Duck You Sucker

“Duck You Sucker” was the title Sergio Leone gave to the second-to-last film he made, a story about the Mexican Revolution: he chose it because for some reason he got it in his head that it was a common expression in America, even though his two stars, Rod Steiger and James Coburn, told him it wasn’t. Actually it was called “ Fistful of Dynamite” between 1972-2003, until the original title was brought back for the film’s restoration in 2003. The 2-disc DVD special edition only became available in the States in 20

I saw it when it was first released in the early seventies. I was impressed then and I still am, and I have long wondered why it doesn’t get the recognition that it deserves. The film has a more serious intent and tone, thematic complexity, character development, and authority than the Spaghetti Westerns he made with Clint Eastwood in the sixties; movies that were made strictly for entertainment, which did not try to make a statement within the Western genre, although they certainly revived the western as subject matter for film. His final two films, “Duck You Sucker” and “Once Upon a Time in America,” are darker, full of melancholy, and more focused on consequences. I also think Leone was very much aware of Sam Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch,” as for example, both narratives take place in approximately the same time period, 1913, prior to the First World War, a time of transition between the closing of the frontier and the modern urban world. There is also a similar attention paid to technology: Sean Mallory (James Coburn), the Irish revolutionary, shows up in a cloud of dust riding a motorcycle not a horse, just as the Wild Bunch are utterly amazed when they see their first motor car. Both General Mapache and Juan Miranda (Rod Steiger) have to learn their way around a machine gun, a new weapon of mass destruction. There are set pieces in both films dealing with spectacular blowing up of bridges--shades of “The Bridge Over the River Kwai.” Both films were considered too long by their producers and vital parts were cut out; they were later put back in. There are two versions of “Once Upon a Time in America,” a butchered 2-hour version and a 4-hour version, which is a great film.

The Eastwood trilogy was extremely popular and made Leone a lot of money. But the trio of films that came afterwards--“Once upon a Time in the West,” a saga that had Henry Fonda as a steely-eyed ruthless killer, “Duck You Sucker,” a title that seemed to suggest a comic western, and “Once Upon a Time in America,” a long movie about Jewish gangsters in New York City in the 1920s—did not do nearly as well. However, over time their quality has been recognized and all three are now considered by many to be his best work.

The movie opens with a scene that once again evokes “The Wild Bunch.” Peckinpah opened his film with a bunch of kids playing with two scorpions being smothered by thousands of biting ants within an enclosure; they eventually burn the insects by piling straw on them. Leone has Juan Miranda, a poor peasant who looks poor, scruffy, and sweaty, piss on a tree trunk crawling with ants, destroying them not by fire but by a deluge. A large fancy stagecoach filled with members of the ruling class picks up the bare-footed Juan; they treat him like a mongrel dog and speak about him as if he isn’t there. Class issues raise their ugly head, as Leone shows his left-wing sympathies. To these plutocrats the peasants are nothing but animals. Minutes later Juan’s six children stop the stagecoach, kill the driver, invade the interior under the direction of their father,

rob the passengers and strip them of their clothes and send them off naked. For good measure Juan rapes the only woman on board, although she doesn’t seem to mind too much. ‘Animals’ aren’t so bad after all.

Then Sean Mallory shows up, a man who happens to be an expert with explosives, dynamite and nitroglycerine. Juan’s eyes light up when he meets Mallory, who he calls ‘John,’ because he has a dream: to rob the bank in Mesa Verde. Juan feels running into him is an encounter with the perfect collaborator. Sean sees Juan in a similar fashion but with a different agenda. He does help Juan get inside the bank but there is no money inside, which Sean knew, but there are hundreds of political prisoners in rooms in the basement that are released by Juan and his boys. When Juan emerges from the bank he is regarded as a hero. It is his first step away from his original personality. Sean introduces him to other insurgents in Mesa Verde and, although he feels out of place, he throws in with their plans to fight the Federales. The ex-IRA agent mentors the former carefree bandit who starts acting like a revolutionary. But as the tale unfolds we discover there are consequences to this transformation. After John and Juan blow up that bridge, they discover that the Federal troops have killed their compatriots, and that includes Juan’s six boys. It’s not only a devastating loss for Juan; it is a terrible guilt trip for Sean, because he knows he is the agent behind Juan’s change. There is one exchange before they find the dead boys and the others when Juan tells his new friend that the intellectuals come up with the slogans and plans but it is the poor who end up dying while the intellectuals go on alive. “The people who read the books survive.” Sean throws the book he was reading into the mud, as he knows there is an element of truth in what the uneducated Juan said.

The explosions become bigger and more spectacular as the story goes on. First it is the stagecoach, then it’s the bridge, and finally a train loaded with explosives rams another train loaded with a thousand Federal troops. Juan is in the thick of the battle and as Sean runs to join him he gets shot in the back by Colonel Ruiz, the Nazi-like bad guy behind all the killings of compatriots. Juan kills him and rushes to his friend who is mortally wounded. Juan runs for help but when he is out of range, Sean blows himself up with his remaining dynamite in his duster. It is a spectacular blast of swirling red and yellow colors, a fit end for a man like Sean. The last image in the film is Juan’s face looking back at the blast and then straight at the audience. He mutters, “What about me?”

There is much in the movie that I haven’t touched on; there are many layers of meaning and some cross referencing to paintings by Goya and Manet, to other movies, and to Leone’s experience during World War II. If I had any problem with the film it was with some of the editing and with Rod Steiger’s performance. Steiger was chosen over Eli Wallach because he was a “hot property” at the time. Leone had to temper Stieger’s tendency to over emote and to use too many baroque gestures. He was well known as a method actor. But the two men worked it out and were satisfied with the end product. His expansiveness and garrulousness worked in counterpoint to Coburn’s more introspective and quiet interpretation of Mallory’s personality. Jason Robards was Leone’s first choice to play Mallory, but he was busy with a film already. It was Henry Fonda who persuaded Coburn to go after the role because it was such a treat for an actor to work with Leone. I’d say the main theme of the movie is the nature of friendship between men, and there is very good chemistry between the two American actors. They became ‘blood brothers’ despite their enormous differences, real human beings, not icons like the no-name gunslinger of the Spaghetti Westerns. The friendship takes place within a political context. The bandit with a family who was only interested in money becomes transformed into a fledgling revolutionary that must go forward without his mentor. He is left in an ambiguous state but it’s real. I thought of that wonderful last line in “The Wild Bunch,” when Sykes come back to “the bloody porch” to find Deke Thornton, the last survivor of the original gang. Sykes has joined the Mexican revolution and invites Thornton to join too. He says to him, “It ain’t like it used to be, but it’ll do.” Juan Miranda could agree with that sentiment.

The last gesture that Sean/John made toward Juan was to return to him a chain with a crucifix that he had ripped off his neck when his children died. Meaning: keep the faith, baby.