The Mercenary (film)

The Mercenary (Italian: Il mercenario), known in the UK as A Professional Gun, is a 1968 Zapata Western film directed by Sergio Corbucci. The film stars Franco Nero, Jack Palance, Tony Musante and Giovanna Ralli, and features a musical score by Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai. The film takes place during the Mexican Revolution and is a well-known example of the Zapata Western subgenre of the Spaghetti Western.

The Mercenary was released the same year as Corbucci's more popular western, The Great Silence (Il grande silenzio). The film is often compared to Corbucci's 1970 film, Compañeros (Vamos a matar, compañeros), which features Nero and Palance in similar roles, and Tomas Milian in a role similar to Musante's in The Mercenary. Both films also had Morricone as the composer, Alejandro Ulloa as the cinematographer and Eugenio Alabiso as the editor. The Mercenary's theme music L'arena was later used by Quentin Tarantino in the 2004 film Kill Bill: Volume 2.

Plot

On the northern side of the Mexico–United States border, Sergei "Polack" Kowalski, a well-groomed, greedy mercenary, attends a circus performance where he recognizes the show's lead rodeo clown as Paco Roman. During the performance, Kowalski reminisces on how he and Paco fought together as revolutionaries against the Mexican Government.

Ennio Morricone

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Ennio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI (Italian: [ˈɛnnjo morriˈkoːne]; born 10 November 1928) is an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, and former trumpet player, born in Rome. He composes a wide range of music styles, making him one of the most versatile, experimental and influential composers of all time, working in any medium. Over the past seven decades, Morricone has composed over 500 scores for cinema and television, as well as over 100 classical works. His filmography includes over 70 award-winning films, including all Sergio Leone films since the Dollars Trilogy (such as Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in America), all Giuseppe Tornatore films (since Cinema Paradiso), The Battle of Algiers, 1900, Exorcist II, Days of Heaven, several major films in French cinema, in particular the comedy trilogy La Cage aux Folles I, II, III and Le Professionnel, The Thing, The Mission, The Untouchables, Bugsy, In the Line of Fire, Disclosure, Mission to Mars, Ripley's Game, The Best Offer, and The Hateful Eight.

The Mercenary

The Mercenary may refer to:

Spaghetti Western

Spaghetti Western, also known as Italian Western or Macaroni Western (primarily in Japan), is a broad subgenre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by American critics and other countries because most of these Westerns were produced and directed by Italians.

According to veteran Spaghetti Western actor Aldo Sambrell, the phrase 'Spaghetti Western' was coined by Spanish journalist Alfonso Sánchez. The denomination for these films in Italy is western all'italiana (Italian-Style Western). Italo-Western is also used, especially in Germany. The term Eurowesterns may be used to also include Western movies that were produced in Europe but not called Spaghetti Westerns, like the West German Winnetou films or Ostern Westerns. The majority of the films were international co-productions between Italy and Spain, and sometimes France, Germany, Yugoslavia, or the United States.

Western music

Western music may refer to:

See also