A Fistful of Dynamite **** (1972, Rod Steiger, James Coburn) – Classic Movie Review 1367

Writer-director Sergio Leone’s splendidly and impressively over-the-top 1972 modern Western is set in Mexico in 1913 at the time of the Mexican Revolution. Succeeding by excess, this nevertheless thoughtful and intelligent action spectacular turned out to be Leone’s last Western, though he made one more movie, One Upon a Time in America.

It stars Rod Steiger as Juan Miranda, a brutish Mexican robber and outlaw leading a bandit family. While Juan is robbing a coach, John (‘Sean’) Mallory (James Coburn), an Irish Republican explosives expert on the run from the British, comes by on his motorcycle. Juan discovers John’s a bomb expert with dynamite and nitro glycerine special skills, and tries to make him join a robbery on the Mesa Verde national bank. But the gold they are going for in the bank vault has been swapped for political prisoners, whom Juan then frees.

It may be a slight drop down in quality and achievement from Leone’s previous 1969 classic Once Upon a Time in the West – but not too much – and this is nevertheless an underrated follow-up to that great work. The complex story, underlying themes and ideas, unusual characters, exuberant performances of the two stars and the supporting actors, the exciting action scenes and Leone’s cynical sense of humour all combine to make it essential spaghetti Western viewing. Both unusually but well cast, Steiger and Coburn are very fired up and involved.

The distinguished score is composed by Ennio Morricone, who collaborated with Leone on all his previous projects. It’s one of his finest.

Leone said he was tired of horses and guns so didn’t want to direct another Western at this time, and promoted his regular assistant director Giancarlo Santi as director, with Leone supervising. Santi was in charge for the first ten days of shooting, but then Coburn and Steiger refused to play their roles unless Leone directed, and the producers pressured him into taking over, with Santi relegated to second unit work.

The inspiration for the firing squad scene came from artist Francisco Goya, and in particular from his set of prints The Disasters of War. Leone showed the prints to director of photography Giuseppe Ruzzolini to get the lighting and colour effects he wanted.

Exterior filming mostly took place in Andalucía, Spain. Some of the locations were also used in Leone’s Dollar Trilogy – the Almería Railway Station, used for the train sequence in For a Few Dollars More, returns as Mesa Verde’s station. The flashback scenes were shot at Howth Castle in Co Dublin, and Toner’s Pub on Baggot Street, Dublin.

It runs 157 minutes but there are edited versions at only 139 and the original US release as Duck, You Sucker! at 121 minutes, with many scenes cut because they were supposedly too violent, profane or politically sensitive. United Artists reissued the film as A Fistful of Dynamite. It was fully restored in 2005, re-in cinemas, and released on DVD in a Collector’s Edition in 2007.

A Fistful of Dynamite was originally Giu La Testa.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1367

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