The Great Silence

 

Moviedrome Introduction

Film Details 

Release Date: 1968

Director: Sergio Corbucci

Stars:

Jean-Louis Trintignant as Silence – the mute gunslinger.

Klaus Kinski as Loco – leader of the bounty hunters.

Personal History

Unknown to me.

Current Review

A whole film on YouTube without adverts. This is the future. A striking spaghetti western mainly due to the setting. The Italian Dolomites taking the place of Snow Hill, Utah. A western set completely in the snow. The poor horses. They looked like they were ridden through drifts until they dropped.

A bleak (the bleakest) western of all time. A mute gunslinger is hired to take revenge on bounty hunters - led by the always striking Klaus Kinski - who are killing poor criminals hiding in the mountains.

Klaus is playful, polite and has the humorous lines. 

The gunman is an Italian (well French), showing the marks on his neck from a hanging. Hence his muteness and the Great Silence. He has an anachronistic magazine fed pistol that surely came from the C20th. 

They all like to shoot the thumbs of their adversaries so that they cannot shoot a pistol back.

It all goes as expected until the end.  Spoiler alert. All the villagers are held captive in the saloon. The sheriff has been dumped in a frozen lake. The gunslinger comes for the show-down. They shoot his hands off and then they murder him. Then the shoot all the hostages. The unique pistol is stolen by Klaus, although not the box holster.

There is an alternative ending for different regions that prefer a happy ending - which is beyond hilarious. Here, the sheriff reappears from his frozen grave  to save the day. The gunslinger is wearing medieval looking armour on his hands, thus protecting them. Lots of big smiles after the bounty hunters are eliminated.

You can take you choice as to which version you prefer.

Quirky Facts

Silenzio's distinctive rapid-firing pistol is the 7.63mm Mauser C96, nicknamed the "Broomhandle" for its distinctive wooden grip. The pistol was first produced in 1896, two years before the events of the film.... So I was wrong.

The ammo carried by Silenzio does not fit the M96 pistol.

Quotes

The ending card is as follows: "The massacres of 1898, year of the Great Blizzard, finally brought forth fierce public condemnation of the bounty killers, who, under the guise of false legality, made violent murder a profitable way of life. For many years there was a clapboard sign at Snow Hill which carried this legend: MEN'S BOOTS CAN KICK UP THE DUST OF THIS PLACE FOR A THOUSAND YEARS, BUT NOTHING MAN CAN EVER DO WILL WIPE OUT THE BLOOD STAINS OF THE POOR FOLK WHO FELL HERE."

Sheriff Gideon Burnett: Hey, you. That's no way to transport the dead. Against regulations. I'm Gideon Burnett, the new sheriff of Snow Hill.

Loco: Yes, I saw the star. You do look like a pig breeder, but with that on, you look more like a pig breeder who plays a sheriff.

Future Inspiration

I am not going down a spaghetti western route here - but I do have a film on the Sky Planner with Klaus in it - Nosferatu.  He is quite the distinctive actor.

It looks like he is in the next Moviedrome film - A Bullet for the General