A Fistful of Dollars

'A Fistful of Dollars' is the first from Sergio Leone's trilogy about "The Man with No Name". The other two movies are 'For a Few Dollars More' and the famous 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'. Although 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' is considered the best this one comes pretty close. It is a remake of Akira Kurosawa's 'Yojimbo' and it comes also pretty close to that movie. It was also the first real Spaghetti Western.

Clint Eastwood is "The Man with No Name" who comes to a small town where two families run the place. Both families hate each other and he thinks he can make a lot of money with playing both parties against each other. This is basically the main story. There are some sub-plots, one of them involves Marisol (Marianne Koch) who is taken by a leader of one of the families. Her husband and child still live in the town.

For me it was not the story that made this movie interesting. It was the whole atmosphere. I like all Leone's westerns for that reason. Of course some are better than others, but they are never boring. The way we see Eastwood kill four man early in the movie is simply spectacular.

This no 'Once Upon a Time in the West' or even 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' but we have the same atmosphere, the same kind of score by Ennio Morricone and a Clint Eastwood at the beginning of a great career.

ALthough in many respects this film pales in comparison with Leone's later films, it is itself a brilliant cinematic achievement. In part, this is because its failings primarily appear to be due to constraints of budget (very small and highly uncertain) and time more than anything else. Even to the extent that the skills of Leone, Morricone, and others hadn't fully flowered yet, this film is incredible at how brilliantly it is handled for what is really a first-time go. Leone had worked on, and even directed, films before, but this is his first real foray in his own direction, and into a genre that he revolutionised and with which he became forever synonymous. Who can imagine westerns without at least thinking of Leone's films, while who can think of Leone without thinking of westerns (even though his last, and arguably greatest, film was a sort of gangster film)? Similarly, one should not criticize this film for being based on Yojimbo, for that film itself was based on an American story while A Fistful of Dollars really is very different in many key respects, not least of all Leone's visual style or his own sense of irony and symbolism derived from Italian precedents and Hollywood westerns.

We also see the nascent Leone visual style here, with the close-up style and contrast of close-ups and long shots appearing. This alone sets it apart from previous films, westerns and non-westerns alike, and still provides for great visual treats that one can appreciate today.

This film also ushered in Leone's obsession with details, hard faces, grungy people, etc., that also revolutionsed the genre.

This films also marks the first brilliant score of Ennio Morricone. It is here that he introduced the lonely whistling, guitar music, chorus, and unusual combinations and styles that developed into the music that has become in the U.S. synonymous with westerns and duels in the same way that Leone's visuals and themes have.

Despite its minor flaws, this is still a great film that is not only revolutionary but still great and fun to watch even today. Like Leone's other films, it is timeless.

One must also admit that it is amazing that in the U.S. an Italian film maker basing his films partly in Italian culture and an Italian composer could come to so define and be synonymous with this genre that Americans had considered so uniquely American, and highlight its underlying universality. That alone reveals the greatness of the films, of which this is the first.

The epitome of the S.W. is violent , beautifully crafted and exaggerated . This was the first S.W. to receive a major international release . It is a remake of Yojimbo (1961), which itself was based on 1929 novel "Red Harvest" by Dashiell Hammett . It pits ¨Man with no name¨ against two families that are feuding over business : the Baxter (Wolfgang Lukschy , Margarita Lozano) and the Rojo (Gian Maria Volonte , Antonio Pietro , Sieghardt Rupp) . Meanwhile , Eastwood saves a damsel in distress (Marianne Koch) , her husband (Daniel Martin) and son . ¨Man with no name¨ is helped by Silvanito (José Calvo) and an old gravedigger , Piripero (Joseph Egger).

This classic Western contains slow and deliberating filming , elaborate shoot-outs , and portentous close-ups of grime-encrustred faces with bloodbaths included . A remake to Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa , in fact he sued the filmmakers for breach of copyright . The impact of this Spaghetti opened the gate for the huge numbers of Italian-Spanish Western which made fortune for their producers and directors in the sixties and early seventies . This has been described as the first "spaghetti western", but when this film was made , there had already been about 25 such westerns produced in Italy . This one made Eastwood an international star and previously better-known for his running character in TV series ¨Rawhide¨. Leone did revive his career almost instantly on the strength of this film , though the role was formerly offered to Charles Bronson , Frank Wolff , Rory Calhoun , Steve Reeves and Richard Harrison . In fact , Richard Harrison was the one who suggested Clint Eastwood to Sergio Leone when the famed director was looking for the main actor , as Harrison said : Maybe my greatest contribution to cinema was not doing Fistful of Dollars , and recommending Clint for the part . Leone came to the set of ¨Rawhide¨ intending to recruit Eric Fleming for the lead in the upcoming "A Fistful of Dollars" , due to Fleming's off putting personality, Leone looked elsewhere , director Charles Marquis Warren suggested Eastwood as an alternative . As all of Eastwood's later Western and his ¨Dirty Harry¨ movies owe a considerable debt to Leone . Furthermore , here appears Leone's habitual secondaries , acting as ominous hoodlums , such as : Mario Brega , Aldo Sambrell , Antonio Molino Rojo , Lorenzo Robledo , Jose Canalejas , Frank Braña , among them.

It's a slick remake of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo , the plot is mainly ripped off from classic Japanese , as Kurosawa wrote to Leone reclaiming the copyright . Ultimatelly , the Toho (Yojimbo's producer) obtained the rights of exhibition and received 15% of the film's worldwide gross and exclusive distribution rights for Asian countries . ¨Fistful of dollars¨ was filmed in low-budget during seven weeks on location in Golden City (Sierra of Madrid) , and Almeria : Albaricoques and Tabernas ; besides , interiors located on Roman Cinecitta studios . In the premiere the main cast and technicians were replaced by American names as John Welles (Gian Maria Volonte) , master of arms Benny Reeves (Benito Stefanelli), Dan Savio (Ennio Morricone who composed a groundbreaking and streaking soundtrack) , designer production by Charles Simons (Carlo Simi) and even Bob Robertson (Sergio Leone) ; nowadays , justly stay the true names . For Leone enthusiastic with his usual trademarks , it's full of which made his films so memorable, others might find it a bit long but no one can deny its sense of style what achieved a great burst of world-wide popularity .

When Per un pungo di dollari, or A Fistful Of Dollars, was released in the mid-1960s, the term "Spaghetti Western" was coined as a putdown to these brazen new films that dared to recreate the Wild West in a place as far away as Italy. However, the last laugh was shared by the Italian directors, whose new style of portraying Colonial America in a realistic style rather than the romanticised way that was characteristic of John Wayne and his contemporaries will be remembered long after the films of the romanticised style are no more.

The plot is indescribably simple, as Clint Eastwood simply wanders into a town where gang warfare has stripped the economy to the point where only the local undertaker makes a profit and turns the two warring families against one another. Sergio Leone's best-known trademark, his dynamic use of widescreen ratios, comes to the fore here as Clint shares a film frame with no less than four of his enemies, all of whom have plenty to say to him and vice versa. This is one film where a pan and scan transfer is purely and simply vandalism. Some of the dialogue that is included here absolutely takes the cake for cleverness and wit, too. Asking four gunslingers to apologise to a horse, well, if it wasn't a man as famous for playing a gunslinger as Clint Eastwood, it'd be ridiculous.

Transplanting old Samurai legends into the Wild West works well, as you can see here. Simply having an old mercenary who travels the land in search of wrongs to right and battles to be fought makes the story a lot more compelling than the Westerns where we are told every iota of the characters' motivations in the hope that it will give them some depth. The element of the main hero not getting involved in every scuffle that the bad guys cause, our semi-nameless hero's ignoring a drunken thug shooting at a little boy being the most obvious example, was another master stroke, one that got Eastwood involved in doing the film to begin with. The confrontation at the end of the film works well, too, with pyrotechnics exploding all over the picture in a bright display that keeps the film powerful and yet focused at the same time.

All in all, Per un pungo di dollari gets nine out of ten from me. The lack of any interesting support characters does dull the story a little, but this mistake was quickly rectified in the two sequels. The addition of Lee Van Cleef also worked well, but in this effort, it's all Clint Eastwood, and while the rest of the cast are nowhere near as interesting, it's all a better watch than anything the Americans were lumping out at the time.

'A Fistful Of Dollars' is a wonderful movie which, despite having an enormous following of fans around the world, sometimes gets unfairly dismissed in my opinion. For two reasons - firstly because the second and third movie in Leone/Eastwood "Man With No Name" trilogy ('For A Few Dollars More' and 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly') are so damn good it's easy to overlook this one. Despite being made on a much tighter budget and being less ambitious than the sequels to follow, it's still one of the greatest westerns ever made in my opinion. The second reason is the Yojimbo thing. Now movie buffs frequently slam 'A Fistful Of Dollars' as being a rip off of Kurosawa's 'Yojimbo', which I think is extremely misleading. I'm not disputing that Leone was familiar with Kurosawa (I have no idea one way or the other), but one name I rarely hear ANYONE mention is Dashiel Hammett. Hammett's hard boiled crime classic 'Red Harvest' was published THIRTY YEARS before 'Yojimbo' and features the same central premise of an anti-hero playing two rival groups off against each other. So if anyone deserves acknowledgement as uncredited inspiration for Leone (AND Kurosawa) it's Hammett. Anyway, this is an absolutely brilliant movie and it launched Clint Eastwood, a popular TV actor, into being a major movie star, and likewise put Sergio Leone on the map. I can't recommend 'A Fistful Of Dollars' highly enough, it's pure entertainment, and very, very cool!