Duck, You Sucker

My viewing of 1971's DUCK, YOU SUCKER was an inspiring, exhilarating experience.  For many reasons, but as it played on it became evident that I was being reminded of a Quentin Tarantino movie.  Not coincidental, as QT has named Sergio Leone as his favorite director.  The future auteur absorbed Leone's filmography sufficiently for his influence to be felt in nearly every nook and cranny of his work.  I am a big fan of both men's stuff and the divide between them became almost indistinguishable after I finished this film, which truly feels as if Quentin had traveled back to the late '60s/early '70s to create it.

DUCK, YOU SUCKER aka A FISTFULL OF DYNAMITE, is the story of Juan and John.  Respectively, a reprehensible Mexican criminal and a former IRA explosives expert who form an uneasy partnership to rob the Mesa Verde National Bank.  Juan Miranda (Rod Steiger) is established as a dirty outlaw who leads his family members as con-conspirators on various roadside robberies.  One includes a group of patricians who bombard him with social and racial epithets.  He retaliates by humiliating the men and raping the woman.  Sounds like familiar Leone territory to me.

We soon meet John Mallory (James Coburn), the Irish expatriate who is prospecting the mountains for silver.  He is quite deft with nitroglycerine and dynamite, and wants nothing to do with Juan, but soon the latter blackmails him into the aforementioned plot.  Too bad that once the bank doors are blasted away, only political prisoners are to be found.  Lots of 'em.   It's 1913 Mexico and Juan now becomes the inadvertent hero of the Revolution.  An unwanted honor at first, but soon the rogue finds his conscience and soul.

Betrayals occur, and rebels are massacred.  We learn in flashback that John was involved in a similar scenario back in Ireland, and had to flee.  Is his conscience still intact?

DUCK, YOU SUCKER, a huge, sprawling motion picture, has this interesting re-occurring motif  of a cheeky moment giving way to/being suffused by an unexpectedly poignant narrative. There are plenty of incredible action sequences and bits of humor, but by the time Leone gets to the deliberate scene where Juan and John discover how deadly serious the revolution has become, the film becomes something more than just a comic strip.  I was blindsided, having merely expected an amoral bit of exploitation.

Many have criticized Steiger's performance (and that he played a Mexican), but I thought it not too broad or ridiculous.  Quite effective at times.  Coburn is wonderful, with his multiple flashbacks really fleshing out a seemingly simple character.  Kudos to Leone and his co-screenwriters, too.  But his direction, flashy one moment and more disciplined the next, is what really makes this film a lost classic, one that was ignored during its original release and sadly still undervalued in the Leone canon.  Obviously Quentin felt this way long before the rest of us caught up with it.

P.S. - Another great (if unusual) Ennio Morricone score, one that defies you to get it out of your head.  Possibly his most cinematic?