Although Film Four's announcer claimed that last night's screening of Sergio Corbucci's THE GREAT SILENCE was a UK television first, the film was actually screened on BBC2 during the 90s under the title THE BIG SILENCE. The BBC's print was cut (the climactic massacre was heavily truncated), so it was nice to finally see this film in its complete form.

I was convinced I'd seen it before, so thanks for the explanation. However, wasn't it meant to be longer than the 101 minutes it ran (105 minutes adjusted for TV time.) Even the posted review on this site shows it as longer.

For some reason, the 'official' running times of spaghetti westerns are notoriously unreliable. I doubt that a longer version of THE GREAT SILENCE ever existed, but all I can tell you for certain is that Film Four's print ran two minutes longer than the BBC's.