![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/A-Fistful-of-Dollars-PIC.jpg?resize=620%2C348&ssl=1\")
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A Fistful of Dollars <\/strong>(1964)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 United Artists\/Western\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 100 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Sergio Leone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Victor Andres Catena, Jaime Comas and Sergio Leone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ennio Morricone (as \u201cDan Savio\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Massimo Dallamano (as \u201cJack Dalmas\u201d) and Federico G. Larraya\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 12, 1964 (Italy)\/January 18, 1967 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, Gian Maria Volonte, Wolfgang Lukschy, Sieghardt Rupp, Joseph Eggar, Antonio Prieto, Jose Calvo, Margarita Lozano, Daniel Martin, Benito Stefanelli, Mario Brega, Bruno Carotenuto, Aldo Sambrell, Nino del Arco.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $14.5 million (US)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Rating<\/strong>: ****<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n CINEMATIC FORMULA: Leone + Morricone + Eastwood = AWESOME!!!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0FACT! Clint Eastwood is one of the most iconic actors in film history. When one thinks of Clint, two images typically come to mind. You either see him pointing a .44 Magnum at a punk or standing tall with a cigar clenched in his teeth. The first, of course, is Dirty Harry. The second is known as \u201cThe Man with No Name\u201d, the anti-hero protagonist of three spaghetti westerns directed by Sergio Leone (One Upon a Time in the West). The first, A Fistful of Dollars<\/strong>, is the one that made Eastwood a movie star.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0A remake of Akira Kurosawa\u2019s Yojimbo, Eastwood plays an unnamed stranger that rides into the border town of San Miguel and immediately senses an opportunity to make money. He\u2019s ridden right into the middle of a war between two rival families, the Rojos and the Baxters, fighting for total control of the town. The Man decides to play both ends against the middle to his own financial gain. What he doesn\u2019t count on is finding a conscience upon discovering that the mistress Marisol (Koch, The Devil\u2019s General) of lead Rojo brother Ramon (Volonte, The Terrorist) is actually being held against her will. Her husband and young child are prevented from seeing her by Rojo and his gang. What\u2019s an opportunist to do in this situation?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0A lot of time, it\u2019s a particular scene that transforms an actor into a bona fide star. For Eastwood, it\u2019s an early scene from A Fistful of Dollars<\/strong>. The Man, about to confront members of Baxter’s posse, says, \u201cGet three coffins ready\u201d as he passes the town coffin builder. He exchanges a few words with the men, mostly about how they hurt his mule\u2019s feelings with their taunts as he rode into town, before shooting down all four in quick succession. When he passes the coffin maker again, he says, \u201cMy mistake. Four coffins.\u201d It\u2019s still cool more than 50 years later. The Man with No Name has become one of the most iconic western characters in film history with his trademark poncho, hat, six-shooter and cigar. Add in Eastwood\u2019s distinctive hard stare and whispering growl (when he actually speaks) and it\u2019s magic time! It goes without saying that Eastwood rides high in the saddle in A Fistful of Dollars<\/strong>. You can\u2019t measure his performance against other western actors because he\u2019s in a class of his own. All I can say is he\u2019s GREAT!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Leone set out to redefine the western genre with A Fistful of Dollars<\/strong>. He felt that Hollywood oaters had grown stagnant and preachy by the 50s. He wanted realism, but also to lend an operatic feel to the proceedings. He demystifies the Old West by offering a grim view of life and death (mostly death) in dusty, dirty towns with their bleached-out structures and barren land as far as the eye can see. The saloon isn\u2019t a crowded, bustling joint with card-players, saloon girls and a piano player working the keys non-stop. Other than The Man, I never saw a single customer in the place. It\u2019s probably because decent folks stay in their homes out of fear of the criminal element that runs the town. As for heroes, there aren\u2019t any, not really. Some people are just less bad than others.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0I LOVE how Leone frames his shots. He employs his characteristic visual style, one defined by frequent close-ups of his characters\u2019 faces, their eyes in particular, to great effect. It often looks like they\u2019re posing for portraits. He receives ample assistance from cinematographers Jack Dalmas and Federico G. Larraya working in perfect conjunction with set designer\/art director Carlo Simi. Together, they create a work that\u2019s as visually stunning as it is exciting. In addition to all else, Leone has an excellent sense of pacing that might seem too slow to young 21st<\/sup> century audiences. It wasn\u2019t always about instant gratification, kids. It\u2019s thrilling to feel the tension build as Eastwood and his opponents stare each other down before firing their guns.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0My favorite aspect of A Fistful of Dollars<\/strong> (and its sequels) is Ennio Morricone\u2019s beautiful score. It definitely augments the operatic tone Leone is going for. He often kept scenes going because he didn\u2019t want the music to end. Morricone\u2019s arrangements are positively brilliant. I especially love how he incorporates whistling as a means of illustrating the wandering main character\u2019s loneliness, the result of an inability to form friendships due to him always being on the move. I\u2019ll say it now; Morricone is my all-time favorite film composer. He could do no wrong as far as I\u2019m concerned.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0The Man with No Name trilogy is one of my favorites. A Fistful of Dollars <\/strong>is a terrific start. It\u2019s violent, beautiful, exciting, haunting and just plain cool. It has a great anti-hero, horrible villains and a gorgeous damsel in distress. It really is an incredible piece of work. I\u2019d even go so far as to call it art. If any filmmaker can be regarded as an artist, it\u2019s Sergio Leone. This movie is proof of that.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n TRIVIA TIDBIT: Yojimbo inspired two other movies, the sword-and-sorcery actioner The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984) and the Depression-era gangster movie Last Man Standing (1996).<\/p>\r\n A Fistful of Dollars (1964)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 United Artists\/Western\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 100 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Sergio Leone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Victor Andres Catena, Jaime Comas and Sergio Leone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ennio Morricone (as \u201cDan Savio\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Massimo Dallamano (as \u201cJack Dalmas\u201d) and Federico G. Larraya\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 12, 1964 (Italy)\/January 18, 1967 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-these-are-some-classic-flicks","category-westerns"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/A-Fistful-of-Dollars-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":709,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/709"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/A-Fistful-of-Dollars-POSTER.jpg?resize=620%2C929&ssl=1\")
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