A Fistful of Dollars
1967 ‘Per un pugno di dollari’ Directed by Sergio Leone
Synopsis
In his own way he is perhaps, the most dangerous man who ever lived!
A Fistful of Dollars (Italian: Per un pugno di dollari) is a 1964 Italian spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood, alongside Gian Maria Volonté, Marianne Koch, Wolfgang Lukschy, Sieghardt Rupp, José Calvo, Antonio Prieto, and Joseph Egger. Released in Italy in 1964 and then in the United States in 1967, it initiated the popularity of the Spaghetti Western film genre. It was followed by For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), also starring Eastwood. Collectively, the films are commonly known as the "Dollars Trilogy," or "The Man With No Name Trilogy." The film is an unofficial remake of the Akira Kurosawa film Yojimbo (1961), resulting in a successful lawsuit by Toho. In the United States, the United Artists publicity campaign referred to Eastwood's character in all three films as the "Man with No Name."
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Driving Misty Daisy - Movie no. 1
Having had a lot of time off movies, this is the way to get back into the "routine". A Fistful of Dollars is the perfect way to ensure the careful descent into movie madness once again.
The last and most well known of The Dollars Trilogy (Good, Bad, Ugly) was the superior (to this one - I haven't seen For a Few Dollars More, yet) in my opinion, which can't surprise. But I was blown away by how similar Fistful was, and yet at the same time, so much it's own. And the fact that it resembled Good, Bad, Ugly so much, didn't even make it worth less. That is a feat in my eyes.
And no matter how many innocent people got killed slightly because of Joe, his puppeteer, Mr. Eastwood, will always be the man. -
Film #1 of Misty and Driver's Ultimate Western Adventure AKA Driving Misty Daisy.
"Get three coffins ready." - Joe
Imagine my shock when I realised that this was probably the first western that I'd ever seen a few years ago. As a considered fan of the genre, I'm horrified by the realisation that I had never seen a western before this. However, I'm also thankful that this was the first I saw, as it's always good to start on a stratospheric high.
This film is so iconic that it hurts. Chock full of bad-assery, violence, squinting, shooting, laughing and Clint, it's simply too cool for school. I could say the very same for the rest of The Dollars Trilogy too,…
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Westerns were a big part of my childhood viewing, whether they should have been or not. I sat down and watched so many Clint Eastwood westerns with my dad and my fondness for them has never really diminished, so it was with a certain amount of trepidation that, after a number of years, I decided to give Sergio Leone's legendary trilogy another watch. Revisiting an old favourite is always fraught with worry for me.
From what I've seen, there has been a certain amount of re-evaluation of A Fistful Of Dollars and its qualities in the last decade or so, with criticism increasingly aimed its very obvious aping of Yojimbo. Leone always insisted his film was not a copy, but…
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"-Very soon you are going to be rich.
-Yeah, and that's not gonna break my heart."Γιατί καλά και άγια και τα post-Leone westerns του Eastwood, αλλά αυτή η σοβαροφάνεια με χαρακτήρες που σώζουν τον κόσμο και επιβιώνουν τρώγοντας ευγνωμοσύνη, μου καθόταν λίγο στο στομάχι. Ζήτω οι ανθρώπινοι ήρωες που δεν τους χαλάει να βγάλουν και κανένα δολάριο παραπάνω στην πορεία. Κάνουν τις ταινίες πιο fun.
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This was my first viewing of Fistful of Dollars and it is skewed by the fact that I watched Yojimbo the day before, so I must compare them. There are many spoilers in what follows.
I was astounded at how Fistful was faithful to Yojimbo. I wasn't expecting that at all. There are a few minimal changes in plot, most likely because of the change in style. A Western has horses and requires those horses to move, so some of the plot changes involve the outskirts of town so that we may see the cowboys riding their horses. Another key factor is that cowboys have guns, so some of Yojimbo's fight scenes (especially the first one with the two rival…
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Sergio Leone's work is among the long list of essential cinema I have yet to really discover and while I've seen his perhaps most lauded film Once Upon a Time in the West I have to admit with great shame that it is the only of his I've seen until now. With A Fistful of Dollars Leone managed to successfully translate one of my all-time favourites Yojimbo into a western setting, keeping true to the merits of Kurosawa's classic while also putting it into a fresh perspective. Considering how much I love Yojimbo I was actually expecting to be let down by this but I ended up enjoying this film immensely.
Clint Eastwood is the greatest possible choice as the…
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Enjoyable Western, although the dubbing of the foreign cast members became a bit distracting. Having only seen Clint's twenty-first century work, it was great to see the role in which he became an icon, manipulating the town folk into destroying each other. Sometimes I found the plot a bit confusing, although that may have been due to the time of night I was watching it but overall I look forward to watching the next two films in the Dollars trilogy.
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"You see, my mule don't like people laughin'. Gets the crazy idea you're laughin' at him. Now if you apologize like I know you're going to, I might convince him that you really didn't mean it..."
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First ever spaghetti western? Eastwood playing himself. Is this an epic or is this the best western there is? Im not sure the best but surly laying the foundation. The blood is redder than the flag of the Nazi's and the gun fights are worse. The action is great with a story that feels very modern, man fighting back against bad crime, out side of the social government set-up; is he batman? No its just a epic man, called Joe (I think) wearing a wonderful sombrero.
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This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
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I remember pieces of this one from TV when I was a kid. I liked it much more than Django, but it still didn't grab me in a way that I will watch it again. Cool movie, but a one and done for me.
Edit: After watching Yojimbo, I had to bump this up from 3.5 to 4 stars. I recommend watching them as a pair.
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This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
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After watching A Fistful of Dollars, Akira Kurosawa allegedly said that he thought Leone had made a fine movie but that it was HIS movie. Anybody who has seen the two films would find this claim hard to refute. I mean, I knew that this movie was a remake of Yojimbo, but I did not expect it to be beat for beat the same story with some of the same directorial choices. The problem with this being the case is that it invites comparison to the vastly superior Japanese film. Granted this is coming from someone who considers Kurosawa one of the all time best directors and is only just now beginning to dip into spaghetti westerns, but watching shootouts…
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Promised more than it could keep, but there are some extraordinary scenes in it (a lot of mesmerizing closeups) and it's all supported by a brilliant Morricone soundtrack.
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The first of the Dollars trilogy begins my trawl through the Clint Eastwood box set. A solid film that probably doesn't benefit from hundreds of parodies that may have weakened it's appeal but it was very entertaining.