For a Few Dollars More [Per qualche dollaro in più] ***** (1965, Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volontè, Klaus Kinski) – Classic Movie Review 1368

Clint Eastwood returned to Spain for a few dollars more – actually only $50,000, but his percentage of the movie must have compensated for this low salary – to re-team with co-writer/ director Sergio Leone for For a Few Dollars More [Per qualche dollaro in più], their 1965 follow-up to their 1964 smash-hit A Fistful of Dollars [Per un pugno di dollari].

After the box-office success of A Fistful of Dollars [Per un pugno di dollari] in Italy in 1964, the film-makers rushed an Italian-language print of Per un pugno di dollari to him to see in Hollywood as a US version did not then exist. ‘Yeah, I’ll work for that director again,’ he said.

And so Eastwood was persuaded to reprise his iconic cigar-chomping, poncho-wearing role as the Man With No Name and this time there is strong, powerful, edgy chemistry between him and Lee Van Cleef as the Colonel Douglas Mortimer — the Man in Black — both bounty hunters chasing a Mexican bandito gang, led by evil escaped prisoner El Indio, ‘The Indian’ (Gian Maria Volonté), one of the most wanted fugitives in the Wild West.

Ruthless, scheming, menacing and brutal, El Indio quirkily owns a musical pocket watch that he plays before engaging in gun duels. ‘When the chimes finish, begin,’ he says creepily.

If Eastwood and Van Cleef are at the film’s chilling heart and cold soul, they have strong competition from the stupendous displays of villainy from superbaddies Volonté and Klaus Kinski, as Wild, the hunchback.

With its classic Ennio Morricone score, the movie is all stylishly and thrillingly assembled by Leone, refining his operatic directorial visual style ready for the even more brilliant The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West to come.

Just look at Leone’s fetishist use of armoury and the complex system of flashbacks he uses to give the movie depth and sweep. And naturally there is plenty of explosive Western action – gun battles, jailbreaks, bank holdups – all spiced with vintage sardonic humour.

Eastwood was lucky to get his $50,000, for Van Cleef received only $17,000. But then the whole film cost only $600,000. It was nice little earner, grossing $15,000,000 in the US. By 1967, it became the highest grossing movie released in Italian cinemas.

The film was again shot in Almería, Spain, with interiors done at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios. Production designer Carlo Simi built the town of El Paso in the Almería desert. After years of lying empty, it is now a tourist attraction called Mini Hollywood, where fake gunfights are staged for the visitors. Screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni wrote the screenplay in just nine days.

For a Few Dollars More’s American and UK releases were held up until 1967 by the plagiarism lawsuit against A Fistful of Dollars, which couldn’t be released till January 1967.

Also in the cast are Joseph Egger, Rosemary Dexter, Mario Brega, Mara Krupp, Luigi Pistilli, Aldo Sambrell, Benito Stefanelli, Luis Rodríguez, Panos Papadopulos, Tomás Blanco and Lorenzo Robledo.

For a Few Dollars More [Per qualche dollaro in più] is directed by Sergio Leone, runs 132 minutes, is made by Produzioni Europee Associate (PEA), Arturo González Producciones Cinematográficas, and Constantin Film, is released by Produzioni Europee Associate (PEA) (1965) (Italy), United Artists (1967) (UK) and United Artists (1967) (US), is written by Luciano Vincenzoni (screenplay), Sergio Leone (scenario and (screenplay) and Fulvio Morsella (scenario), is shot in Technicolor and widescreen by Massimo Dallamano, is produced by Arturo González and Alberto Grimaldi, is scored by Ennio Morricone, is designed by Ángel Cabero and Montoro.

Ironically, the Man With No Name actually has a name – in each film a different one: in A Fistful of Dollars he is called Joe, in For A Few Dollars More he is Monco, and in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly he is Blondie.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1368

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