The Big Gundown
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Big Gundown (Italian title: La resa dei conti - roughly Account Rendered) is a 1966 spaghetti western directed by Sergio Sollima and starring Lee Van Cleef and Tomas Milian.
It falls in to the subgenre called Zapata Westerns which are spaghetti westerns with some political context usually concerning the Mexican revolution.
Many consider The Big Gundown one of the finest spaghetti westerns second only to Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy". It was the first film Van Cleef made following The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and was his first leading man or hero role. Tomas Milian played Cuchillo who is a charming rogue accused of rape and murder. Van Cleef as Jonathan Corbett hunts him down to help further his own political ambitions. But all is not what it seems.
Run Man Run (1968) was a sequel which brought back Tomas Milian without Van Cleef.
- Tagline: Mr. Ugly Comes To Town!
DVD releases and US cuts
The Big Gundown was cut down to 93 minutes for its US theatrical release. An 89 minute version currently airs on American television. The original European release was 106 minutes. US viewers were therefore deprived of Sollima's complete vision of the film.
In 2005, a Canadian fan who goes by the name of "Franco Cleef" released a fan made, unlicenced DVD of the film that many believe is currently the definitive English version of the film for North American audiences. Scenes that were originally cut from the film were restored. English dialogue was also added to most of these scenes. The scenes in which English dialogue was not found remained in Italian while subtitled in English.
Koch Media has also released the full cut of the film as part of a box set with 2 other Sergio Sollima spaghetti westerns for the European market. The release contains English subtitles but no English soundtrack option.
Koch Media is slated to release a stand alone release in April 2008.
