A Fistful of Dollars

Beautifully filmed with Clint Eastwood in a career defining role. The man with no-name outwits them all... One of the classic spaghetti Westerns.

While people will say the narrative of A fistful of dollars is not as good as its sucessors, For a few dollars more and The good the bad and the ugly, it is by far one of the most enjoyable and watchable westerns I have ever seen. Theres not one moment I can remember when watching the film in which I felt bored, which is rare for a western since while I love them, they can at times get a bit tedious.

Clint Eastwood is brilliant in his man with none name role, speaking very little and letting his trademark poncho and multi kill gun slinging do the talking for him, aswell as a load of grunts and sqinting making him have an incredibly 'cool' persona.

A funny but annoying part of the film is that while the film is marketed as a western, the film in truth is an Italian film, and Clint is the only English speaking person on set, the rest of the actors are all European, and as of such there is a considerable amount of dubbing involved for the rest of the characters, making it at times feel like a western set in Spain or Italy rather than in the golden frontier.

If you can overlook this, what you have is a fantastic adventure that is a great starting point for you if you have never enjoyed the Western genre. With its 'cool' lead character, an endless amount of tense silences, and fabulous mexican standoffs, it is a benchmark for the Spaghetti Westerns to come.

This is the type of movie that is not asking you to think beyond what you see in entertainment value. The story of playing one against another has been rehashed over and over in many mindspelling forms but this has to be the one that kickstarted Eastwoods carreer. I watched The Good, the bad and the Ugly on one of the Channel 4 TV stations recently and remembered this and A few Dollars more and rather than wait for them to come to TV I thought for entertainment value they were worth renting. being able to watch them one after the other was more entertaining than some others that had been given Oscars for because these films are short and to the point. (no Adverts).

To be honest it shows how little distance the entertainment industry has come in 50 years. Now most of the films have many SFX but little story to them. Eastwood has himself turned into a Director.

The good thing about the Leone/Eastwood partnership during the Fistful of Dollars, A few Dollars More and the Good The Bad and the Ugly, is that they are as good to watch now as they were 40-45 years ago. Well worth renting for that Cowboy escapism in you.

I watched this as a student in London when it first arrived. I was enthralled then, and have seen it on a number of occasions since, always enjoying. I've shown it to my children, the boys have loved it. This is probably a male film whose secret lies in how an awful lot of us would like to behave when confronted by yobbish bullying and violent threat. The film is wonderfully enhanced by fabulous scenery, bewitching close up technique, minimalist dialogue and some of the most evocative music to enrich a film of this genre and inserted by a genius of timing. In the small dialogue are heard one liners whose repetition, even years later, speaks volumes for their mesmeric effect:' My mule don't like people laughing' played against close-ups of Eastwood's grey-green eyes, perspiring, spitting thugs, a lolling cheroot, the poncho and hat is one brilliant example. The story is simple and involves an unknown but essentially righteous gunman playing off two over-mighty families in a single town, and winning. This is a film for all seasons which changed forever the western genre. If you have ever been bullied, or threatened enjoy this. This is a western that is truly unmissable.

I recently saw Gran Torino and decided I needed to watch all Clint Eastwood's films. I was expecting to really enjoy this - its such a famous title and with names like Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone behind it, how could it not be good?

And there is plenty to be admired about it, for sure. Far be it from me to pass judgement on what is universally hailed as a classic. Especially seeing as I never made it all the way through without falling asleep! The dialogue in the film is really hard to follow, having been really badly dubbed-on. I'd recommend watching it with subtitles on as I realised it was the only way I was going to make it through (but by then I'd lost patience with it, having tried and failed to watch it three times!).