The Big Gundown

This article is about the spaghetti western film. For the album by John Zorn, see The Big Gundown (album).

The Big Gundown
Directed by	Sergio Sollima
Produced by	Edward Lewis
Written by	Sergio Sollima Sergio Donati
Starring	Lee Van Cleef Tomas Milian Walter Barnes Gerard Herter
Music by	Ennio Morricone
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	1966
Running time	107 min. original version
Language	English and Italian

The Big Gundown (Italian title: La resa dei conti - roughly The Settling of Accounts) is a 1966 spaghetti western directed by Sergio Sollima and starring Lee Van Cleef and Tomas Milian. It was released by Columbia Pictures in the US as a double feature with A Time for Killing.

It falls in to the subgenre called Zapata Westerns which are spaghetti westerns with some political context usually concerning the Mexican revolution.

Some critics, such as Leonard Maltin, consider the film 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, a charming rogue accused of rape and murder. Run Man Run (1968) was a sequel which brought back Milian without Van Cleef.

Plot

Impressed by Corbett's (Van Cleef) unexcelled reputation of bringing criminals to justice and execution without question, a local powerbroker named Mr. Brokston (Walter Barnes) meets Corbett. Brokston offers Corbett his backing to run as a Senator in exchange for tracking down Cuchillo the rapist and murderer of a 12 year old girl who has absconded to Mexico.

In close pursuit, Corbett and Cuchillo have several encounters where each learns to respect the other.

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 widescreen fan-made, unlicensed 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 for which English dialogue was not found remained in Italian, with English subtitles.

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.

External links

• The Big Gundown at the Internet Movie Database