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Per un pugno di dollari (1964)

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130 comments in total

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52 out of 65 people found the following comment useful :-
The Star Wars of westerns..., 22 septiembre 2001
Author: mentalcritic de Southern Hemisphere

When Per un pungo di dollari, or A Fistful Of Dollars, was released in the mid-1960s, the term "Spaghetti Western" was coined as a putdown to these brazen new films that dared to recreate the Wild West in a place as far away as Italy. However, the last laugh was shared by the Italian directors, whose new style of portraying Colonial America in a realistic style rather than the romanticised way that was characteristic of John Wayne and his contemporaries will be remembered long after the films of the romanticised style are no more.

The plot is indescribably simple, as Clint Eastwood simply wanders into a town where gang warfare has stripped the economy to the point where only the local undertaker makes a profit and turns the two warring families against one another. Sergio Leone's best-known trademark, his dynamic use of widescreen ratios, comes to the fore here as Clint shares a film frame with no less than four of his enemies, all of whom have plenty to say to him and vice versa. This is one film where a pan and scan transfer is purely and simply vandalism. Some of the dialogue that is included here absolutely takes the cake for cleverness and wit, too. Asking four gunslingers to apologise to a horse, well, if it wasn't a man as famous for playing a gunslinger as Clint Eastwood, it'd be ridiculous.

Transplanting old Samurai legends into the Wild West works well, as you can see here. Simply having an old mercenary who travels the land in search of wrongs to right and battles to be fought makes the story a lot more compelling than the Westerns where we are told every iota of the characters' motivations in the hope that it will give them some depth. The element of the main hero not getting involved in every scuffle that the bad guys cause, our semi-nameless hero's ignoring a drunken thug shooting at a little boy being the most obvious example, was another master stroke, one that got Eastwood involved in doing the film to begin with. The confrontation at the end of the film works well, too, with pyrotechnics exploding all over the picture in a bright display that keeps the film powerful and yet focused at the same time.

All in all, Per un pungo di dollari gets nine out of ten from me. The lack of any interesting support characters does dull the story a little, but this mistake was quickly rectified in the two sequels. The addition of Lee Van Cleef also worked well, but in this effort, it's all Clint Eastwood, and while the rest of the cast are nowhere near as interesting, it's all a better watch than anything the Americans were lumping out at the time.

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42 out of 48 people found the following comment useful :-
"My mistake. Four coffins", 31 octubre 2005

Author: Wulfstan10 de United States

ALthough in many respects this film pales in comparison with Leone's later films, it is itself a brilliant cinematic achievement. In part, this is because its failings primarily appear to be due to constraints of budget (very small and highly uncertain) and time more than anything else. Even to the extent that the skills of Leone, Morricone, and others hadn't fully flowered yet, this film is incredible at how brilliantly it is handled for what is really a first-time go. Leone had worked on, and even directed, films before, but this is his first real foray in his own direction, and into a genre that he revolutionised and with which he became forever synonymous. Who can imagine westerns without at least thinking of Leone's films, while who can think of Leone without thinking of westerns (even though his last, and arguably greatest, film was a sort of gangster film)? Similarly, one should not criticize this film for being based on Yojimbo, for that film itself was based on an American story while A Fistful of Dollars really is very different in many key respects, not least of all Leone's visual style or his own sense of irony and symbolism derived from Italian precedents and Hollywood westerns.

We also see the nascent Leone visual style here, with the close-up style and contrast of close-ups and long shots appearing. This alone sets it apart from previous films, westerns and non-westerns alike, and still provides for great visual treats that one can appreciate today.

This film also ushered in Leone's obsession with details, hard faces, grungy people, etc., that also revolutionsed the genre.

This films also marks the first brilliant score of Ennio Morricone. It is here that he introduced the lonely whistling, guitar music, chorus, and unusual combinations and styles that developed into the music that has become in the U.S. synonymous with westerns and duels in the same way that Leone's visuals and themes have.

Despite its minor flaws, this is still a great film that is not only revolutionary but still great and fun to watch even today. Like Leone's other films, it is timeless.

One must also admit that it is amazing that in the U.S. an Italian film maker basing his films partly in Italian culture and an Italian composer could come to so define and be synonymous with this genre that Americans had considered so uniquely American, and highlight its underlying universality. That alone reveals the greatness of the films, of which this is the first.

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29 out of 34 people found the following comment useful :-
The movie that started it all, 7 octubre 2003
Author: dtucker86 de Germany

Clint Eastwood was best known to American audiences for his role as Rowdy Yates in the series Rawhide. The series had ended and he was offered this strange new and challenging role in this movie of the American West that was made in Italy! Eastwood said his wife read that script and liked it. She said it was really "wild" because it was written in Western "slang" by Italians who really didn't understand English. He did this picture almost as a lark, and then read that it had become one of the biggest hits in Europe and then when it was released in America it outgrossed even the most popular current American films and made Clint Eastwood both a star and a phenomenon. Its strange to me that the best films ever made about the American west should have been made by Sergio Leone, an Italian who couldn't even speak English. Clint Eastwood said that all he knew in Italian was "arrevadershi" and all Leone knew in English was "goodbye" and yet these two combined to make an awesome film. As the poncho clad "Man With No Name", Eastwood created a role that hit us like a punch in the face and really re-defined the definition of the true Western hero. Eastwood tore out pages and pages of the dialogue and reduced his character to the bare bones to make him more mysterious. Leone said that he clad Eastwood in that sweat stained serepe to give him a cloak of mystery and put the cheroot in his mouth as a pendant between his two cold eyes and it worked like a charm. He broke all the rules and re-defined screen violence. I read that Leone wanted to make a blood and guts Western and show to the audience "I want them to feel what the hell it is like to get shot" and he does it! The scene where Clint is beaten to a pulp is one of the most graphic that you will ever see. It would have killed most other men!

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25 out of 32 people found the following comment useful :-
A fistful of style, 25 octubre 2003

Author: Brian W. Fairbanks (brianwfairbanks@yahoo.com) de Cleveland, Ohio

The first of Sergio Leone's "spaghetti westerns" is now overshadowed by its superior successors, but remains an exciting introduction to this peculiar genre. Clint Eastwood redefined the notion of a hero in this film, a man who seems to operate by a code but doesn't feel the need to explain it. Although the U.S. advertising campaign billed Eastwood's character as "The Man With No Name," a name is one thing he does have - Joe - but almost everything else about him is a mystery except for his deadly proficiency with a gun. Leone's style would be more pronounced in later films, but this one provided the template. Eastwood is superb, of course, as is Gian Maria Volante (billed as Johnny Wells) as his deadly opponent, Ramon Rojo. If it's slow moving at times, the music of Ennio Morricone always takes up the slack.

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27 out of 36 people found the following comment useful :-
The first of the three, 2 noviembre 2003

Author: rbverhoef (rbverhoef@hotmail.com) de The Hague, Netherlands

'A Fistful of Dollars' is the first from Sergio Leone's trilogy about "The Man with No Name". The other two movies are 'For a Few Dollars More' and the famous 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'. Although 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' is considered the best this one comes pretty close. It is a remake of Akira Kurosawa's 'Yojimbo' and it comes also pretty close to that movie. It was also the first real Spaghetti Western.

Clint Eastwood is "The Man with No Name" who comes to a small town where two families run the place. Both families hate each other and he thinks he can make a lot of money with playing both parties against each other. This is basically the main story. There are some sub-plots, one of them involves Marisol (Marianne Koch) who is taken by a leader of one of the families. Her husband and child still live in the town.

For me it was not the story that made this movie interesting. It was the whole atmosphere. I like all Leone's westerns for that reason. Of course some are better than others, but they are never boring. The way we see Eastwood kill four man early in the movie is simply spectacular.

This no 'Once Upon a Time in the West' or even 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' but we have the same atmosphere, the same kind of score by Ennio Morricone and a Clint Eastwood at the beginning of a great career.

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17 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the best westerns in the world!, 17 enero 2001

Author: Mika Pykäläaho (bygis80@hotmail.com) de Järvenpää, Finland

Yesterday I had a wonderful chance to see "Per un pugno di dollari /A Fistful of Dollars" on a movie theater where it clearly belongs. For me as a fanatic Eastwood fan it truly was a bliss to view Clint's legendary breakthrough film and a mother of all spaghetti westerns on a big screen and to marvel Sergio Leone's astonishing directing! Rundown houses, dusty streets, shabby clothes and faces with lots of stubble and dirt are just something you have to watch as large as it's only possible. All that filth doesn't belong in a small television. Morricone's fantastic score makes the experience stunning.

I have to remind that this flick made Eastwood what he is today. Without it there wouldn't be no "Dirty Harry", "High plains drifter", "Unforgiven", "True Crime" or even "Every which way but loose". It's funny to state that although western is naturally an American genre, at least three of the best ones are made in Europe. Any of you who still don't know what I'm talking about, I mean Leone's Dollars trilogy. As it's said, "A Fistful of Dollars" is the first motion picture of it's kind. It is and it looks like a pretty cheap production but it became one of the most memorable westerns ever. I'm not revealing anything significant if I say that the undertaker got what he wanted the most: work.

Clint's character is just magnificent: he's witty, smart and dangerous and he doesn't take s**t from anybody, not even from guys who "insult his mule". Eastwood is the kind of a hero I love and look up to. Even though this is something I would definitely call a perfect western (10 out of 10) best was yet to come in the shape of "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly". No disrespect to Kurosawa but this beats "Yojimbo" anytime. "Aim for the heart or you'll never stop me..."

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15 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
Good Western, 13 agosto 2005

Author: gottogorunning de United States

A Fistful of Dollars(1964) is a stylish western that begin the era of the Italian Western as well as being responsible for the rise to stardom for then TV actor, Clint Eastwood. He was not the first choice to play the main character but got the role due to the fact there no one left to offer the role to. Two people who were offered the role of the man with no name were Charles Bronson and Henry Fonda(four years later Charles Bronson takes the lead role in Once Upon a Time in the West after Clint Eastwood was the first choice for the part). A Fistful of Dollars was inspired and remade from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo(1961). Many crew members from A Fistful of Dollars ended up directing themselves like for instance, Fernando Di Leo, Duccio Tessari, and Massimo Dallamano. Sergio gives a colorful and crude portrayal of The Wild West around the Texas-Mexico border. Both A Fistful of Dollars and Yojimbo are based on an obscure Italian play called "the man with two masters". This was also the film that introduced the cinema world to film musician, Ennio Morricone. Although not as good as later films, A Fistful of Dollars is still a terrific Western

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14 out of 20 people found the following comment useful :-
'The Man With No Name' rides into town for the first time..., 28 agosto 2005

Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) de Mexico

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Sergio Leone shared a rebellious desire to tumble the old values and present the audience with a new, more mystifying piece of storytelling... The violence, the speed of action in his film announced a totally new European style...

Leone placed the poncho on Eastwood's shoulders to give his character a veil of mystery... The cigar acted as a sort of pendant to those ice-cold eyes... He creates a quite unique character, with no name, no horse and no money, a cynical bounty hunter whose impassivity is his main attraction, an ultra-cool gunslinger who leaves us impressed by his exceptionally swift draw... He is a mysterious 'gunman with green eyes' who comes from nowhere and returns there, a cult hero (set against a dry and dead landscape) entering a noisy violent world where evil competes with evil...

"A Fistful of Dollars" is distinguished by Sergio Leone's visual gift, and convincing fashion in handling violence, rape and torture... He presents his sadistic killers, invariably unshaven, sweating and bleeding in frequent big close-ups... Both the real and the unreal invincibility of his 'Stranger' are never better illustrated than in the final scene when the trembling Ramon fills the gunfighter's heart with bullets...

Leone's very dark brand of humor stands out when Eastwood walks past a coffin-maker: "Gets three coffins ready" he orders... The town heavies make fun of him, asking where his old mule is... "You see, my mule don't like people laughing, gets the crazy idea you're laughing at him!" All four heavies get their just punishment for such mockery and as Eastwood returns past the old man, he corrects his miscalculations: "My mistake, four coffins."

The film is strong on passionate emotions, and bloody violence... This aspect is completely foreign to the American tradition based on John Ford concepts of honor, bravery and romantic adventure... Sergio Leone's film deeply influenced the future of the Western in general and the Italian 'spaghetti' Western in particular...

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8 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
The original spaghetti western - a neat, tight, highly atmospheric Yojimbo homage., 28 julio 2005

Author: Jonathon Dabell (barnabyrudge@hotmail.com) de Wakefield, England

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

A Fistful Of Dollars marked the start of the spaghetti western genre and launched Clint Eastwood's career. Until this film, Eastwood had been a bit player in numerous forgettable potboilers and the star of the modest TV western Rawhide. But his ultra-cool performance in this atmospheric western really sealed his long and lucrative future. The film also marked the emergence of Sergio Leone as a masterful director - the ultimate evidence of his talent coming a few years later with the stunning Once Upon A Time In The West. Here, Leone uses a dazzling array of close-ups and long shots, and fits the terrific Ennio Morricone score around the action, with considerable skill.

The simplistic plot is basically a borrowing of the Japanese movie Yojimbo. A tough, stolid, resourceful drifter named Joe (Clint Eastwood) arrives in the border town of San Miguel. He learns that the town is controlled by two feuding families - the Baxters and the Rojos. One one side, John Baxter (Wolfgang Lukschy) acts as the town's ineffective and respectless sheriff; on the other side, the Rojos have murdered and bullied their way to mock-aristocratic status under the guidance of the psychopathic Ramon Rojo (Gian Maria Volonte). Aided by a reluctant bartender and a considerably over-worked coffin maker, Joe cunningly plays each side off against each other. For each family he carries out various killings and other such dirty jobs, pocketing increasing amounts of money for his lethal services while showing no loyalty to either party. But his plans come unstuck when he learns that Ramon has taken a girlfriend named Marisol (Marianna Koch) against her will, forcing her to leave her husband and son and forbidding her from seeing them again. That kind of bullying Joe just won't stand for.....

Dripping with atmosphere and suspense, A Fistful Of Dollars was a totally new slant on the tired western genre in 1964. The minimalist plot actually becomes a strength rather than a weakness, lending the film an air of enigmatic mystery (reportedly Eastwood, at his own insistence, had his scant dialogue cut further in order to make Joe come across as the archetypal man of mystery). Gian Maria Volonte is excellent as the villain, giving a performance of real menace and cruelty as the despicable Ramon Rojo. And Ennio Morricone's simple but energetic score has since become an iconic piece of western movie music. A Fistful Of Dollars is an important western milestone. Admittedly, it steals its story from elsewhere and is full of far-fetched gunfights, but it oozes style and is so cleverly put together that its influence on subsequent movies is almost beyond measurement.

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21 out of 35 people found the following comment useful :-
A pioneering Western, 19 marzo 2001

Author: smatysia (feldene@comcast.net) de Houston

A classic. The first, or one of the first, films to introduce the concept of the Western antihero. Sergio Leone pioneered a lot of things here. The brightness, the oppressive sunlight. The ugly brutality of Western gunfights, that had always been cleaned up in Hollywood. I understand that Leone's occasional framing of the shooter and his victims in the same shot was not allowed at the time in American films. I thought, upon seeing this film years ago, that some characters (Eastwood) spoke in English, and other characters in Italian. Who knows, maybe some spoke Spanish or German. Must make for an interesting acting job. I rarely notice a movie's music, but the original score by Ennio Morricone was so fitting. Probably the best match of film and music up to that time, and only bested by Hugh Montenegro(?) in "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". A very good movie. Grade: A

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