A Fistful of Dollars (Per un Pugno di Dollari) (1964)
Average Rating: 8.1/10
Reviews Counted: 43
Fresh: 42 | Rotten: 1
With Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo as his template, Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars helped define a new era for the Western and usher in its most iconic star, Clint Eastwood.
Average Rating: 7.8/10
Critic Reviews: 6
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 0
With Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo as his template, Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars helped define a new era for the Western and usher in its most iconic star, Clint Eastwood.
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Average Rating: 3.9/5
User Ratings: 81,442
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Movie Info
By the time Sergio Leone made this film, Italians had already produced about 20 films ironically labelled "spaghetti westerns." Leone approached the genre with great love and humor. Although the plot was admittedly borrowed from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961), Leone managed to create a work of his own that would serve as a model for many films to come. Clint Eastwood plays a cynical gunfighter who comes to a small border town and offers his services to two rivaling gangs. Neither gang is aware
Sep 12, 1964 Wide
Jun 19, 2001
MGM Home Entertainment
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Cast
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Clint Eastwood
The Man with No Name -
Marianne Koch
Marisol -
Gian Maria Volonté
Ramon Rojo -
Wolfgang Lukschy
John Baxter -
Mario Brega
Chico -
Carla Calo
Antonia Baxter -
Antonio Prieto
Benito Rojo -
Joseph Egger
Piripero -
Benito Stefanelli
Rubio -
José Calvo
Silvanito -
Margarita Lozano
Consuela Baxter -
Sieghardt Rupp
Esteban Rojo -
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Bruno Carotenuto
Antonio Baxter -
Daniel Martin
Julian
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All Critics (43) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (42) | Rotten (1) | DVD (8)
Once in a great while a western comes along that breaks new ground and becomes a classic of the genre.
Top CriticThis is a hard-hitting item, ably directed, splendidly lensed, neatly acted, which has all the ingredients wanted by action fans and then some.
From Clint Eastwood's iconic performance to Ennio Morricone's unforgettable (and much-parodied) musical score, A Fistful of Dollars (****) took the western down trails it had never explored.
Though far less operatic and satisfying than Leone's later work, his first spaghetti Western with Eastwood still looks stylish, if a little rough at the edges.
Egregiously synthetic but engrossingly morbid, violent film.
Really little more than a series of loosely connected shoot-outs -- but, as Sergio Leone proved, there can be a lot of fun in that.
Westerns were never the same after Sergio Leone.
The moment where Sergio Leone, anonymous costume drama hack turned into Sergio Leone, keen stylist and poet of cruelty.
Guns galore in intro "spaghetti Western" serving.
What Leone does with this movie is boil the Western down to its very essence, removing all the extraneous parts.
A deliciously ripe spaghetti western
Very much an act of sardonic disrespect toward the genre, yet it's also a legitimate passion play
A Fistful of Dollars may lack the mournful intensity and Shakespearian comedy of the later Leone classics, but as an action film it holds up brilliantly.
A clever film, shot with sophistication, which ... propelled Eastwood to international stardom.
Awesome.
Though far from perfected in this film, Leone's style would mature through his next two films.
It's Leone's shortest and simplest film, but all of his hallmarks -- a masterly use of space within the widescreen frame, Ennio Morricone's unusual soundtrack music, plenty of silence -- are already in place.
Leone's pulpy, trend-setting parody -- a rip-off of Kurosawa's Yojimbo -- hog-tied the Western and dragged it into the modern age, branding it with baroquely big close-ups and Ennio Morricone's famously eclectic score.
A wonderful cinematic experience.
Audience Reviews for A Fistful of Dollars (Per un Pugno di Dollari)
The ongoing praise that has been aimed at PER UN PUGNO is almost entirely agreeable. The picture is nearly half a century in age, but it still holds up as one of the most intriguing escapades ever produced; it's a close second to DIE HARD on my fictional mental list, "The Greatest (Albeit Slightly Illogical) Escapist Films Ever Conceived". Those who could overlook the illogical factors of that late '80s flick, however, aren't terribly likely to notice those hidden in this 1964 film. There is a factor, unfortunately, that makes a noticeable impact upon DOLLARI. Producers Arrigo Colombo and Giorgio Papi budgeted the film at a low $200,000 (less than $1.5 million, when adjusted for inflation), and it shows from the very beginning. The opening title sequence, designed by Iginio Lardani, would have worked well, had it not been a poorly sketched cartoon with hokey sound effects and lettering. The cinematography, though usually acceptable, also fails when attempting to abruptly change from a landscape shot to a close up; the zoom effect is a bit cheesy. On the other hand, there is one magnificently honorable success in the film's technical realm. Overlooked Italian composer Ennio Morricone, credited under the pseudonym "Dan Savio", composed an unforgettable score for the film-the kind of score such films would fail without. After it had been suggested by the director, Morricone fabricated the film's two key, innovative themes in the likeness of Tiomkin's compositions for UN DOLLARO D'ONORE (English title: Rio Bravo) and GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL, two late-'50s Westerns. It's the one technical element that progresses throughout the film as a background supporter, builds up suspense when necessary, and leads up to an unexpected conclusion.
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Super Reviewer
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- The Man with No Name: I don't think it's nice, you laughin'. You see, my mule don't like people laughing. He gets the crazy idea you're laughin' at him. Now if you apologize, like I know you're going to, I might convince him that you really didn't mean it.
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- The Man with No Name: Baxter's over there, Rojo's there, me right smack in the middle.
- Silvanito: If you are thinking what I suspect, I tell you, don't try it!
- The Man with No Name: Crazy bell-ringer was right. There's money to be made in these parts.
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- The Man with No Name: When a man with .45 meets a man with a rifle, you said, the man with a pistol's a dead man. Let's see if that's true. Go ahead, load up and shoot.
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- The Man with No Name: Don Miguel Roho...I want to talk to you! Don Miguel, I hear you're hiring on men. Well, I just may be available. I gotta tell you before you hire me, I don't work cheap!
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- The Man with No Name: [After same gunfight, to the undertaker] My mistake: four coffins.
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- The Man with No Name: Aim for the heart, Ramon.
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Foreign Titles
- Für eine Handvoll Dollar (DE)
- A Fistful of Dollars (UK)
All the elements are here though - cool as fuck Clint w/ his black stub cigar and his inscrutable squint - Morricone's wonderfully stark music and Leone's devastating widescreen compositions. Above all this may be the first western without a white hat It's greed, violence and death, played out in the mythic filthy Texas desert.