A Fistful of Dollars

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A Fistful of Dollars

Directed by	Sergio Leone
Produced by	Arrigo Colombo Giorgio Papi
Written by	A. Bonzzoni Victor Andrés Catena Sergio Leone Jaime Comas Gil
Starring	Clint Eastwood Marianne Koch Gian Maria Volonté José Calvo Joseph Egger Antonio Prieto Mario Brega Wolfgang Lukschy Seighardt Rupp Benny Reeves Peter Fernandez (voice: English version) Yasuo Yamada (voice: Japanese version)
Music by	Ennio Morricone
Distributed by	United Artists Unidis
Release date(s)	December 10, 1964 January 18, 1967
Running time	99 min.
Language	Italian English Spanish
Budget	$200,000 US (est.)
Followed by	For a Few Dollars More
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari in Italy and officially on-screen in the U.S. and UK as simply Fistful of Dollars) is a 1964 film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood. Released 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 and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, also starring Eastwood. Collectively, the films are commonly known as "The Dollar(s) Trilogy". In the United States, the United Artists publicity campaign referred to Eastwood's character in all three films as The Man With No Name.

As this was the first film of the Spaghetti Western genre to be released in the United States,^{[citation needed]} many of the European cast and crew took on American stage names. This included Sergio Leone himself, who was credited as "Bob Robertson".

1 Plot
2 Influence
3 References
4 Trivia
5 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Eastwood as the "Man with No Name" in A Fistful Of Dollars.

The plot of the film involves Eastwood as a gunman, the Man With No Name, arriving at the little town of San Miguel, where soon enough he is warned of the two families disputing their claim over it, and the continuous strife between both: the Rojos brothers, Don Miguel (the boss), Esteban (the coward) and Ramón (Eastwood's match, played by Gian Maria Volonté, who would go on to reappear in For a Few Dollars More as El Indio); and the family of John Baxter, sheriff of the town. The Man With No Name decides to play both families against each other, apparently "for a few dollars", performing tasks for both while at the same time making them fight each other. Eventually he works up to a goal by rescuing Ramón's prisoner and mistress, Marisol (Marianne Koch) and reuniting her with her family. They flee the town. Captured, tortured and having escaped the Rojos after this open betrayal, the brothers torch the Baxter stronghold and kill everyone in it, including the sheriff, his wife and son. The Man With No Name escapes with the help of Piripero (Joseph Egger, who would also reappear in the sequel) and returns to town to rescue the local innkeeper and his friend, Silvanito, and engage in a final showdown with the Rojos and their gang. With the aid of a bulletproof plate, The Man With No Name imparts justice, and rides away before the government gets to San Miguel.

[edit] Influence

Although the film was advertised in trailers as "the first film of its kind", the plot and even the cinematography was based almost entirely on Akira Kurosawa's film Yojimbo (written by Kurosawa and Ryuzo Kikushima). Kurosawa remained insistent that he receive compensation. He wrote Leone: "It is a very fine film, but it is my film."[1] The producers of Yojimbo successfully sued the production of A Fistful of Dollars for copyright infringement and gained an apology, $100,000 dollars and 15% of the box office totals in Asia to the movie in compensation. Kurosawa later admitted he quite liked A Fistful of Dollars and considered it a worthy remake^{[citation needed]}.

Leone also referenced numerous American Westerns in the film, most notably Shane and My Darling Clementine. Stephen King has credited the trilogy with inspiring the atmosphere of his novel The Gunslinger.

[edit] References

A Fistful of Dollars, as the initiator of the 'spaghetti western', is referenced elsewhere in popular culture:

Back to the Future trilogy: in Back to the Future Part II, a short scene is seen where Eastwood's character survives the final gunfight which foreshadows the scene in Back to the Future Part III where Marty duplicates the scene (in the same costume, and after having told locals his name was 'Clint Eastwood').
Star Trek: The Next Generation: in the episode "A Fistful of Datas", Worf and Troi are trapped in a holodeck western until they play it out to the end of the story. Meanwhile, each of the characters was replaced by a likeness of Data. There is an homage to the iron plate when Worf rigs a makeshift deflector shield.
The title of the movie was parodied by that of the Futurama episode "A Fishful of Dollars"
In one of the Halloween episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xander Harris wore a costume similar to, and based on, the attire that Clint Eastwood's "man with no name" wore in the spaghetti westerns in which he starred.
In the video-game Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, after a number of saves the character Para-Medic talks to Naked Snake about the movie, as the game is set in 1964.
The band The Mars Volta uses themes from A Fistful of Dollars at their live shows.
The movie Last Man Standing starring Bruce Willis is a version of both Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars.
The American version of the videogame Ape Escape 3 features a stage set in a Wild West town, and the movie the monkeys are filming there is called "A Fistful Of Bananas".
In the second part of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, the theme of the film is used after Budd shoots the Bride with two rounds of rock-salt and disarms her, shortly after this he insults and then drugs her unconscious.
Towards the end of a story in Animaniacs where Chicken Boo masquerades as "the man with no personality", one of the characters produces "a fistful of feathers", followed immediately by another character producing "a few feathers more".
In the original Dragon Ball anime series, when Bulma and Goku were attempting to catch Oolong the shape shifting pig, who had taken the form of a fish and jumped into a river, Goku took advantage of the greedy pig's nature and baited a fishing pool with money. Oolong immediately took the bait. When Goku reeled him in, Oolong had the money in his mouth and Goku exclaimed (in the English translation) "Look!! A fish full of dollars!".
The sketch comedy film Kentucky Fried Movie contains within it a short film spoofing Enter the Dragon which is titled "A Fistful of Yen".

[edit] Trivia

The scene in the film in which Clint Eastwood survives unharmed a number of shots to the chest, and later reveals himself to be wearing an iron plate under his poncho, was probably inspired by a very similar episode in the real life of American outlaw Jim Miller, or that of infamous Australian bushranger Ned Kelly, who wore iron plates to protect his body from shootouts with police.