love triangle mixed with paramilitary business. Were they sharing that woman or were they all into each other?

There's no iconic gunfights here but there are some large scale battles and a lot of epic tracking shots that depict the carnage of the revolution. Italian minatures master and awesome director in his own right Antonio Margheriti provides the tiny train special effects.

I haven't mentioned a story because there isn't one.

Excellent action film with Steiger over-the-top but Coburn right on the money as bandit/revolutionaries in Mexico. More gunfire and explosions and less balmy confrontations than in other Leone pics. I'm stuck on a second viewing by how much of a "70s" film this is, and how much real cinematic value and interesting ideas Leone has put into the film despite its basic action-film plotline. Rumors say Malcolm MacDowell was the original lead -- very intriguing possibility. The look on Steiger's face after he finds out he's risked his life to rescue a bunch of dirty prisoners is priceless.