The Big Gundown (1967)

I love this movie so much

Absolutely Fantastic

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Unofficial lawman John Corbett (Lee VanCleef) hunts down Cuchillo Sanchez (Tomas Milian), a Mexican peasant accused of raping and killing a 12-year-old girl."The Big Gundown" hit American theaters thanks to the success of Sergio Leone's Clint Eastwood films. Despite being made before "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", it was that film's power that attracted people to "Gundown" and star Lee VanCleef. Unfortunately, the folks at Columbia did not give the film the respect it deserved and tried to pass it off as a film starring "Mr. Ugly" (who was actually Eli Wallach, not VanCleef, showing how little they cared).Ennio Morricone, the biggest name in Italian composing, provides the score and it is among his best work. Actor Milian was actually Cuban, not Mexican, but he filled the role as well as anyone could (and starred in two more Sergio Sollima westerns in 1967 and 1968).Through Grindhouse releasing, the film is now available on DVD and Blu-ray, completely uncut, looking sharp and sounding great. There are interviews with Sollima and Milian, as well as a complete commentary from Western authority C. Courtney Joyner. If the film itself were not enough, the booklet has a few essays and a bonus CD contains Morricone's entire soundtrack.

La resa dei conti (The Big Gundown) is directed by Sergio Sollima and written by Sollima and Sergio Donati. It stars Lee Van Cleef, Tomas Milian, Walter Barnes and Gerard Herter. Music is by Ennio Morricone and cinematography by Carlo Calini.Superior Spaghetti Western with shades of Zapata for good measure, The Big Gundown finds Van Cleef as bounty hunter - cum - unofficial lawman Jonathan Corbett, whose reputation for bringing in the criminals, dead or alive, has caught the attention of business baron Brockston (Barnes). With an interest in getting into politics, Corbett is sold on Brockston's offer of political help if he will do a job for him. The job is to hunt down a Mexican rogue by the name of Cuchillo (Milian) who is alleged to have raped and murdered a 12 year old girl. Tracking Cuchillo across the land, the Mexican proves to be a slippery customer, and more importantly, Corbett begins to doubt the veracity of the charges against him.Adios Amigo.What do you need for a great Italo Western? A leading man with screen presence supreme? Check! Rogue antagonist able to overact opposite the leading man whilst still exuding charm personified? Check! Scorching vistas? Check! A musical score so in tune with the story it's a character all by itself? Check! And violence? Check! Sollima's movie has it all.Much of the film is about the manhunt and how the two men involved develop a relationship. Cuchillo claims he's being set up and seems to have friends in every town featured in the play. Corbett is a dandy with a gun, but he's not perfect, he can be outsmarted and get caught cold. There's good thought gone into the screenplay in this respect, not putting the anti-hero up as an infallible superman.Then there's the side-bar narrative strands that show Sollima's political bent, even though this is hardly a heavily politico piece. From class struggles and racism, to asides on the justice system and the fat cats who operate around the system, Sollima does enjoy dangling such carrots. With zippy set pieces fuelled by brooding machismo that is in turn enhanced by the top work from Carlini and Morricone (it's one of Moricone's best scores, real dynamite), this is grade "A" Spaghetti and well worth feasting on. 9/10

"La Resa dei Conti", a.k.a. "The Big Gundown", rates highly as a grand example of its genre. It's got a meaty story (screenplay credit goes to Sergio Donati and director Sergio Sollima), an epic feel to it, eye popping gorgeous widescreen photography (by Carlo Carlini), one of Ennio Morricones' most majestic and best ever scores, and enough action to keep a viewer riveted.Lee Van Cleef, incredibly cool as usual, plays Jonathan Corbett, a bounty hunter with political aspirations. He's hired by businessman Mr. Brokston (Walter Barnes) to go after "Cuchillo" (Tomas Milian), an outlaw who's been accused of raping and murdering a 12 year old girl. Corbett soon finds Cuchillo, but what happens is that a sort of cat and mouse situation arises where the outlaw slips from Corbetts' clutches on more than one occasion. As the hunt continues, Corbett begins to have his doubts about the mission, and indeed he hasn't been told the truth.Eurofilm superstar Milian delivers a very hearty performance as the desperate quarry, who proves to have a crafty nature to him as well. He and Van Cleef are well matched and receive strong support from Barnes, Luisa Rivelli as Lizzie the prostitute, the scene stealing Fernando Sancho as Captain Segura, Nieves Navarro as a widowed woman, and Gerard Herter as the colourful character Baron von Schulenberg.Sollimas' direction is stylish and the film is just beautiful to look at, with plenty of detail filling the frame at all times. It's got plenty to recommend it to fans of Italian oaters.Eight out of 10.

This is absolutely one of the best so-called spaghetti westerns ever, after Sergio Leone's films of course, and it rates very highly among all westerns. Unlike many other non-Sergio Leone westerns, the cinematography, camera-work, etc., are all very good and some scenes are very artistic and even worthy of Leone himself.Lee van Cleef is excellent as the pseudo-lawman/bounty hunter with integrity who believes in "justice" and "progress" for society.Ennio Morricone, as usual, provides a great score for the film. The song is rousing, while the music for the chase scenes is excellent. Morricone also does a folk-music/square dance version of the theme for the wedding party, which is a neat touch.The story is interesting and well-developed, as well. In its full-length version, it is in fact somewhat deep, with van Cleef's Corbett being a fairly complex character who undergoes a significant character development in the course of the film. In the abridged American version, unfortunately, he is shown as simply bounty hunter who mercilessly kills all before him in cold blood, who never bats an eye at his job, making his character two-dimensional and making the end more flat, more perfunctory, and less convincing or meaningful. In the full-length version, though, he cares about justice, gives outlaws a choice (and a chance), and there is significant development on how he becomes so obsessed with finding Cuchillo that he crosses the boundary between justice and personal obsession. He then re-examines himself and the events in which he finds himself to come to a significant realisation near the end.