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…The Revolution, which more properly connects it to the elegiac Once Upon a Time in the West. Making these matters even more complicated, the title appears only at the end of the film, where it provides a mute response to a character’s despairing line: “What about me?” Clearly, only Duck, You Sucker! makes any sense here, though the current Blu-ray ends with the A Fistful of Dynamite title card.
Taking place against the background of significant events during the Mexican Revolution in 1913, A Fistful of Dynamite is almost assuredly the only western to open with a quote from Chairman Mao: “The revolution is not a dinner party…It is an act of violence.” There will, rest assured, be blood. But these won’t be acts of violence that function as entertainment, or even catharsis. Though the film’s first act is buoyed by a vein of earthy humor, events then take a far more serious turn, featuring scenes of massacre and mass executions designed to recall the horrors of World War II as much as, if not more than, the Mexican Revolution.
A Fistful of Dynamite openly engages with earlier films. The very first shot of peon Juan Miranda (Rod Steiger) dowsing an ant colony in urine is quite literally a piss-take on the opening of The Wild Bunch with its children’s game of ants versus scorpion. Not long after robbing a fancy stagecoach, on the way to some questionably consensual rapine, Juan drags an unfortunate society lady (Maria Monti) across a threshing circle that closely resembles the scene of the three-way shootout that ends The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. All three of these films feature a scene where a strategic bridge gets blown up quite impressively.
While Juan and his bandido gang (comprising his six sons and elderly father) enjoy their new booty, they’re approached by a man on a motorcycle who seems to enjoy blowing things up as he passes by. This turns out to be one John H. Mallory (James Coburn), formerly a Fenian revolutionary in Ireland, now looking for work as a dynamiter at a local silver mine. Juan soon gets other ideas when he sees what John can do with his arsenal of explosives—an image that Leone and cinematographer Giuseppe Ruzzolini render using a rare yet hilarious optical effect.
When Juan and John arrive in Mesa Verde, they discover that it’s been turned into a garrison town, its streets full of firing squads and its walls plastered over with posters advertising the benevolence of the local governor, Don Jaime (Franco Graziosi). Hidden behind a slatted wall, John watches a round of executions by tearing through one of the posters, his eyes momentarily aligning with the governor’s, in an ironic juxtaposition of power and powerlessness. Switching to John’s point of view, Leone employs an intriguing visual gimmick that he’ll reuse several more times over the course of the film: He positions the camera so that shot and frame line up, the rectangular tear mirroring the oblong 2.35:1 Scope frame.
A Fistful of Dynamite sees Leone returning to an unconventional narrative technique that he had used in both For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: He fills in an important bit of character motivation through an extended flashback that’s broken up into a series of snippets peppered throughout the film. This one illustrates John’s days back in Ireland, focusing on a love triangle between him, his girlfriend at the time (Vivienne Chandler), and a Fenian comrade (David Warbeck) who seems to betray him. Because these events are told entirely without dialogue, there’s a certain ambiguity to them. One possibility is that romantic rivalry prompts John to preemptively inform on his friend, which would explain why he’s haunted and hounded across continents by these memories.
Where Once Upon a Time in the West sees the coming of the railroad as bringing the boon of civilization along with it, A Fistful of Dynamite shows a more lethal side of the locomotive. Not only is it useful for rounding up undesirables for wholesale slaughter, it can also function as a suicidal weapon of mass destruction. By the film’s fiery finale, John has nothing left but his belief in dynamite, and Juan, bereft of family and his sole friend, can only wonder what will become of him. The film’s titular response (at least in its original version) is sardonic at best. When it comes to playing at revolution, Leone suggests, it’s best not to get involved.
Image/Sound
Even though this isn’t the 4K restoration that was announced last year, Kino Lorber’s 1080p transfer of A Fistful of Dynamite, clearly sourced from an older master, looks pretty decent overall, showing only some minor speckling and the odd vertical scratch. The HD image possesses some suitably cinematic depth. Fine details of the exquisite costume and set design stand out. Audio comes in either English Master Audio or 5.1 surround. The former sounds fuller and richer, better conveying Ennio Morricone’s memorably lilting score.
Extras
Kino offers a complementary pair of commentary tracks from Sergio Leone biographer Christopher Frayling and filmmaker Alex Cox that avoid a lot of redundant overlap. Frayling offers a deep dive into Leone’s career and the making of A Fistful of Dynamite, while Cox does an excellent job of situating the film among the larger body of Italian westerns (in particular the subset he refers to as “tortilla westerns”) and examining its sociopolitical themes.
The video featurettes start off with two further contributions from Frayling: an expansive overview of Leone and his film, and a tour through a museum exhibition at the Gene Autry Center focused on Leone’s legacy. Elsewhere, screenwriter Sergio Donati talks about his collaborations with Leone, and critic Glenn Erickson examines the different cuts of the film. Also included are a return visit to select shooting locations (circa 2005) and a glimpse into the restoration process. An episode of “Trailers from Hell” rounds out the extras.
Overall
Sergio Leone’s acerbic revolutionary epic A Fistful of Dynamite posits the notion that, when the bullets start flying, rather than turn rashly heroic, it’s best to keep your head down.
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Excellent review. Generously covers all bases.