MovieChat Forums > Giù la testa (1972) Discussion > Scene missing after bridge fight?

Scene missing after bridge fight?

posted 15 years ago by eagle150
7 replies | jump to latest

Hi everybody,

I have a version of this movie on DVD that is 2:30:40 long. In it, directly after the scene of the fight at the bridge where most of those soldiers are killed, there is a cut to Juan walking around in some cave and talking about his dead children which are seen a little later. He then continues to grab a machine gun, run outside and shoot at the soldiers supposedly approaching.
I don't get that. Is there a scene missing between the bridge scene and the cave scene? If not, what the hell is supposed to have happened in between those two scenes? I mean, one moment they kill hoards of soldiers, the other their comrads have been killed and most of the people they freed earlier are being executed? I am pretty sure there must be a scene missing!

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance,
Joe

[–] Locomotiva1 15 years ago

As far as I know, no deleted scene existed anywhere.

In my personal opinion, story worked as is: Juan and Sean/John stopped a column of troops at the bridge, but not the army.
While they gun down that trucks in pursue, other troops went to the cave and killed the "rebels".

It's a big departure from "old style" western movies: a good ol' movie had the heroes at the pass stopping the bad guys and saving the day, the families and so on.
Here, the "heroes" put up a suicide mission for nil. Times changed, there is no more space for that kind of heroes.

[–] blackfunkster 15 years ago

According to the novelisation of the screenplay, by James Lewis, there IS a missing sequence between the bridge ambush and the cave.

What happens is, Dr Villega rides into a town at night, on his horse/buggy, and is captured and tortured by Gunther Ruiz (known as "Gutirriez" in the novel) and his men into giving up the location of the revolutionaries' hideout at the cave.

I read an article somewhere on the net that said that this sequence was in fact filmed, but dropped from the final film. I know this to be true because the website had a black-and-white photograph of Villega tied to his chair, with a silhouette outline of Gunther Ruiz against a wall behind him.

[–] bent-aarhusc 14 years ago

All Leone's films are operas. Some even said that Once....West is an opera in which the arias are stared instead of sung - and in that film every main character had his/her own theme (Harmonica, Frank, Cheyenne, Jill)- when the theme is played, you don't have to open your eyes to know who is the 'center person' - e.g. when Harmonica hands over Cheyenne to The Law you know Cheyenne is coming down the stairs even before you see him.
You have a series of scenes that are 'linked', but not necessarily logically. The scenes are there to present an evolution of the story line, but you should not wonder how the caharcters move from one scene to another. In Duck You you could wonder how the whole Miranda family suddenly has boarded a train. Of course, because we have to meet for the first time Dr. Villega.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] andrew_jakobs 13 years ago

Thank god, I'm not the only one, this was such a plothole, it actually pretty much tore me out of the story/movie which is very VERY bad filmmaking..
I don't know if it's explained in the commentarytrack tough..

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Marmadukebagelhole 12 years ago

A plot hole is where a whole something is missing from the story, the depiction or description of which is necessary to explain otherwise inexplicable or implausible developments. Such as, a man jumping out of a plane without a parachute and reappearing later on without his landing safely on the ground either depicted onscreen or even referred to. Or when someone who is in the middle of the desert without transport or supplies and two weeks walk from anywhere, making it to the courtroom in less than 24 hours and in time to provide the vital piece of evidence to save someone from being wrongfully hanged for a crime they didn't commit and the seemingly miraculous being neither depicted on screen or referred to.

John and Juan obliterating a company of enemy soldiers but being unable to prevent another group of soldiers from discovering the refugees and massacring them is perfectly plausible and easy to imagine. Therefore it's no a plot hole. Conventionally a film-maker might like to depict those developments fully (as was intended) but it is not absolutely necessary.

@Twitzkrieg - Glasgow's FOREMOST authority