{"id":124,"date":"2024-06-15T19:05:53","date_gmt":"2024-06-15T19:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=124"},"modified":"2024-10-13T19:54:08","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T23:54:08","slug":"for-a-few-dollars-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/06\/15\/for-a-few-dollars-more\/","title":{"rendered":"For a Few Dollars More"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-712\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/For-a-Few-Dollars-More-PIC.jpg?resize=620%2C348&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"348\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/For-a-Few-Dollars-More-PIC.jpg?w=620&amp;ssl=1 620w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/For-a-Few-Dollars-More-PIC.jpg?resize=300%2C168&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>For a Few Dollars More <\/strong>(1965)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 United Artists\/Western\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 131 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, implied rape, some sexual content, occasional mild language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Sergio Leone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenwriter: Sergio Leone and Luciano Vincenzoni\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ennio Morricone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Massimo Dallamano\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 30, 1965 (Italy)\/May 10, 1967 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volonte, Mara Krupp, Luigi Pistilli, Klaus Kinski, Luis Rodriguez, Benito Stefanelli, Panos Papadopoulos, Aldo Sambrell, Roberto Camardiel, Joseph Egger, Tomas Blanco, Lorenzo Robledo, Dante Maggio.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $15 million (US)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Rating<\/strong>: ****<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u00a0If A Fistful of Dollars established Clint Eastwood as a bona fide movie star, the sequel <strong>For a Few Dollars More<\/strong> cemented his status as an American icon. That it\u2019s an Italian-made film is a mere technicality. Lots of American actors made names for themselves in Italian productions, especially spaghetti westerns. Actors like Lee Van Cleef (Escape from New York) who co-stars in <strong>For a Few Dollars More<\/strong> as a rival bounty hunter pursuing the same prey as our intrepid protagonist \u201cThe Man with No Name\u201d. That\u2019s actually a bit of a misnomer. He\u2019s referred to as \u201cManco\u201d a few times here, but I prefer to think of him as a nameless anti-hero, tall in stature and quick on the draw.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u00a0Director Sergio Leone wastes no time in showing Van Cleef is every bit as bad ass as Eastwood. When a ticket taker informs him the train he\u2019s on doesn\u2019t stop in the town of Tucumcari, his character Colonel Mortimer takes steps to make sure it does. He pulls the emergency brake and unloads his horse from the freight car. He\u2019s in town to collect the bounty on a wanted man. It\u2019s here we get out first look at his long-range shooting skills. His weapon of choice, a 10\u201d Buntline Special fitted with a shoulder stock. He takes out his target and collects his reward, no problem. In another part of the West, The Man confronts his fugitive in a saloon and shoots him dead after effortlessly blowing away his gang. KA-CHING, that\u2019s a $2000 payday! What have we learned here? Both men are equally good at their professions. It\u2019s only a matter of time before their paths will cross.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u00a0The catalyst for their eventual meeting is Indio (Volonte, A Fistful of Dollars), a ruthless killer and bank robber just broken out of jail by his gang. He\u2019s a mean, vicious SOB planning to rob the most secure bank in the US, located in El Paso and containing nearly $1M in a safe cleverly disguised as a liquor cabinet. Naturally, The Man and Mortimer figure out his intentions and go to El Paso to collect their reward. After sizing one another up, they form an uneasy alliance. They don\u2019t trust each other, but it\u2019s preferable to working against each other as it\u2019s obvious neither one of them is going to back down. The plan is for The Man to infiltrate Indio\u2019s gang in the guise of a fellow outlaw while Mortimer works from the outside.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u00a0Eastwood has his star-making scene in the previous film. Van Cleef has his in <strong>For a Few Dollars More<\/strong>. It\u2019s when he walks into a saloon and strikes a match on the neck of a member of Indio\u2019s gang, a hunchback named Wild (Kinski, Aguirre, the Wrath of God), without a single word. It\u2019s a small but insulting gesture that instantly earns him a place among the greatest movie tough guys.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u00a0One of the most intriguing aspects of <strong>For a Few Dollars More <\/strong>is the partnership between the Man and Mortimer. Namely, Mortimer isn\u2019t in it for the money. He has some sort of personal connection with Indio that has to do with the identical musical pocket watches both men carry. Indio uses his whenever he&#8217;s about to kill somebody or wallowing in misery over a painful memory. Of course, you know what all this means, right? The climactic showdown will be between Mortimer and Indio.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u00a0Once again, Leone has created a spaghetti western masterpiece as elegant as it is violent. He actually improves on the first film with the addition of Van Cleef. He and Eastwood just click. Ennio Morricone contributes another beautiful score that includes wonderful choral passages. I love how he incorporates the music from the pocket watches into the action. What you may not know is that Leone frequently shot scenes to Morricone\u2019s previously composed music. It\u2019s a real asset to <strong>For a Few Dollars More<\/strong>. It adds a palpable feeling of suspense to drawn-out scenes of the characters staring each other down before they start shooting. As usual, Leone gives us close-ups of the characters\u2019 faces and eyes. His visual style is something I\u2019ve always admired about his films.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u00a0Eastwood delivers another iconic performance. I just love The Man\u2019s style. He&#8217;s so nonchalant about shooting down his enemies. The chemistry between Eastwood and Van Cleef is awesome. Volonte makes a great scuzzy bad guy. He\u2019s a study in self-contradiction. He\u2019s heartless enough to kill a man\u2019s family within earshot, but gets teary-eyed when he thinks of an incident from the past. He\u2019s one of the meanest, baddest villains I\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u00a0Most importantly to fans of the western genre, <strong>For a Few Dollars More<\/strong> has plenty of action and violence. We get two jailbreaks, one bank robbery and a sweet climactic shoot-out. In my opinion, you can never go wrong with one of Leone\u2019s spaghetti westerns, especially the ones starring Eastwood. They\u2019re just great!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">TRIVIA TIDBIT: &#8220;Manco&#8221; is a Spanish-Portuguese word meaning \u201cone-armed\u201d. \u00a0The Man is called that because he uses his left hand to do almost everything, leaving his right hand to draw his pistol quickly should the need arise.<\/p>\r\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-711\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/For-a-Few-Dollars-More-POSTER.jpg?resize=620%2C941&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"941\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/For-a-Few-Dollars-More-POSTER.jpg?w=620&amp;ssl=1 620w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/For-a-Few-Dollars-More-POSTER.jpg?resize=198%2C300&amp;ssl=1 198w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For a Few Dollars More (1965)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 United Artists\/Western\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 131 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, implied rape, some sexual content, occasional mild language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Sergio Leone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenwriter: Sergio Leone and Luciano Vincenzoni\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ennio Morricone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Massimo Dallamano\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 30, 1965 (Italy)\/May 10, 1967 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volonte, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712,"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-124","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\/For-a-Few-Dollars-More-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\/124","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=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions\/126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}