Duck You Sucker

Fair enough. It would be a boring world if we all liked the same things!

 

I am still going to try again. It does have some things positive going for it....I may just need to give it more time.

 

I saw it in Alexandria, VA during its initial release as Duck, You Sucker. When the movie bombed financially, distributor United Artists hacked 37 minutes out of it and dumped it into drive-ins retitled A Fistful of Dynamite. I have seen "Dynamite" listed at 120 minutes and 127 minutes-- I had it on an MGM Beta tape at 127 minutes. I gather the blu-ray reverts to the original length (157 minutes?); but keeps the title of the shortened version. Confusing.

P.S. Leone wanted Coburn for A Fistful of Dollars, but couldn't afford the fee. Coburn suggested Eastwood. (At least that's what I read.)

 

This version is the full running time, but the “original mono” is a downmix of the accursed 5.1 remix track, and kisses some dialogue and several music cues.

 

Well, it's Leone's only non-classic and lost film for a reason. It has it's moments but that's it. An epic failure sandwiched between 2 of the greatest film epics ever - Once upon a time in the West and Once Upon a Time in America.

 

It's honestly one of my favorite films of his

 

The first year I did fantasy football I got into the habit of watching a Leone movie before each draft. (Five drafts, five movies so no Once Upon a Time in America. This is also the same run I discovered the simple editing trick to fix Once Upon a Time in the West )

I've always wondered if the bit where Rod Steiger pisses on the ant mound was Sergio having a go at Peckinpah.

 

According to Leone biographer Christopher Frayling, it may be a reference to Peckinpah, but also refers back to Leone’s own life and games he and his friends played as children.

 

There was Wild Bunch in "My Name Is Nobody". I guess it was Leone's idea, too.

 

This is a travesty of a missed opportunity and is yet another throwaway release. For this film which has been mutilated and mishandled for its entire history it is even worse because people today still cannot see the intended version.
DYS is Leone's misunderstood masterpiece, and an absolute sign of his maturing outlook as a storyteller. Coburn and Steiger give grand performances, and I'll say that I do think this is Coburn's best role-even better than his staggering Pat Garrett. DYS also is a sort of spiritual successor to Ford's The Informer so there's that influence much as OUATITW had many Ford nods.

This new Kino release is really pointless. They have reissued the flawed MGM "reconstruction" that had the inaccurate, censored and unnecessary 5.1 mix along with some windowboxing and color issues in the HD master. I saw the 35mm version at a retrospective and it was better but still had the bad sound mix.
The sound mix has censored dialogue to remove cursing and even changes some dialogue lines for no reason. Morricone cues are placed in inappropriate places and change the entire meaning of some scenes-most notably the final crucial flashback. The Kino release adds back the 2.0 track from the extended DVD release that the MGM Blu-ray dropped but it is merely a folddown of the bad 5.1 and not the original mono.

What is infuriating is that aside from the fact they couldn't be bothered to address these issues which are all fixable, and the fact that they licensed the title to merely flog the old master with some new extras added-is that they have put the Fistful of Dynamite title back on which was only slapped on the second heavily cut down USA reissue by United Artists and was stuck on the film until 2005 when MGM finally put Duck You Sucker back on. It makes absolutely no sense that they even bothered to make this change as it will now confuse even more newcomers to the film. Plus DYS was Leone's intended English title, no matter how he thought it was a practiced English idiom. At the very least they should have provided the option to have all the film's titles available on the menu if they wanted to have an alternate title: Gui La Testa, Once Upon a Time in the Revolution being the others.

The Italian blu-ray was from a different master and riddled with problems. However it had the correct original English mono but unfortunately it was out of sync. However that went out of print and was replaced by a new disc of the same master but with screwed up color. Currently the best releases of this film available in the US are from the long 1996 master which is only missing the crucial final flashback and Steiger line. (3 mins total) The color is good and it has the uncut English original mono track, but the Fistful title. This can be had on the deluxe MGM Laserdisc and was released on DVD in Region 2 but is in PAL.
It was the second attempt at piecing together a longer version on video after the shorter but slightly restored Image Laserdisc. (Which oddly has Steiger's final line and some censoring but not as much as the MGM remix.)

I currently have two Laserdiscs, two DVDs, two Blu-rays plus the new Kino disc. And still this film cannot get a decent treatment. It has never been given a fair shot. Most have never heard of it or have only seen the short butchered versions.

For those who haven't seen it-do so, but don't expect the same Leone of the Dollars films or even the same Leone of OUATITW. This is a dark, adult and pulverizing picture.

 

If anyone hasn’t seen this movie, I’d absolutely recommend it. Love it. And I agree the score is incredible.

 

It contains a few awesome sequences (that, frankly, seem to belong to another movie) but so much of it seemed juvenile the first time round. Perhaps I just need to rewatch it for a better appreciation. I, strongly suspect, however, that Leone meant it to be a tongue-in-cheek affair.

 

Thanks for CaptainSolo for detailed explanation of the differences between the varying releases. It's a critical consideration, as different versions significatly color one's perceptions of the film. It also varies between the almost farcically cartoonish (Steiger sometimes plays his role as Mexican stand up comedian. He can make Eli Wallach look restrained) and the deeply felt poignancy of Sean's past in Ireland. So the film really should be seen as Leone intends.

Like Pat Garrett, a desecrated film that still manages to rise to the level of masterpiece.