The Bottom Line: While not the best Leone-Eastwood film, it is historically important as it establishes 'The Man With No Name' persona. A solid, entertaining Western.
Italian director Sergio Leone's best film is probably Once Upon a Time in America (1984). But he is best known for four 'spaghetti' westerns from the 1960s, filmed in Spain with American leads and Italian supporting actors.
Clint Eastwood, then best known for playing a tough guy on the television western "Rawhide", starred in the first three films. (The fourth film was Once Upon a Time in the West from 1969, which starred Charles Bronson and Henry Fonda instead.) Eastwood's grimacing 'man with no name' gunslinger, whose rasping speech is usually only limited to dry humor, typically leaves a trail of bodies behind him on his way to the next town.
Eastwood arrives alone in a small Western town near the Mexican border. The town is controlled by two rival gangs of mercenaries, one led by the Rojo brothers Ramon (Gian Maria Volonte) and Esteban (Sieghardt Rupp), the other led by sheriff John Baxter (Wolfgang Lukschy) and his hard-headed wife Consuelo (Margarita Lozano). Eastwood plays one side against the other, a dangerous game that results in much bloodshed.
Eastwood's character is amoral in comparison to the heroes from most classic 1950s westerns, such as Gary Cooper from High Noon or Alan Ladd from Shane. But he's not completely amoral. His victims are all bad guys. He risks his life to rescue 'innocents', such as Marisol (Marianne Koch) and the bartender Silvanito (Jose Calvo). His character is not quite unprecedented, as John Wayne tried to hang deserters in Red River (1948), while Jimmy Stewart only cared about recovering his rifle in Winchester '73 (1950).
A Fistful of Dollars was based on Yojimbo (1961), a Japanese film from director Akiro Kurosawa. It was the second Kurosawa film, set in feudal Japan, to be adapted into a famous western. The first was The Seven Samurai (1954), the story of which was remade as The Magnificent Seven (1960). A Fistful of Dollars was itself remade in 1996 as Last Man Standing, starring Bruce Willis.
A Fistful of Dollars also inspired two sequels, For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966). All three films were directed by Leone, starred Eastwood, and featured Ennio Morricone's unusual, riveting score. The trilogy proved to be as important to Morricone's career as it was to Eastwood's, as both moved on to long lasting Hollywood success. The films weren't seen in the U.S. until 1967, however, when United Artists finally purchased the distribution rights.
A Fistful of Dollars is a bit weaker than its two sequels, It was also a little weaker than Yojimbo, which was hardly Kurosawa's best film. The sets, costumes, cinematography and cast of A Fistful of Dollars doesn't compare as well with The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The original films were in Italian, and the lip synching is sometimes dreadful. However, it helps that Eastwood does his own dubbing. (67/100)
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