Il mercenario aka The Mercenary/A Professional Gun (1968)

[cigar joe]

Moorman got me curious so I just watched the Kino Lorber DVD of The Mercenary, its listed as 110 minutes but its missing a few scenes, the sequence where The Pollack has Curly strip naked after he shoots his gang is not there, and the sequence where The Pollack and Paco are discussing the revolution over the naked woman's ass as she lies in bed. There may be other things missing but those two were memorable.

That said the film is not holding up to my previous estimation, I'm rating it about 7/10 now, the Morricone score is still excellent but after just previously watching A Bullet For The General I found The Mercenary a bit too corny and a bit too contrived in spots in comparison. It does have some great sequences but overall A Bullet For The General is the more serious film. It's still better than 2/3rds of Companeros, but Milian I enjoy more than Musante.

[stanton]

What?
The Kino Lorber DVD has an actual runime of 110 min, but is still missing some scenes? And also damn good ones.

[cigar joe]

What?
The Kino Lorber DVD has an actual runime of 110 min, but is still missing some scenes? And also damn good ones.

Like I said, there maybe a few other trims, but those two are what I immediately noticed. The DVD transfer of what is there is though is beautiful. I haven't checked out the special features. I'll report back.

I basing this from the DVDr copy of the SPO Japanese release that I originally got from FrancoCleef.

[stanton]

Hmm, the Blu seems to have the usual 106 min. And the wonderful scene with the revolution explained by the naked girl's back is on one of the pics. Pics from the other scenes you mentioned are also there. And as far as I know the Lorber Blu is uncut.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film6/blu-ray_reviews_79/the_mercenary_blu-ray.htm

[cigar joe]

I take it back, I just popped the DVD in the computer and rechecked, I must have dozed off a couple of times, I found those two missing sequences. Forget everything I said about missing sequences. But I still stand by my downgrade, in comparison to A Bullet For The General.

[stanton]

And the runtime?

[cigar joe]

And the runtime?

1:46:17 so 106 minutes 17 seconds, but it says 110 minutes on the box.