Per un pugno di dollari

Plot synopsis:
A stranger arrives at the little Mexican border town of San Miguel. Silvanito, the town's innkeeper, tells the Stranger about a feud between two families vying to gain control of the town: on the one side, the Rojo brothers: Don Miguel, Esteban and Ramón; on the other, the family of the town sheriff, John Baxter. The Stranger decides to play each family against the other in order to make money, and proves his speed and accuracy with his gun to both sides by shooting with ease the four men who insulted him as he entered town.
The Stranger seizes his opportunity when he sees the Rojos massacre a detachment of Mexican soldiers who were escorting a shipment of gold. He takes two of the dead bodies to a nearby cemetery and sells information to both sides, saying that two Mexican soldiers survived the attack. Both sides race to the cemetery; the Baxters to get the "survivors" to testify against the Rojos, and the Rojos to silence them. The factions engage in a gunfight, with Ramón managing to "kill" the "survivors" and Esteban capturing John Baxter's son, Antonio.
While the Rojos and the Baxters are fighting, the Stranger searches the Rojo hacienda for the gold. While he is searching he accidentally knocks out a woman, Marisol. He takes her to the Baxters, who, in turn, arrange to return her to the Rojos in exchange for Antonio. During the exchange, Marisol's son, Jesús, runs towards her, followed by her husband, Julio. While the family embraces, Ramón orders one of his men, Rubio, to kill her husband as he has already told him to leave town. Silvanito attempts to protect the family with a shotgun with the Stranger backing him up. Neither Ramón nor any of his men attempt to challenge the Stranger, knowing that he is too fast on the draw.
The Stranger then tells Marisol to go to Ramón and for Julio to take Jesús home. He learns from Silvanito that Ramón had framed Julio for cheating during a cards game and taken Marisol as his prisoner, forcing her to live with him. That night, while the Rojos are celebrating, the Stranger rides out and frees Marisol, shooting the guards and wrecking the house in which she is being held, making it appear as though it were attacked by the Baxters. He gives Marisol some money and tells her family to leave the town. When the Rojos discover that he freed Marisol, they capture and torture him, but he escapes. Believing the Stranger to be protected by the Baxters, the Rojos set fire to the Baxter home and massacre the entire family as they run out of the burning building. Ramon kills John Baxter and Antonio after pretending to spare them. Consuelo, John Baxter's wife, appears and curses the Rojos for killing her unarmed husband and son. She is then shot and killed by Esteban.
With help from Piripero, the local coffin-maker, the Stranger escapes town by hiding in a coffin. The Stranger hides and convalesces in a nearby mine. When Piripero tells him that Silvanito has been captured, the Stranger returns to town to face the Rojos. With a steel chest-plate hidden beneath his poncho, he taunts Ramón to "aim for the heart" as Ramón's shots bounce off. Panicking, Ramón uses up all of the bullets in his Winchester. The Stranger shoots the rifle from Ramón's hand and kills the other Rojos standing nearby, including Don Miguel and Rubio. He then uses the last bullet in his gun to free Silvanito, tied hanging from a post. After challenging Ramón to reload his rifle faster than he can reload his own pistol, the Stranger shoots and kills Ramón. Esteban Rojo aims for the Stranger's back from a nearby building, but is shot dead by Silvanito. The Stranger bids farewell and rides away from the town.

Tags: comedy, murder, realism, western, violence, good versus evil, humor, action, revenge, sadist

Review:
Sergio Leone's first classic spaghetti western masterpiece and the best one of Clint Eastwood!.
A lot of people are going for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West and of course Eastwood's Unforgiven as their best favorite western films.
What I love about this film is Clint Eastwood's character who helps out a young family, who is torn apart from the Rojo's gang, he make sure that the kid goes in to his mom's arms, Eastwood was a heart in this movie.
A Fistful of Dollars gets a perfect 10 by me and remains my all time best favorite Eastwood Western movie in the series that I absolutely love to death and I love Clint Eastwood's character.
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.
A western classic and the movie that launched the careers of Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood..
For two reasons - firstly because the second and third movie in Leone/Eastwood "Man With No Name" trilogy ('For A Few Dollars More' and 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly') are so damn good it's easy to overlook this one.
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.
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..
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 used the storyline of Akira Kurosawa's "Yojimbo", replacing the samurai without a master ("ronin") Sanjuro Kuwabatake performed by Toshirô Mifune and the scenario of the rural Japanese town in Nineteenth Century by the stranger without a name (Clint Eastwood) and a small Mexican town in the border of the Wild and Far West.
It was the first film in Sergio Leone's "dollars trilogy"; Eastwood was to star in the other two, "For a Few Dollars More" and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly".
This revisionist line was to become commonplace in the Westerns of the late sixties and early seventies; Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" is a good example of a film which shows the influence of Leone's work.The film was originally shot without sound, with a soundtrack being dubbed on later.
In fact , Richard Harrison was the one who suggested Clint Eastwood to Sergio Leone when the famed director was looking for the main actor , as Harrison said : Maybe my greatest contribution to cinema was not doing Fistful of Dollars , and recommending Clint for the part .
But it also has the effect of rounding out the character so that he becomes human to us in a way Hammett's anti-hero is not.In 1965, an Italian director, not yet credited with completed film, Sergio Leone, was hired to do a typical "spaghetti western" of the era.
Not many will be surprised that "A Fistful of Dollars", the first of Sergio Leone's famous trilogy, is in fact a replica (or if you prefer 'a westernisation of the westernised Samurai genre') of Akira Kurosawa's famed Ronin drama "Yojimbo" (predating this movie by just a few years).
it took me awhile to get around to watching this movie,which is considered a classic by a lot of people.it was a bit too sedate for my tastes,although it wasn't a horrible movie and it probably bears viewing at least twice.it's the first of three movies in the Man With no Name trilogy,directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood as the man with no name.he's also the quiet man with no name.the character doesn't say much unless he needs to.he's brooding and mysterious,and doesn't give too much away about himself.he's also calm and cool,at least on the outside,showing little or no outward emotion.
Eastwood is the perfect actor to play this character.though he was in the series Rawhide,it was apparently this series that rocketed him to fame.although i thought there were some slow moment here and there,i didn't hate the film,and i can understand why it has the following and reputation it does.for me,Fistful of Dollars is a 6/10.
The first movie of its kind, it rose the Italian Western to an international level, and if it had not been for "Per Un Pugno Di Dollari", the great genre of the Spaghetti Westerns would probably never have become what it is.Based On Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece "Yojimbo" of 1961, "A Fistful Of Dollars" is not a simple remake, but a masterpiece based on another masterpiece (something very rare in film history) that definitely has its very own style.
I love "Yojimbo" as I love "Per Un Pugno Di Dollari" and I could not say which one I prefer.The movie that made the Italian Western what it is, made Clint Eastwood a star as an actor and Sergio Leone a star as a director.
It also made Ennio Morricone famous, who is arguably the most brilliant film score composer of all time, and it basically created the Western Anti Hero.A cigar smoking stranger, the Man With No Name (Clint Eastwood) comes to San Miguel, a small town in the Mexican/American borderland, which is terrorized by two rival gangs of outlaws, lead by two families, the Baxters and the Rojos.
The supporting cast furthermore includes such great Spaghetti Western actors as Mario Brega, Aldo Sambrell and Benito Steffanelli, actors who have gained fame amongst Spaghetti Western fans, for roles such as those in "A Fistful of Dollars".It is Ennio Morricone's iconic, brilliant score that gives this movie perfection.
Morricone's scores are one of the most essential things about Sergio Leone's films, see "A Fistful Of Dollars" and you'll know what I mean."A Fistfull Of Dollars" is a superbly directed, violent film about selfishness, greed and hatred, full of black humor and spiced up with great dialogue.
The Western genre changed forever with the release of Sergio Leone's landmark Spaghetti Western "A Fistful of Dollars," but not necessarily for reasons you might think when it comes to a movie deemed a "classic."The story is weak, most of the acting bordering on comical and there's no depth to speak of, but the Akira Kurosawa-inspired style of "A Fistful of Dollars" makes it entertaining and a rather fascinating watch from a stylistic perspective.
Leone did things with a camera that Hollywood hadn't seen before (probably  I admit I wasn't there), an approach that made the Western more entertaining yet more dramatic and tense.Clint Eastwood stars as Joe, or more popularly, "The Man with No Name," in the role that launched the "Rawhide" star's film career.
Otherwise, he's a troublemaker with money on his mind; we just like the guy because he's a badass who is less slimy than the rest of the characters.The script annoyingly drifts between too overt and not explicit enough, but eventually it becomes clear that the only dialogue worth paying attention to is the clever quips, and that it doesn't matter how a point of tension or violence is reached, but how it looks and feels when we get there.Leone isn't at the peak of his powers here by any stretch, which should be obvious given this was his first foray into Western territory and second film ever, but he gets enough right to open the door to a shift in thinking about how these movies are made.
It's not that great, I actually fell asleep at the half of the movie.When I watched Yojimbo later on, I just realize that Fistful of Dollar is Yojimbo ripoff, from the beginning to the end.I remembered there is no acknowledgment of Akira Kurosawa in that film.
Per Un Pugno Di Dollari/A Fistful of Dollars(1964) was Sergio Leone's first Western as well as the movie that made Clint Eastwood a international star.
I consider this movie the beginning of a progession for Sergio Leone as he went from doing a Very good Western(A Fistful Of Dollars) to making a great Western(Once Upon A Time In The West).
A brilliant masterpiece; Leone created a genre of cinema that nobody can do the same<remember;Sam Raimi tried.>.You have to write a clever script that also includes adventure,good dialogs and of course a little bit of sarcasism.I like to see it as a John Wayne movie in Tarantino way.
'A Fistful of Dollars' is probably a movie to remember.Not only for spaghetti western,it's also a peak point for the century of our cinema time.'JOE' is one of the first anti-hero character of movie history.Because of this I think it is a root for the film-noir genre of the latest times.
The second character of the movie is of course music.The Morricone's work is first class <like it always was>.From a moment you come to a level that you don't need dialogs to learn emotions,thoughts....The music starts to talk and makes the atmosphere all ready.So this gives Leone the chance to create a scene that only a few director in movie business can do:Creating the tension without the words.Remember how he did it on the final duel scene in 'The Good,The Bad,and The Ugly' and the final gunfight in 'For A Few Dollars More'.He doesn't betray the tradition and he builds a scene that we will see in the future<Back To The Future 3>But the difference between this scene and other scenes is:On other scenes there is the speed of the hands of the characters,in this one Leone shows us that you also have to be smart when it comes the time to shoot,not only on cheating,running away,or following a trail.
My final word is that here is classic.It includes all the style and genre Leone wanted to do in westerns.You can say the characters or the music is like other Leone movies but small roles make this movie impossible to put it to the same level with other stuff of Leone.Really characters like 'BARMEN' and 'COFFIN MAKER' are also the things that other 2 'dollar-movies' don't have.I'm sure that we all agree with 'The Good,The Bad, and The Ugly' and 'For Few Dollars More' are the greatests, but this one is standing on the top alone.It's the biggest chance to see what all Leone western is about and also to thank for all the influence on Coppola,Robert Rodriguez,Tarantino...
Perhaps not as great as Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly or Once Upon a Time in the West, A Fistful of Dollars stands out as the birth of a genre of film that still has a lasting impact upon the movie industry.
The plot of course has The Man with No Name (Clint Eastwood) arriving in a small town and playing two groups off against each other.Obviously, Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns are the ones against which all others should be judged.
Pretty impressive table-setter for the Clint Eastwood westerns, not just the two others Sergio Leone directed but the many after, right up to "Unforgiven." Clint's Man With No Name (called "Joe" by the coffin maker Piripero, though I suspect that's just what Piripero calls every man he doesn't know by name) appears mysteriously in the town of San Miquel and quickly sets himself up by playing two rival criminal families against each other?
RELEASED IN 1964 and directed by Sergio Leone, "A Fistful of Dollars" stars Clint Eastwood as an expert gunman who drifts into a Mexican town where he finds himself in the middle of a war between two factions, the gun-running gringo Baxters and the firewater-running Hispanic Rojos.
Cool caricatures with superhuman bravery & abilities work just fine when you're in your teens or early 20s, but after you mature a bit you naturally desire more three-dimensional and believable characters."A Fistful of Dollars" is worth checking out for its engaging first act and its iconic place in Western history, but there are superior Eastwood Westerns, such as the two Leone non-sequels (1965 & 1966 respectively), "Hang 'em High" (1968), "Two Mules for Sister Sara" (1970), "The Outlaw Josey Wales" (1976), "Pale Rider" (1985) and "Unforgiven" (1992).THE MOVIE RUNS 99 minutes and was shot in Almería, Andalucía, & Madrid, Spain; and Rome, Italy.GRADE: C.
A Fistful of Dollars is by no means a bad film, but it is definitely inferior to the Good, the Bad & The Ugly.Eastwood plays an interesting character where very little is known about him.
it relaunched Eastwoods flagging career, launching Leone's and Morricone's careers and reinvigorating the western genre which would pretty much come to an end in hollywood within ten years, at about the same time as the loss of John Wayne.But, as another reviewer commented, it pales into comparison with Yojimbo, the Japanese movie it was modelled on.You can count with the fingers of one hand movies of Clint Eastwood that stand out cinematically.
A classic innovative film that changed the face of the Western.Sergio Leone's 1964 film made Clint Eastwood an international star.This new genre of Western was called "the spaghetti western", a term that I personally don't like.
Such as the haunting singing chorus,blaring trumpets,stringing guitars and harmonic whistling.Fistful reveals in Eastwood's character a flawed individual instead of the noble hero found in most Westerns during that time.He was the anti-hero who lived by his own moral code and blew away any who stood in his way.This film was the first of what would be a trilogy based on Eastwood's role as "the man with no name".Hard to believe that this role was first offered to Steve(Hercules)Reeves who turned it down.After seeing Eastwood performance in Fistful, I can't imagine anyone else playing the part.A great film, but I believe Leone's sequels, "For a Few Dollars More" and "The Good,The Bad and The Ugly" are better films..
With many classic scenes (the climax is one of Clint's more infamous cinematic scenes, serving as an inspiration for the Back to the Future parts 2 & 3), Ennio Morricone's first great musical pairing with Leone, and moments that bring intensity and coolness in repeat viewings, Fistful of Dollars is one of those Westerns that's a lot of fun, and can be taken seriously too by film connoisseurs..
Clint Eastwood plays the Man with No Name displaying his enigmatic charm - that would be followed up in "For A Few Dollars More" and my personal favourite "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly" - in the way that he swerves around on screen, if one may call it that, and in the way that he delivers his lines.A Fistful of Dollars is not a film to miss, especially if one likes the rest of the Dollars trilogy, Westerns, or Clint Eastwood films.
Sergio Leone's first spaghetti western pits Clint Eastwood against two rival families in an abandoned, dilapidated town that has seen more than its share of death and destruction.
By the mid-1960s, Italy had produced several Westerns  all low-budget, and none particularly successful  until Sergio Leone moved on from the "sword and sandal" historical epics on which he had been working, and decided to make his own Spaghetti Western {so-called because of the large level of Italian participation both before and behind the camera, though filming usually took place in Spain to evoke the American Southwest}.'A Fistful of Dollars (1964)' was the first film in what would later be called Leone's "Dollars trilogy"  the other two entries were 'For a Few Dollars More (1965)' {the one film I haven't yet seen} and 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966).' All three films famously starred Clint Eastwood as the laconic and morally-ambiguous Man With No Name.
The film that birthed the "spaghetti western" genre A Fistful of Dollars is often overlooked in favor of the more popular For a few dollars more and The Good, the bad and the Ugly.
Clint Eastwood was not director Sergio Leone's first choice for the 'Man with No Name' role, but he's excellent, and a huge part of why this film is successful.
Being their first work together, the film creates an iconic western character out of Eastwood; the man with no name.
The Leone/Eastwood/Morricone 1-2-3 punch is the deadliest in western film-making, and that's why after all these years, the Fistful of Dollars trilogy stands proud and remains just as popular..
"A Fistful of Dollars" is the first of Sergio Leone's "Man with No Name" trilogy of westerns.
Clint Eastwood and director Sergio Leone made this film what it is.
The film stars Clint Eastwood as The Man with No Name and it`s directed by Sergio Leone, the rest is history.
A Fistful of Dollars marks the first film in the 'Man With No Name' trilogy and also launched Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone's careers.