HOLLYWOOD--I'm unsure whether there will be a screening of the restored director's cut, but it appears to be at a running-time of 157-8 minutes. This would make it as close to Sergio Leone's original-cut from 1972 as we're ever going to see. I'm wondering if the rape scene with Rod Steiger is intact? Reviews of the Italian restoration report it looks beautiful with all the colors corrected, very solid. This was the last Western Leone would ever direct, though it's rumored he directed a few scenes in "My Name is Nobody"(1974), then the rest was pre-production for "Once Upon a Time in America," his final masterpiece.
Duck, You Sucker (Leone's title) is no-less a masterpiece of cinema, an extraordinary fictionalization within the Mexican Revolution. MGM Home video is releasing it as a 2-DVD set towards the end of June, widescreen, which is the same treatment they gave to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Fistful of Dollars, and For a Few Dollars More restorations are already available on DVD in the EU, so we can expect those being the same quality. Leone's first film, "The Colossus of Rhodes" (1961), depicting the legendary wonder of the world as a political prison, is also due out this year. Every film directed by Sergio Leone rank among the greatest movies ever made.
PS: He was a Socialist, as most great filmmakers are.
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