For a bunch of dollars

For a Fistful of Dollars (in Italian, Per un pugno di dollari) is a 1964 Italian-Spanish-German film co-production Directed by Sergio Leone, with Clint Eastwood and Gian Maria Volonté in the main roles.

This film laid the foundations of the spaghetti western as a film subgenre and launched both Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone to fame. It is the first installment of the Dollar Trilogy. Ennio Morricone's music received the Nastro d'argento award from the Sindacato Nazionale Giornalisti Cinematografici Italiani.

Akira Kurosawa accused and denounced Sergio Leone for being based on his film Yojimbo (1961), for which the film had legal problems.

Synopsis

After the death of President Benito Juárez in 1872, chaos engulfed Mexico.

A stranger arrives in the small border town of San Miguel. Silvanito, the local innkeeper, tells him about a dispute between two families that are competing to gain control of a town of dead men and widows: the Rojo brothers (Benito, Esteban and Ramón) and the sheriff of the town. city, John Baxter. The outsider decides to offer himself to each family to earn money, and demonstrates his speed and accuracy with his gun on both sides, easily shooting four Baxter family men, including the three who insulted him as he entered town, which awakens the interest of the Reds.

When a Mexican military company arrives with gold to trade for weapons, the Rojos rob and kill everyone and try to pacify the town so that no one suspects a robbery, but the stranger has other plans.

Creation of the spaghetti western

Although it was not the first western to be produced in Italy, it was the first to be distributed internationally. Its unexpected success laid the foundations for a new subgenre derogatorily called spaghetti western. Although reviled by critics, Sergio Leone's visual style, Ennio Morricone's music and Clint Eastwood's peculiar interpretation enjoyed great prestige among the public and, over time, among critics themselves. The three of them then shot two other films with similar themes and aesthetics, Per qualche dollaro in più and Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (which together with Por a fistful of dollars make up the so-called "Dollar Trilogy"), starring the man known as "man with no name", who established a style imitated later with more or less fortune for numerous filmmakers: innovations in the positioning of the camera, unbridled violence, lack of morality of the protagonist, simplicity in the dialogues, cross glances in extreme close-ups, among other characteristics. The success allowed Leone to film movies with a higher budget, although these three are the ones that brought him the most fame.

Shooting locations

Sergio Leone had already shot in Madrid "The Last Days of Pompeii (1959) and "The Colossus of Rhodes" (1961), when he plans to tackle his first western in Spain. Much of it was filmed in the now-defunct town called "Golden City", a western town built for movies in the municipality of Hoyo de Manzanares (Madrid), as well as in Aldea del Fresno (Madrid) in the Casa de Campo in Madrid and the CEA Studios in the capital. In addition to what is now the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park (Almería).

After filming For a Fistful of Dollars, Leone returned to the current Community of Madrid to shoot the other two installments of the "Dollar Trilogy", Per qualche dollaro in più (1965), in Colmenar Viejo and Hoyo de Manzanares, and Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966) in Manzanares El Real and Colmenar Viejo with their respective production bases in the capital Madrid, including Eastwood's accommodation in the Torre de Madrid, before moving on to filming in other Spanish provinces.

Plagiarism by Yojimbo

The film is a reversal of the Japanese film Yojimbo, directed in 1961 (only three years earlier) by Akira Kurosawa. Since the producers of the Italian film did not pay royalties, the screenwriters of Yojimbo (Kurosawa himself and Ryuzo Kikushima) sued them for copyright infringement. The two Japanese screenwriters won the lawsuit and obtained 15% of the profits, as well as distribution rights in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Kurosawa himself later claimed to have made more money with A Fistful of Dollars than with Yojimbo. Ironically, in 2007 Japanese director Takashi Miike filmed Sukiyaki Western Django, a sort of Japanese version of the film For a Fistful of Dollars.

In 1996, the story of Yojimbo was reinterpreted —this time officially— in the film Last Man Standing, set in the United States during Prohibition and starring Bruce Willis.

Cast

• Clint Eastwood as "Joe", the Man without name
• Gian Maria Volonté as Ramón Rojo
• Marianne Koch as Marisol
• Antonio Prieto Puerto as Benito Rojo
• José Calvo as Silvanito
• Frank Braña as a Baxter gunman
• Aldo Sambrell as a Red Gunner
• Lorenzo Robledo as Baxter Gunner
• José Canalejas as a Red Gunner
• Benito Stefanelli as Rubio
• Antonio Red Mill as a Baxter Gunner
• Sieghardt Rupp as Red Stephen

Awards and nominations

• 1965: Nastro d'argento for the music of Ennio Morricone and 1 more candidacy
• 2008: 1 candidate for the Saturn Awards

Sergio Leone's Dollar Trilogy

• For a handful of dollars (Per un pugno di dollari1964)
• Per qualche dollaro in più (1965)
• Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966)

Clint Eastwood played the lead in all three films. The three characters share the same personality, clothing (the same poncho was even used for all three films and the bullets he received in the first one can be seen patched up in the next two) and expertise with a revolver.