Coburns friend had this big mole on his forehead.
When Coburn kills him in the very last flashback, why does he have to shoot directly at the mole?? I found that very cheesy.
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yeah that really bugged me. Beyond being cheesy, it was also mean spirited. It felt out of place with the rest of the movie.
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When I first watched that scene I said to my self wouldnt it be funny if he shot the mole and well he did! No one messes with James Coburn he hates moles!
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Some people think he killed his friend for the betrayal or out of jealousy for his girl friend but i think the true mystery has been solved... The guy just hated people with moles and he judged him for that.
shareLater in the movie when asked why he let the doctor live Mallory says something to the effect that only once did he let his personal feelings dictate his actions in support of revolution; clearly he was referring to the incident of shooting his friend in Ireland. I took it to mean that he had changed after shooting his friend, and that the aftermath of this shooting on him was the reason why.
So the shooting was indeed out of place with Mallory's character in the rest of the movie since we are now looking at a man who has changed greatly as the result of his earlier actions. It was another example of why this is much more than just a straight action film filled with cardboard characters.
Hmm, I don't think he shot at the mole, I just think the overall impact of the bullet caused the mole to rupture...
shareI thought in an earlier flashback that the mole looked like a bullet hole ... and I wondered if John was recalling these memories of his friend with a bullet hole in his head for some reason. But I like the previous poster's theory on the mole rupturing since it seems clear that John shoots him in the abdomen.
shareThis, obviously.
I don't understand how many of you can't see that as well?
Personally, i assumed that he was firing a shotgun, since it seems to take down at least one of the soldiers, too, so it might have been a stray pellet.
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If you notice, most of the flashbacks start (the first one does for sure) by panning out and away from the mole... it is a sort of foreshadowing, although it's very subtle, it's there...
Another reason this movie is one of my all time faves.. Leone always had such detail, and it makes watching the movie again and again possible without becoming apathetic to it
.-'-.-'-.-Once it was death for prophet - now it's death for profit-.-'-.-'-.
If indeed it was a mole, it demonstrates yet another subtle piece of genius on Leone's part because the word "mole" has another meaning in the world of espionage: as in "spy" or "informant" & possibly even "traitor". This particular scene seemed quite apt given that Sean was the alleged informant. It was as if Leone was saying "yes, he is the traitor, the mole!" and used the visually obvious skin condition to emphasize this
And I looked & I beheld a pale horse & the name that sat on him was Death & Hell followed with him.
I found this interview with the late David Warbeck. He said that he was shot in the head.
Interesting website. It has a photo of the pub scene, however the photo must be an outtake since there is one soldier and one uniformed local policeman, which was not the case in the film.
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http://wconnolly.blogspot.com/2011/05/david-warbeck-acting-without-words-on.html
Q: How did you feel about it in those days?
Amazed! Well, initially amazed when I went off to do Sergio Leone's A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE and that sort of stuff. I wasn't really acting, I just got my head shot off!...
If you actually think it and put yourself properly into the situation, for some reason the eyes telegraph the intent of what's going on without any dialogue...
...if you remember the one I did with James Coburn in A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE; we had to do a whole complicated conversation with no words, where he has to tell me with his eyes that has to kill me because of the politics. And my eyes have to say "I want you to kill me and I understand why you have to kill me. I still love you as my best mate and friend. Please kill me. You have to." So he shoots me and in my last few seconds of dying, my eyes say "I forgive you, you had to do it." And he's saying "You're dying with my love." We had to do all that stuff and I thought this would never come over. I think probably the highest compliment I ever had in my life was in the Camden Town food market one day when one of the stall boys cried out (falls into mock barrow boy accent) "Oi! Dave! You're in that film!" And I said "Oh, yes, yes, yes," and he said, "that was brilliant that sequence." And he told me what I just told you and I was flabbergasted and I said "Oh, you've read the book or something?" and he said "No, no! That was brilliant that. It was really good that you could do that without words." So that's going back to everything with being "action man"; the trick here is telling a story through a million things; the head turns, hand on a gun, the way you respond to it. It's all visual stuff and I'm very, very lucky.
Wow. That's great stuff. Good to hear about an actor receiving acknowledgement like that from a paying punter for something that they might otherwise have felt was lost to obscurity.
@Twitzkrieg - Glasgow's FOREMOST authority
Easier to hide the squib there
You don't have to stand tall, but you have to stand up!
I'll tell you one thing: I was happy to see it go. It was very distracting.
Hey there, Johnny Boy, I hope you fry!