No blood in the flash back scene..

[Leonardo]

One thing that has always struck me as odd, since the first time I watched the movie in the sixties, was the fact that in the flash back scene when the guy gets shot, there is absolutely no blood on his white shirt, not even after the 3rd or 4th shot.
It's quite strange, especially considering that Leone was always very keen on showing the effects of a bullet wound. Maybe if he had a coloured shirt on, I wouldn't have noticed it so much, but his white shirt remains the same after all the bullets..Strange, isn't it?

[Rudra]

There are no bullet holes either!!!

[cigar joe]

from a previous post....

Perhaps we're meant to believe that this is Indio's wierdly romanticized version of the actual event (and he does romanticize over the incident in a very wierd way) but I find that this presentation trivializes the horror of the woman's rape/suicide.  I think I'd feel much more antipathy for Indio and sympathy for Mortimer if there had been just a little more gritty realism.
I think you've got this nailed, except that the flashbacks are intended to provide sympathy (or at least, understanding) for Indio. For him, the death of Mortimer's sister was not a horrible experience, it was his initiation into liebestod, or "death-love." Hence, the highly aestheticized nature of the flashbacks: Indio's treasured memories.

[mike siegel]

It always bothered me, even when I first saw the film on Super-8 back in 1979
I don't think it has anything to do with emotional content of the scene. Back in the 60s those kind of 'mistakes'
appeared in all kind of films, genres.. not matter how great the film maker was. Sometimes (quite often!) there
wasn't enough time for an effect. Sometimes they just didn't care. Squibs still were something new.

Would be cool if it was intended like that. But I doubt it. It is just one of his lesser shots. As much as
I love Leone, he was not perfect. Nobody was. Not even Bruce Lee.

[stanton]

The simple answer is that in these days showing blood was the exception (before it became the rule in the 70s after The Wild Bunch).

SWs were often extremely violent (often in a sadistic way), but the use of squibs was even in the 70s scarce, and generally there was less blood visible than in the US westerns. Sollima used early squibs in a few scenes in The Big Gundown (1967).

Leone used squibs first (without blood) in the suspenders scene in OuTW, and then with a lot of blood in the pup flashback of Giu la tresta. Apart from that the shoot-outs are all bloodless.

[Groggy]

It's never bothered me any more than bloodless violence in any other pre-Bonnie and Clyde flick.

[Groggy]

Leone used squibs first (without blood) in the suspenders scene in OuTW, and then with a lot of blood in the pup flashback of Giu la tresta. Apart from that the shoot-outs are all bloodless.

DYS definitely had some bloody squibs in the firing squad scenes at the train station.

[mike siegel]

The simple answer is that in these days showing blood was the exception (before it became the rule in the 70s after The Wild Bunch).

SWs were often extremely violent (often in a sadistic way), but the use of squibs was even in the 70s scarce, and generally there was less blood visible than in the US westerns. Sollima used early squibs in a few scenes in The Big Gundown (1967).

Leone used squibs first (without blood) in the suspenders scene in OuTW, and then with a lot of blood in the pup flashback of Giu la tresta. Apart from that the shoot-outs are all bloodless.

Yes, but it is not only the squibs that make the effect. A bit of make up for an insert does the effect. It usually did not bother me either, but this white shirt and everything, and no impact whatsoever... It is about the only case of that kind that bothered me when I was young. I still remember. It is a natural instinct to look out for blood when someone in a white dress gets shot. No need for squibs, just cut away to a reaction shot and then back to the bloody victim.

[Leonardo]

The simple answer is that in these days showing blood was the exception (before it became the rule in the 70s after The Wild Bunch).

SWs were often extremely violent (often in a sadistic way), but the use of squibs was even in the 70s scarce, and generally there was less blood visible than in the US westerns. Sollima used early squibs in a few scenes in The Big Gundown (1967).

Leone used squibs first (without blood) in the suspenders scene in OuTW, and then with a lot of blood in the pup flashback of Giu la tresta. Apart from that the shoot-outs are all bloodless.

If no blood, then at least a bullet hole or something that showed the wound. In the very same movie, Leone shot a close up of the bullet hole in the forehead of the guy shot by Lee Van Cleef...! It was also Leone himself who explained to an interviewer back in the sixties after being critizised for using excessive violence, that when somebody gets shot, you do actually see the effects of the bullet and that he wanted to show this on purpose... So there are only two explanations in my opinion: either lack of money (but it was his second movie and the budget was higher than FOD) or it was simply an oversight as Mike Siegel points out.

[LINCOLNS GRANDFATHER]

I always put it down to it being a dream as Cigar joe mentions. I've got no answer for our introduction to Ramon and the lack of red in FOD however.

[Dirty Rat]

Whatever the reason, it's bloody annoying...........

[dave jenkins]

Shouldn't that be "bloodlessly annoying"?

[Dirty Rat]

Very good.......!

[drinkanddestroy]

it's not a dream. Indio is recalling a traumatic incident from his past.

Saying it's supposed to be just a dream cuz there is no blood is, in my respectful opinion, silly. Firstly, even if it was a dream, why should there be no blood? Why should a dreamed-about death have no blood? Besides, if it's a dream, then are the events untrue? Is it not true that Indio is responsible for the death of Mortimer's sister? If so, why does Mortimer want revenge? Why are there pocket watches?

I think you're making something out of nothing. The fact is, as some have mentioned above, that showing blood was rare in movies of that period. Even though Leone's movies may have been groundbreaking for their depiction of violence, I don't recall much graphic illustrations of blood in any of the shootings in the Dollars movies. (Only in the torture scenes, and the Civil War scenes). It was very common then in all movies to have someone shoot, and the victim just falls to the ground. No blood, no wound, no hole. If that means it's a dream, then the whole damn movie is a dream.

p.s. there is a pretty big hole and blood when the sister commits suicide

[Dirty Rat]

Maybe the actor that got shot half a dozen times was actually a blow up doll?
He does seem to bounce all around the room and off the bed if memory serves correctly and that would explain the lack of blood