About this movie
Cast & Crew
Cast
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Clint Eastwood
The Man with No Name
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Marianne Koch
Marisol
- Gian Maria Volonte
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Gian Maria Volontè
Ramon Rojo
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Wolfgang Lukschy
John Baxter
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Mario Brega
Chico
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Carol Brown
Antonia Baxter
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Antonio Prieto
Benito Rojo
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Josef Egger
Piripero
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Benny Reeves
Rubio
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Pepe Calvo
Silvanito
Directors
- Sergio Leone
Producers
- Arrigo Colombo
- Giorgio Papi
Writers
- Sergio Leone
- Victor Andres Catena
- Jaime Comas Gil
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A Fistful of Dollars
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 of his double play, and each thinks it is using him, but the stranger will outwit them both. The picture was the first installment in a cycle commonly known as the "Dollars" trilogy. Later, United Artists, who distributed it in the U.S., coined another term for it: the "Man With No Name" trilogy. While not as impressive as its follow-ups For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966), A Fistful of Dollars contains all of Leone's eventual trademarks: taciturn characters, precise framing, extreme close-ups, and the haunting music of Ennio Morricone. Not released in the U.S. until 1967 due to copyright problems, the film was decisive in both Clint Eastwood's career and the recognition of the Italian western.
Reviews by Rotten Tomatoes
98%
percent positive reviews
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Variety Staff, Variety
This is a hard-hitting item, ably directed, splendidly lensed, neatly acted, which has all the ingredients wanted by action fans and then some.
– Full review
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Urban Cinefile Critics, Urban Cinefile
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.
– Full review
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Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune
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.
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Geoff Andrew, Time Out
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.
– Full review
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Bosley Crowther, New York Times
Egregiously synthetic but engrossingly morbid, violent film.
– Full review
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