
PopGap #07: A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
Written by dorrk | 13 July 2015 |
The Flickchart 150: Movies so great, that we’ve missed or forgotten them; #01/17.
Global Flickchart Rank: #112
My Flickchart Rank: #1901
Sergio Leone's trilogy of "spaghetti" westerns starring Clint Eastwood and scored by Ennio Morricone are three of the most revered movies of their genre. Even though Leone's later epic Once Upon a Time in the West is my favorite western, his earlier "The Man With No Name" trilogy has never made much of an impression on me. Even though I watched the first two movies in the series again just a few years ago, I didn't recall a thing from either viewing. Now that I'm paying better attention, I think that A Fistful of Dollars is a really good final 20 minutes — 20 minutes that arguably changed a genre — without much leading up to it.
Flickchart Global Ranking: #112
My Flickchart Ranking: #1890 (out of 3094)
In A Fistful of Dollars Eastwood plays a profit-motivated agitator who moseys into a grim little town terrorized by rival gangs. His attempts to manipulate each of the gangs and provoke an all-out war don't always work out well for him. A Fistful of Dollars is a (uncredited) remake of Kurosawa's Yojimbo (which is an uncredited adaptation of Dashiel Hammet's novel Red Harvest). Yojimbo, which I watched for the first time a couple of months ago, seemed to me fun but extremely lightweight for Kurosawa. It succeeded largely due to Toshiro Mifune's fantastic lead performance as the morally ambiguous main character. A Fistful of Dollars feels like lightweight Yojimbo, but neither Eastwood nor Leone were yet up to their inspiration's standard, failing to make any sense of the complex moral ambiguity at work in both the story and characters.
You can see definite signs in A Fistful of Dollars of what would lead both Leone and Eastwood to become revered as icons of this genre. Eastwood eschews theatrics for gruff silence and a steely gaze. Leone displays his superb vision for expansive but careully composed wide shots, as well as close-ups of of sweating brows. His editing of duels and other stand-offs is simply sensational. However, all of those elements are still in their infancy here, and in the service of a meandering, often dull story that is stocked with a series of increasingly indistinct, forgettable characters played by ordinary (or worse) stock actors and dubbed by voice talent not up to the standard of a Saturday morning cartoon.
All of the great characteristics that Leone and Eastwood bring to the best moments of A Fistful of Dollars they would display with more skill and consistency in their next two movies together, leaving this one an only mildly interesting, albeit groundbreaking, rough draft. Morricone's unorthodox whistle-heavy score — which was not only a career breakthrough for the composer, but also revolutionized the scoring of westerns and movies in general — is the most solid & mature contribution to this movie which is otherwise notable solely for its impact.
Trailer for A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
More info
I have reviews posted for all the movies on this blog, and live-tweeted most viewings here:
https://twitter.com/popgap
Our very young Youtube channel is here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI2fy3vQn-Q2-82002Fz63g
This list is posted to Letterboxd, here:
https://letterboxd.com/dorrk/list/popgap-2015-07-flickcharts-top-10-i-havent/
You can keep track of my Flickchart here:
http://www.flickchart.com/Charts.aspx?user=dorrk
TL/DR
-
Movie:A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
-
A.K.A.:Per Un Pugno Di Dollari
-
Dir.:Sergio Leone
-
Rating:6/10
Tags
Related Articles
Latest Articles
-
Silver Screen Streak List #24: The Best Crime Thrillers I Haven't Seen
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2023 has been put down
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2023
-
Silver Screen Streak List #23: 04. Invention for Destruction (1958)
-
Silver Screen Streak List #23: 03. Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
-
Silver Screen Streak List #23: 02. Hellzapoppin' (1941)
-
Silver Screen Streak List #23: 01. The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1962)
-
Silver Screen Streak List #23: The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film
-
Silver Screen Streak List #22: 05. The Hippopotamus (2017)
POPGAP Projects
-
Silver Screen Streak List #24: The Best Crime Thrillers I Haven't Seen
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2023 has been put down
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2023
-
Silver Screen Streak List #23: The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film
-
Silver Screen Streak List #22: The 28 best films of all time you've probably never seen
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2022 is all Oct-Over now, Baby Blue
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2022
-
Silver Screen Streak List #21: Dramas of the 1940s
-
Popgap Diary: 2021 in Review
Popular Articles
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2019
-
Introducing the Silver Screen Streak movie challenge
-
Octoblur 2017: Annual Horror-ish Movie Nightmare-a-thon
-
PopGap #08 Re-cap: Comedies Since 1970
-
Octoblur 2017: R.I.P.!
-
PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2020
-
Octoblur 2015 - It's Over!
-
PopGap #19: Movie Books Special Report
-
Popgap Diary: 2019 in Review