Por Um Punhado de Dólares

Clint Eastwood was best known to American audiences for his role as Rowdy Yates in the series Rawhide. The series had ended and he was offered this strange new and challenging role in this movie of the American West that was made in Italy! Eastwood said his wife read that script and liked it. She said it was really "wild" because it was written in Western "slang" by Italians who really didn't understand English. He did this picture almost as a lark, and then read that it had become one of the biggest hits in Europe and then when it was released in America it outgrossed even the most popular current American films and made Clint Eastwood both a star and a phenomenon. Its strange to me that the best films ever made about the American west should have been made by Sergio Leone, an Italian who couldn't even speak English. Clint Eastwood said that all he knew in Italian was "arrevadershi" and all Leone knew in English was "goodbye" and yet these two combined to make an awesome film. As the poncho clad "Man With No Name", Eastwood created a role that hit us like a punch in the face and really re-defined the definition of the true Western hero. Eastwood tore out pages and pages of the dialogue and reduced his character to the bare bones to make him more mysterious. Leone said that he clad Eastwood in that sweat stained serepe to give him a cloak of mystery and put the cheroot in his mouth as a pendant between his two cold eyes and it worked like a charm. He broke all the rules and re-defined screen violence. I read that Leone wanted to make a blood and guts Western and show to the audience "I want them to feel what the hell it is like to get shot" and he does it! The scene where Clint is beaten to a pulp is one of the most graphic that you will ever see. It would have killed most other men!

A drifter gunman (Clint Eastwood) arrives in the Mexican village of San Miguel in the border of United States of America, and befriends the owner of the local bar Silvanito (Jose Calvo). The stranger discovers that the town is dominated by two gangster lords: John Baxter (W. Lukschy) and the cruel Ramón Rojo (Gian Maria Volontè – a.k.a. John Wells). When the stranger kills four men of the Baxter's gang, he is hired by Ramón's brother Esteban Rojo (S. Rupp) to join their gang. However, the stranger plots a scheme working for both sides and playing one side against the other.

"Per un Pugno di Dollari" is a milestone in the history of the cinema, since the genre of "Spaghetti Westerns" didn't really exist previous to this movie. Sergio Leone used the storyline of Akira Kurosawa's "Yojimbo", replacing the samurai without a master ("ronin") Sanjuro Kuwabatake performed by Toshirô Mifune and the scenario of the rural Japanese town in Nineteenth Century by the stranger without a name (Clint Eastwood) and a small Mexican town in the border of the Wild and Far West. The result is a magnificent and remarkable movie, and beginning of the trilogy of Clint Eastwood's character Joe, who proves that "a man with a rifle beats a man with .45", completed by "Per Qualche Dollaro in Più" and "Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo", . My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Por um Punhado de Dólares" ("For a Fistful of Dollars")

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 .

'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.