“A Fistful of Dollars”
Movie Review
A Fistful of Dollars is a spaghetti western directed by Sergio
Leone, released in 1964 and starring Clint Eastwood in his first leading role
alongside Gian Maria Volonte, Marianne Koch, Wolfgang Lukschy, Sieghardt Rupp,
Jose Calvo, Antonio Prieto, and Joseph Egger done. The film is a co-production
between Italy, West Germany, and Spain. It was the first film to popularize the
spaghetti western genre. Eastwood later starred in the films For a Few Dollars
More, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Collectively, the films are known as the
"Dollars Trilogy" or "The Man with No Name Trilogy". These
three films were then released back-to-back in America in 1967, catapulting
Eastwood to stardom. The film was identified as an unofficial remake of the
1961 Akira Kurosawa film Yojimbo, which resulted in a successful lawsuit by
Toho, Yojimbo's production company.
A Fistful of Dollars was filmed in Spain, mostly in Hoyo de
Manzanares near Madrid, but also in the Tabernas Desert and Cabo de Gata-Nijar
Natural Park in the province of Almeria.
The story of the film is that a nameless stranger arrives in the
small town of San Miguel on the Mexico-United States border. Silvanito, the
town's innkeeper, tells the stranger about the rivalry between two families of
smugglers vying for control of the town: the Rojo brothers, Don Miguel,
Esteban, and Ramon, and the town's sheriff, John Baxter, and his estranged
wife, Consuelo and their son Antonio. The stranger decides to play these
families against each other to earn money. He demonstrates his speed and
accuracy by wielding a gun on both sides, easily shooting down four men who
insult him as they enter the city.
The stranger seizes an opportunity when he sees Rojos massacring
Mexican soldiers guarding a box of gold that they plan to exchange for a shipment
of new rifles. He takes the two bodies to a nearby cemetery and sells the
information to both groups, saying that two Mexican soldiers have escaped the
attack. Each faction rushes to the cemetery, and Baxter lures the supposed
survivors into testifying against Rojos and Rojos to silence them; They engage
in a shootout in which Ramon appears to kill the survivors and Esteban captures
Antonio Baxter. A stranger approaches Marisol, a woman caught in a clash
between feudal families, to accompany Ramon and take their young son, Jesus, to
the home of her husband, Julio. He learns from Silvanito that Ramon portrayed
Julio as a cheater during a card game and that Marisol forced the prisoner to
live with him.
That night, as the Rojos celebrate, the stranger sneaks in and
frees Marisol, shooting the guards and breaking into the house where she is
being held to create the appearance of an attack by the Baxters. He pays Marisol
off, forcing her and her family to leave town. When the Rojos learn that the
stranger has freed Marisol, they capture and torture him; However, he escapes
them. Believing that Baxter was protecting him, Rojos set Baxter's house on
fire and massacred them as they fled the burning building. After pretending to
save his life, Ramon kills the begging John and Antonio Baxter. Consuelo
appears and finds her family dead, cursing Rojos for killing unarmed people.
Then Esteban was shot dead. With the help of Piripero, a local coffin maker,
the stranger escapes the city by hiding in a coffin.
The stranger hides inside a nearby mine, but when Piripero tells
him that Silvanito has been captured and Rojos is torturing him to find out
where the stranger is, he returns to town to confront them. Hiding a steel
chest plate under his poncho, he taunts Ramon by "aiming for the
heart" as Ramon's shots deflect until he runs out of ammunition for his
Winchester rifle. The stranger knocks the weapon out of Ramon's hand and kills
Don Miguel, Rubio, and other Rojo men standing nearby. He uses the last bullet
of his gun to free Silvanito, who is hanging from the rope by his hands. After
challenging Ramon to reload his rifle faster than he can, the stranger shoots
and kills Ramon. Esteban Rojo takes aim at the stranger's back from a nearby
building but is shot by Silvanito. The stranger bids farewell to Silvanito and
Piripero and walks out of town.
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