Duck, You Sucker!
In 1971, Steiger played a chauvinistic big game hunter, explorer and war hero opposite Susannah York in Mark Robson's "Happy Birthday, Wanda June", before agreeing to star alongside James Coburn as Mexican bandit Juan Miranda in Sergio Leone's "Duck, You Sucker!", which was alternatively titled "A Fistful of Dynamite". Leone was initially dissatisfied with his performance in that he played his character as a serious, Zapata-like figure. As a result, tension grew between Steiger and Leone, including one incident that ended with Steiger walking off during the filming of the scene where Juan's stagecoach is destroyed. After the film's completion, Leone and Steiger were content with the final result, and Steiger praised Leone for his skills as a director. Steiger auditioned for the role of Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather" (1972), a film adaptation of Italian American author Mario Puzo's 1969 novel of the same name, but Puzo felt that Steiger was too old for the part and rejected him.