The Big Gundown
This is one of Quentin Tarentino's favorite spaghetti westerns.,At around an hour and twenty minutes into the movie there is a scene where a girl is carrying a tray with 6 glasses of which 5 are full and 1 is empty. In the next shot however there are 7 glasses on the tray of which 3 are full and 4 are empty.,Baron von Schulenberg: When you are about to kill a man, what do you look at? I've asked this question of other men, and do you know what they always say? They look at his hands. I don't. I look at his eyes...
[pause]
Baron von Schulenberg: ...because a moment before he moves his hand, his eyes betray him. And you can always read death in them: yours or his.,The original Italian cut of the film is approximately 110 minutes (approximately 105 minutes PAL) and was distributed in several European countries theatrically and on video formats. However, upon its US and UK release (and possibly Japanese release), the film was cut down to approximately 90 minutes. While most of these cuts involved trimming down dialogue, some entire scenes were cut, such as Corbett in the Sherrif's office after killing the three criminals in the opening, Cuchillo and Corbett's visit to a Church, and Cuchillo in bed with his wife Rosita. While most of this footage is thought not to have been dubbed in English, a few scenes, such as the church scenes and Cuchillo/Rosita scene were dubbed in English for some markets outside of the US and UK. As of now, only the 90 minute cut has had any official distribution in the US, while a fan made DVD known as the "Franco Cleef Edition" has made the rounds in the US featuring the Italian cut with English language and subtitled Italian for the scenes in which English audio could not be obtained.,Edited from Man from Nowhere (1966),Run, Man, Run
Music by Ennio Morricone
Lyrics by Audrey Nohra
Performed by Maria Cristina Brancucci (as Christy),As a big fan of Spaghetti Westerns, two of my all-time favorite directors are Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci. Out of all Spaghetti Westerns directed by neither Leone, nor Corbucci, Segio Sollima's "La Resa Dei Conti" aka. "The Big Gundown" is my personal favorite, and doubtlessly one of the greatest films the genre has ever brought forth. An exciting and extremely stylish film with brilliantly drawn characters, "The Big Gundown" is a masterly Spaghetti Western with a political message.

Jonathan Corbett (Lee Van Cleef), a famous gunman and bounty hunter, is sent to hunt down a Mexican small-time crook named Cuchillo Sanchez (Tomas Milian), who is accused of the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl. Corbett is an experienced and successful lawman, but Cuchillo is very clever too. On the his long hunt Corbett gets to know Cuchillo, whose guilt he finds more and more doubtful. Although this is a very serious Spaghetti Western in most of its parts, there are some very funny characters, like the almost cartoonish aristocratic Austrian gunman Baron Von Schulenberg (Gérard Herter), a cold-blooded but extremely arrogant and almost Nazi-ish killer wearing a monocle and always looking neat as a pin.

Sergio Sollima's directing is truly outstanding. The acting is also great, especially the brilliant performances of Tomas Milian and Lee Van Cleef, two of my personal favorite actors. The score by Ennio Morricone is one of a kind, outstanding, even compared to most of the other Morricone soundtracks. In one ingenious part of the movie, for example, Morricone mixes Ludwig Van Beethoven's "Für Elise" with a Mexican guitar and his typical dynamic Spaghetti Western drums. The cinematography and settings are overwhelming in a manner that is en par with Leone. In short: "The Big Gundown" is a formidable gem that even Leone would be proud of, and an Italian Western highlight that no lover of the genre could possibly afford to miss! 10/10,