Rent A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

Taut and violent - superb stuff - A Fistful of Dollars review by RP

Way back in 1960 it was common knowledge that 'The Magnificent Seven' was a remake of famed Japanese director's Akira Kurosawa's film 'Seven Samurai' – and that was all I knew. I'd never seen the original nor knew of any other of Kurosawa's films. And in 1967 when I first saw 'A Fistful Of Dollars' I appreciated it for what I saw on the screen – a taut, violent Western with a lone, laconic stranger (Clint Eastwood) arriving in a Mexican border town dominated by two feuding families, the Rojos and the Baxters, whose businesses are liquor and guns respectively. Stranger plays both families off against each other. Plenty of shooting, killing, fisticuffs and general mayhem ensues. Stranger leaves town. Err – that's about it. The film is short at 97 min, the storyline compact, the landscape suitably barren, the score unforgettable, the characters divided into goodies and baddies. Superb stuff – I liked it then and I still do, and it hasn't dated (but I guess that nowadays it would show bullet wounds and more blood).

But I didn't know that it was essentially a remake of Kurosawa's 1961 film 'Rojimbo' where a lone samurai comes to town and plays two sides against each other. And it was a lawsuit about this unauthorised remake that delayed the release of 'A Fistful Of Dollars' from 1961 when it was made until its wider release in 1967.

But I'm a little more versed in cinema now and have seen all (?) of the better known Kurosawa films and appreciate him as a great director. But don't let that take anything away from Sergio Leone, the master of the spaghetti western. 4/5 stars – highly recommended.

Will always be a classic - A Fistful of Dollars review by AB

We all know the storyline from this, the first of the 'spaghetti westerns' - the moralistic stranger who has no compunction about killing or helping those in need but even after nigh-on 50 years, it is still a great film, with a superb musical score that leads you on to whistling it for most of the day! Most of the films from that genre have the same storyline but, what the heck. I defy any man to deny that he has seen himself in the Clint Eastwood role

Brilliant Cult Western - A Fistful of Dollars review by GI

This quite small film was a significant game changer challenging the American western which by the mid 60s had become a somewhat tired genre. Then along came Sergio Leone, a huge fan of westerns, who abandoned the conventions of the genre and made this gritty 'professional' western and set the path for American directors like Sam Peckinpah to rise and take the genre to new heights. Whilst this was by no means the first 'spaghetti' western it was definitely the first to become a cult hit and especially in the USA. With it's uncompromising vision of a sun hardened landscape in which only violence and money are the languages understood this broke all the rules. It's a simple story, in fact based on the Japanese samurai film, Yojimbo (1961), where a bedraggled drifter arrives in a Mexican border town, proves his skill with his gun and sets about playing the town's two rival gangs off against one another. Clint Eastwood's career was kickstarted with this as the stranger, Joe, who doesn't get it all his own way and indeed gets brutally beaten at one stage but wins out at the end against the chief villain played by Gian Maria Volontè. The gunfights are great and the score by Ennio Morricone is iconic and majestic raising the film above and beyond. Leone went on to make two more westerns with Eastwood which have become known as the Dollars Trilogy. Whilst Eastwood appears in similar clothing, especially the famous poncho, in all three he in fact plays a different character in each of the films with different name in each. The American market chose to call him the 'Man with No Name' which led to the idea that he's the same character in all three of the films but my advice is to consider them three quite different films with three quite different main characters. In Fistful...he's clearly referred to as Joe and he leaves at the end the same as he arrives at the beginning, bedraggled, riding a mule and penniless. He does spend the film trying to enrich himself but ultimately he fails even though he kills just about everyone. So this is a film to be viewed without being influenced by either of the two that followed even though there are thematic links but I suggest no narrative ones. Whichever way you want to think of the trilogy this, the first, is a neat gunfighter story that broke with convention and managed to redefine the cinema's vision of the key American myth.