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!

It's generally thought that this film is Leone's weakest major film,and it is far less well known than the Dollars trilogy and the two Once Upon a Times. In actual fact,this is a masterpiece that deserves to be far better known and regarded than it actually is. It sees Leone attempting new things such as character development and political comment,while refining elements from his earlier films. It's really the bridge between Once Upon A Time In The West and Once Upon A Time In America,and it contains a great many elements of both films {which let's face it,despite both being Leone films are quite different}.

It starts in humorous vein,right from the opening sequence of the dirty,very poor Rod Steiger character Juan being taunted by some rich folk aboard a lavish carriage,the camera showing lots of close ups of mouths and eyes in what almost seems a parody of Leone's style. Juan is much like Tuco in The Good the Bad And The Ugly,loud,simple and very funny {he's even often accompanied by comical music }.Juan's first encounters with the other main protagonist,IRA man Sean {James Coburn} are treated like comical duels,and as they go to rob a bank it seems the picaresque tone will continue.

However,about a third of the way through the film becomes more and more serious. As Juan,thanks to Sean,becomes more and more involved in the Mexican Revolution,the tone becomes darker as more and more scenes take place at night and there is serious tragedy. The change in tone may jar to some people,but one can see the mature,contemplative Leone of Once Upon A Time In America reveal himself before our eyes.

Of course there are still some great action scenes,such as the taking of a bank which is superbly cut to Ennio Morricone's music {listen for the cheeky quotes from Mozart!},or Sean and Juan machine-gunning what seems like a whole army. There is as usual a great deal of violence,but it's less personal and graphic and instead is shown to have more consequence. The film's plot does move rather slowly,with Leone taking his time as usual,but this mean we can more enjoy the mannered Steiger and the laid back Coburn as one of the greatest partnerships in cinema history.

Of particular interest are the several flashbacks dotted throughout the movie,shot in dreamlike slow motion and usually set to what is quite simply one of the most beautiful film themes EVER {Morricone excels himself with the score for this film}. Representing Sean's past,they ask as many questions as they answer,Leone trusting his audience to work things out. The final one is missing from many versions of this film,a tragedy because as well as being sublimely beautiful {and ambiguous,is it Sean's memory?,a marijuana-enhanced hallucination?,a vision of Heaven?} it adds yet another element to the story.

A Fistful Of Dynamite {well,the French Once Upon A Time..The Revolution is the films' best title}is a masterpiece,it's extremely entertaining whilst also being full of complexity. Things become clearer and more interesting on second and third viewings. Don't expect the operatic ritualism of Once Upon in The West or the comic crowd pleasing of the Dollars films,but if you watch this you will be watching a cinematic master at the height of his powers.

A Fistful of Dynamite is often seen as the black sheep of Sergio Leone's commercial releases; and there's a good reason for that, as despite the fact that it's still a spaghetti western; it's a completely different kettle of fish to both the Dollars Trilogy and Once Upon a Time in the West. A Fistful of Dollars features common western themes such as bandits, guns and bank robberies - but, as he did with The Good, The Bad and The Ugly; Sergio Leone has implanted war themes into the plot, and we've also got the bizarre idea of one of the major characters being an IRA bomber! All this stuff doesn't quite come together cleanly, and as the tone of the movie changes often; it seems obvious that Leone has bitten off a bit more than he can chew...but luckily enough, A Fistful of Dynamite remains a fun movie for most of its duration. The plot follows a bandit named Juan, who bumps into a dynamite-laded bomber one day in the desert. Spotting an opportunity for robbery, he manages to recruit the IRA man to his cause; but he doesn't count on being dragged into the revolution that's going on at the same time.

The first half of the movie features some very astute elements of tongue-in-cheek humour, and it seems obvious that the director isn't intending the plot to be completely serious. However, at around the halfway point; the movie turns in completely the opposite direction, and the fun and silly first half gives way to a more deep and serious finale. For me, this is the movie's main problem; I like a movie that's unpredictable, but this change in plot feels disjointed and doesn't go down well. The second half of the film isn't as enjoyable to watch either, which harms the fun. However, Sergio Leone's direction is as impressive as ever, with some lovely wide angle shots capturing the beautiful landscapes; while, of course, Leone enjoys giving full focus to his actors for some extreme close-ups. Like the movie, the cast is a mixed bag. James Coburn looks the part, but his silly put-on accent makes him feel like he's having a laugh at times; and similarly, Rod Steiger dons an arguably even sillier accent and doesn't quite get away with it. Overall, A Fistful of Dynamite is not a film to please all viewers. I found it to be enjoyable despite many niggles, but I can understand why a lot of people disagree.

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.

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.