Observations from my rewatch of the Big Gundown (la resa dei conti), this time in the full Italian cut:
the biggest difference between the full Italian cut and the extended US cut is the opening scene, which is much longer in the Italian cut. Instead of just shooting the three outlaws, Corbett places 3 bullets in front of them and offers them a choice: fight him in a one-on-one duel, one after the other, or be hanged like their contact. I wonder if they cut this out because the decided it made the protagonist appear too cold-blooded.
In this cut Corbett also doesn't just randomly decide to spare the third guy, but only after the guy actually begs him to, because he's only 20 and he didn't actually shoot anybody during the robbery. Ofc then the guy tries to kill Corbett the moment he turns his back and Corbett has to shoot him anyway.
The only other notable difference between the US cut and the Italian cut is that in the Italian version the guy who was going to invest in the main villain's railroad actually gives a reason for why he calls off the hunt and rides away: Corbett killing the main villain is going to lose him money, but not enough for him to care. He leaves because, while he could take Corbett and Cuchillo just through sheer numbers, he simply doesn't have a dog in this race anymore. In the US cut he just leaves without a word. It's not a great explanation, but at least it's an explanation and it makes the denouement way less confusing.
I was hoping the Italian cut would offer a bit more context on the Austrian baron, but the only extra line we get about him is that he was made to leave the Imperial army. Which, ok then, stay a mystery, that's fine.
btw. I got the 2024 Blu-Ray set, which I'm very happy with. It's a 2-disc set containing 3 different cuts (both US cuts and the full Italian cut) and you have the option to watch the Italian cut either with the Italian audio or with English audio with the Italian audio interspersed for scenes that don't exist in the extended US cut + softcoded (optional) English subtitles for those scenes.
There's a bunch of extras included, including multiple audio commentaries and some features with Tomas Milian and the director. IDK if I'll ever look at any of these, but the fact that there's any special features on this set at all shows that the people who made this set obviously cared about this movie.
I forgot how much I love a lot of the side characters in this movie, including the baron, but also:
Little Sarah shooting Corbett, no questions asked:
Cuchillo's wife, who spends a long minute ranting about her husband and cursing his name, but is ready to fight the moment Corbett mentions that he'll be hanged if Corbett catches him
And, most importantly:
Brother Smith & Wesson, my beloved. Once-scene wonder.
