Stars: Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, John Wels, W. Lukschy

Director: Sergio Leone

Summary: The first collaboration between Eastwood and Leone. The story of the man with no name, who tries to turn a gang feud to his own advantage.

The first true spaghetti Western, A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS follows a nameless drifter who plays two feuding families off each other to his own benefit. As members of each family are planted in the ground, the gold in his pocket gets heavier and heavier. This violent remake of Akira Kurosawa's YOJIMBO made Eastwood a star.

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This is the movie that launched the spaghetti Western and catapulted Clint Eastwood to stardom. Before director Sergio Leone picked him out, Clint had played only a few bit parts in features plus his role as Rowdy Yates in the TV Western series Rawhide. Leone cast him for his stillness and physical presence, famously remarking that when Michelangelo was asked what he had seen in a particular block of marble, he said Moses, but that what he, Leone, saw in Eastwood was just that, a block of marble. Leone also claimed that it was he who gave the character his trademark cigar and poncho, though Eastwood has said he brought his own wardrobe to Italy. Whoever takes credit, A Fistful of Dollars(Per un pugno di dollariin Italian) was an extraordinary success when launched in Italy in 1964. Eastwood had to wait longer for it to be a hit in the USA.

The film was based on Kurosawa's 1961 samurai picture Yojimbo, but Leone had forgotten to clear the copyright. Eventually a deal was done, but A Fistful of Dollarswas not released in the USA until 1967. It scored an equally resounding success, as did its sequels in the DollarTrilogy, For a Few Dollars Moreand The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The advertising campaign promoted Eastwood's character, laconic, amoral, dangerous, as The Man with No Name (though in the film he's clearly referred to as Joe), and audiences loved the film's refreshing new take on the Western genre. Gone are the pieties about making the streets safe for women and children (women are virtually absent from the Trilogy). Instead it's every man for himself. Striking too was a new emphasis on violence, with stylised, almost balletic gunfights and baroque touches such as Eastwood's armoured breastplate. The popularity of the Dollarsfilms had a marked influence on the Hollywood Western, for example Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, but its most enduring legacy is Clint Eastwood himself, still in action at the age of 70. --Edward Buscombe

Aspect Ratio:	2.35 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Interactive Menu Screens, Chapter Search, Original Theatrical Trailer, 8 Page Film Guide, Digitally Remastered, Uncut Version
Subtitles:	English
Year:	1964
Release Date:	February 7, 2000
Runtime:	98 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	16169 D V D
Keywords:	Off, Wide, Screen, Dollars, Fistful, Schedule, Westerns
Genre:	Westerns