Comparing the two English dubs of A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die (1972)
One aspect of dubbing that has always intrigued me is when a film, for whatever reason, ends up receiving more than one English language dub. Throughout the 1960s in particular, this fate befell many an Italian film, but to me, one of the most fascinating examples of this practice is actually from the 1970s: Tonino Valerii’s spaghetti western A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die (1972) starring James Coburn, Bud Spencer and Telly Savalas. So let’s take a closer look at this film’s different English language dubs, shall we? The film A kind of spaghetti western take on The Dirty Dozen (1967), A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die is set during the American Civil War and stars James Coburn in his second Italian western, following Sergio Leone’s Duck, You Sucker! (1971), in the role of Pembroke, a disgraced former Union colonel who is branded as a coward after he surrendered the strategic outpost Fort Holman to Confederate Major Ward (Telly Savalas) without a sin...