Movie Review: A Fistful of Dollars (1964) directed by Sergio Leone
San Miguel, a village near the Rio Bravo in northeast Mexico, is an unhappy place. There are more widows than wives, and the only man making an honest living is Piripero the coffin maker (Joseph Egger). The trouble is that there is not just one criminal gang in town, but two, the rumrunner Rojo brothers, and the gunrunner Baxter gang. Into this tense situation rides the Man with No Name (Clint Eastwood). He sizes up the village, and realizes that he can manipulate the gangs and earn…a fistful of dollars.
With the bartender Silvanito (Jose Calvo) as his only confidant, the Man skillfully plays both sides, offering his services first to the Rojos, and then secretly to the Baxters. With a chestful of Army gold at stake, it’s easy to make the bodies pile up. But the Man takes pity on Ramon Rojo’s (Gian Maria Volante) captive Marisol (Marianne Koch, who gets second billing despite a relatively small part) and arranges her escape, which leads the Man into the hands of the enemy.
This was the first of Sergio Leone’s “spaghetti Westerns” made in part because Hollywood had started moving away from the dominance of Westerns in the American film industry, and the Westerns that were coming out from the U.S. were “thinky.” Leone wanted plenty of action and surprises, and he certainly delivered! Much of the movie’s structure, plotline and characters were lifted from Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961) which was in turn a very loose adaptation of Red Harvest (1929) by Dashiell Hammett. Leone made this movie his own with connotations of Italian and Spanish history, particularly their involvement in World War Two.
This was a very different sort of Western than American audiences were used to, with a morally ambiguous protagonist who winds up being actively punished for momentarily thinking of someone other than himself. Although not overly bloody, it’s brutally violent–more people are shot in the opening credits than in most Hollywood Westerns’ entire plots. The Man was no invincible hero, having to literally crawl and hide and beg for help at one point due to his injuries.
The movie is well shot, and Ennio Morricone’s music is justly famous (though a couple of scenes early on have a bit too much of it.) Clint Eastwood was born for the part of the Man with No Name, and the other actors do a good job. Sadly, some of the dubbing isn’t quite up to snuff.
Content notes: some of the violence is bloody and it’s generally brutal, there’s an extended torture scene, and while it’s not called rape and not on screen, it’s pretty clear what’s happening to Marisol.
Recommended for Western fans who enjoy moral ambiguity and a plot that cuts out a lot of explanation in favor of moving ahead.
