A Professional Gun [Il Mercenario] [The Mercenary] **** (1968, Franco Nero, Tony Musante, Jack Palance) – Classic Movie Review 7,812

Sergio Corbucci’s 1968 film A Professional Gun [Il Mercenario] [The Mercenary] is a notable spaghetti Western, with strong performances from Franco Nero, Tony Musante and Jack Palance.

Director Sergio Corbucci’s 1968 film A Professional Gun [Il Mercenario] [The Mercenary] is a notable spaghetti Western, with strong performances from Franco Nero (as Sergei Kowalski the Polish) and Jack Palance (as Ricciolo ‘Curly’), the story’s rival mercenaries, and Tony Musante as the bad-tempered revolutionary guerrilla general called Paco Román, who hires Kowalski. It is a first-rate example of director Corbucci’s imaginative work.

Good though Palance and Musante are, the film belongs to Franco Nero, who enjoys a showy role as Sergei ‘Polack’ Kowalski, the well-groomed, greedy mercenary of the original Italian and American titles. It was released in the UK in 1970 as A Professional Gun, perhaps because they thought the British didn’t know what a mercenary was.

Plus there is a memorable Ennio Morricone score, great visuals shot in Technicolor by Alejandro Ulloa, a convincing Mexican setting, the usual Sixties spaghetti bloodbath, some oddball humour, dodgy sexual politics (Palance plays a gay nasty) and an exciting, well-constructed yarn, written by Sergio Corbucci, Luciano Vincenzoni, Adriano Bolzoni and Sergio Spina.

Also in the cast are Giovanna Ralli, Eduardo Fajardo, Bruno Corazzari, Franco Giacobini, Franco Ressel, and Álvaro de Luna.

The story is by Franco Solinas and Giorgio Arlorio, written in 1968. It was shot in Almería and Madrid, Spain.

A Professional Gun [Il Mercenario] [The Mercenary] is directed by Sergio Corbucci, runs 105 minutes, is made by Profilms 21, Produzioni Europee Associate (PEA) and Produzioni Associate Delphos, is released by PEA (Italy) and United Artists (UK and US), is written by Sergio Corbucci, Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Spina and Adriano Bolzoni, based on a story by Franco Solinas and Giorgio Arlorio, is shot by Alejandro Ulloa, is produced by Alberto Grimaldi, and is scored by Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai.

Franco Nero was originally intended to play as Paco Román and James Coburn was cast as the mercenary (originally an American). But Coburn dropped out through disagreements over whether he or Nero would be top-billed. So Nero took over as the mercenary, who now became Polish.

Nero previously worked with Corbucci on Django (1965). Corbucci is also known for the 1968 masterwork Il Grande Silenzio [The Great Silence] [The Great Silence].

Nero also starred in the 1971 Western comedy film Long Live Your Death [Viva la muerte… tua!] [Don’t Turn the Other Cheek!], a parody of ‘political’ Spaghetti Westerns such as A Professional Gun.

The cast

The cast are Franco Nero as Sergei “Polack” Kowalski, Tony Musante as Paco Román, Jack Palance as Ricciolo (Curly), Giovanna Ralli as Columba, Eduardo Fajardo as Alfonso García, Franco Giacobini as Pepote, Álvaro de Luna as Ramón, Raf Baldassarre as Mateo, Joe Kamel as Sebastián, Franco Ressel as Studs, and Bruno Corazzari.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7,812

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