156. A Fistful Of Dollars; movie review

FISTFUL OF DOLLARS
Cert 15
96 mins
BBFC advice: Contains strong violence

The grit, the blood and the music - oh, the music. A Fistful of Dollars is proof that a soundtrack can lift a movie from moderate to marvellous.
The score by Ennio Morricone (alias Dan Savio or Leo Nichols) is still whirring around my head a week after watching Sergio Leone's spaghetti western.
Leone made A Fistful of Dollars as an antidote to what he saw as the unconvincing cowboy films being produced by Hollywood in the 1960s.
I was astonished to read that Clint Eastwood was the EIGHTH choice to play Joe, the handsome stranger who arrives in a Mexican town run by two rival families.
Would any of the other seven played the role with such understated brilliance? I doubt it.
For those who have yet to experience A Fistful of Dollars (there certainly can't be many over 40), the stranger has a loose plan to make as much money as he can from the gunslinging families without them realising he is betraying them.
In his endeavour, he seeks no ally, but finds them in a bar owner (José Calvo), and a coffin builder (Joseph Egger).
Meanwhile, he also sets out to defend a kidnapped mother (Marianne Koch  who has become the plaything of the town's most notorious bully (Gian Maria Volontè).
The confrontation between Eastwood's Joe and Volontè's Ramon gradually leads to one of the greatest finales cinema history.
A Fistful Of Dollars and the spaghetti western trilogy became so famous that its sets, built in southern Spain, became a tourist attraction.
And yet, despite being so great in so many ways, they are strangely amateurish in others.
For example, the dubbing of English, to replace the Italian spoken by many of the cast, jars as much as the bright red blood which spills from those who have died very exaggerated deaths.
And yet, above it all, stands the stranger, whose heartbeat scarcely rises despite being shot at countless times and suffering near death after a savage beating.
I can't imagine the role could have been played by anyone else other than Eastwood.
It provided the foundation for many of his characters to come - indeed, if Joe had said: "Go ahead, make my day," it would have fitted just as well as it did to Dirty Harry.
A Fistful Of Dollars is legendary. Go watch it and enjoy.

Reasons to watch: One of the great westerns
Reasons to avoid: The dubbed dialogue looks really strange nowadays

Laughs: None
Jumps: None
Vomit: None
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 9/10

Director quote - Sergio Leone: "I really wanted James Coburn but he was too expensive. We got Clint for $15,000 and Coburn wanted $25,000."

The big question - Why aren't soundtracks as evocative as this any more?

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