How you situate Sergio Leone’s epic, acerbic A Fistful of Dynamite within the filmmaker’s larger body of work just might depend on which title it bears when you watch it. The original Italian title, Giù la testa, is probably best rendered by the thematically appropriate Keep Your Head Down, but Leone insisted the film go out under the looser translation Duck, You Sucker! It’s a line that recurs several times throughout the film, one that Leone insisted was authentic American slang of the era, though clearly it isn’t any such thing.

The replacement title A Fistful of Dynamite attempts to link it with Leone’s earlier A Fistful of Dollars, but this one gets far darker and more serious than the more “innocent” tales of adventure that form the Dollars trilogy. Probably the most appropriate title was the one applied to it by the French: Once Upon a Time…...

This Region-Free import gives us both versions of Gillo Pontecorvo’s fictional tale of colonial misdeeds that sums up old Europe’s attitude toward the New World. Marlon Brando’s agent provocateur and freebooting soldier of fortune foments revolution against the Portuguese and then hires out to reverse everything he’s done for English interests. The big scale production was filmed in several locations across the globe; it has a standout performance from Evaristo Márquez as a charismatic peasant eager to become a conqueror.

Burn!

Region Free Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 194

1969 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 129, 112 min. / Street Date December 28, 2022 / Available from Viavision / au 79.95

Starring: Marlon Brando, Evaristo Márquez, Norman Hill, Renato Salvatori.

Cinematography: Marcello Gatti, Giuseppe Ruzzolini

Production Designer: Sergio Canevari

Art Director: Piero Gherardi

Film Editor: Mario Morra

Original Music: Ennio Morricone

Written by Franco Solinas, Giorgio Arlorio

Produced by Alberto Grimaldi

Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo

The enterprising Italian producer Alberto...

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“Dead? I’m dead? Can’t be. I’m alive. Can't you tell I'm alive?” These are some of the first thoughts that cross the troubled mind of Gregory Moore (Jean Sorel) at the beginning of Short Night of Glass Dolls (aka La corta notte delle bambole di vetro). And Gregory has a right to be troubled. That’s a common response when someone is fully aware they're being placed on a cold metal slab in a morgue in Prague. But the problem is that Gregory hasn’t really woken up—not entirely. His brain is awake, but the rest of his body isn’t. In true nightmare fashion, he can’t move a muscle in the morgue. Even his heart has seemingly ceased beating, although his wide-open eyes can see the doctors evaluating him, and his brain knows that his next destination could be the autopsy table.

Although his mind is awake,...

By Fred Blosser

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Sergio Leone’s “Giù La Testa,” later retitled not once but twice for American release, opened in Italy in October 1971 to great expectations by the director’s fans. According to the preeminent Leone expert Sir Christopher Frayling, in an informative audio commentary included in a new Blu-ray edition of the film from Kino Lorber Studio Classics under its second U.S. title, “A Fistful of Dynamite,” the Italian phrase meant something like “keep your head down.” In other words, in times of social convulsion like the bloody 1913 Mexican revolution portrayed in the movie, save yourself unnecessary grief and keep as low a profile as you can. Toshiro Mifune’s wandering samurai in “Yojimbo” offered similar advice: “A quiet life eating rice is best.” In Leone’s film, James Coburn and Rod Steiger starred as mismatched partners -- a fugitive...

More mysterious than ever, Sergio Leone’s ode to (condemnation of?) revolution is said to be the centerpiece of his three ‘Once Upon a Time’ movies linking western violence to the modern age of brutal politics and ruthless gangsterism. Crudeness rubs shoulders with sad, beautiful images as Leone takes on a theme he claimed not to like very much. The writers Donati and Vincenzoni show him the way, while James Coburn and Rod Steiger bring to life the non-narrative moments of what becomes a broad, mural-like epic.

Duck You Sucker (A Fistful of Dynamite)

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1971 / 157 154, 138, 120 min. / Giù la testa, A Fistful of Dynamite, Il était une fois … la révolution / Street Date March 6, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: James Coburn, Rod Steiger, Maria Monti, Rik Battaglia, Romolo Valli, Antoine St-John, Vivienne Chandler, David Warbeck.

Cinematography: Giuseppe Ruzzolini

Film Editor: Nino Baragli

Art Direction: Andrea Crisanti

Original Music: Ennio Morricone

Written by Sergio Leone,...

What is this -- a naughty sex odyssey as absurdist art? Or a non-pc slice of sleazy art film exploitation? Either way it's a (minor) Polanski masterpiece of direction, influenced by the Italian setting. Is what turns Polanski on? The entire excercise is a Kafka comedy of erotic discomfort. What? Blu-ray Severin 1972 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 110 min. / Che? / Street Date April 26, 2016 / 29.95 Starring Marcello Mastroianni, Sydne Rome, Hugh Griffith, Guido Alberti, Gianfranco Piacentini, Romollo Valli. Cinematography Marcello Gatti, Giuseppe Ruzzolini Production Design Aurelio Crugnola Film Editor Alastair McIntyre Original Music Claudio Gizzi Written by Gérard Brach, Roman Polanski Produced by Carlo Ponti Directed by Roman Polanski

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

It's a slippery slope, I tell you: art films are the gateway to surrealism, and surrealism connects straight to bondage and kinky costume play, which is a direct conduit either to Comic-Con or being forced to resign from the P.T.A.