A Fistful of Dollars is the first of the Sergio Leone Spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s. These were westerns (so movies about the American west,) made in Italy by an Italian filmmaker. This movie in particular began the Clint Eastwood Man With No Name trilogy (also known as The Stranger trilogy,) which culminated in the classic film The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. And as a first outing, this movie is pretty good. That being said, it is the story of Yojimbo, the classic Akira Kurosawa Samurai movie reworked as a western.
The truth is, the story fits this genre perfectly. It’s about a stranger who arrives in a town that has two warring gangs on either side. And he decides to go back and forth playing both of them against each other, giving them false information and making them think things about the other. All the while, he keeps getting paid by both sides who think he is working only for them. It’s a fun enough premise. After this movie, there was third remake in the Bruce Willis, Walter Hill film Last Man Standing. That one also set the story as a western.
The only problem here, in this Leone version, is that in this The Stranger ends up spending almost all of his time with just one of the two gangs. He has about two quick conversations with the other gang, but for the most part, it’s the Rojas all the way. They are the ones who first hire him, set him up, and then later become the real enemies. The other gang, the Baxters, are more of a distraction in the background. That being said, all of the things that the Stranger gets involved in with the Rojas are great. This includes him being taken prisoner by them and using a rolling barrel trap to escape. It also involves a woman who he finds out is being held captive there while she has a husband and son who live somewhere else, because one of the leaders of the gang accused her husband of cheating at cards (which he didn’t,) and this is the payment.
There’s a point in the movie where The Stranger raids the Roja’s place while they are away chasing after a false lead that he setup. He leaves no witnesses behind, and yet the Rojas know it was him (instead of thinking it was the Baxters, which they probably should have.) There’s no explanation to how they know, and this is bothersome. It’s a nitpick, but it is still problematic, considering that this is the point where the gang turns on our hero for the first time and learns the truth about him, and we never see how they learn it.
Still, aside from some plot holes like that, the movie is a lot of fun. The action is great, the pace moves quickly, the run time is not too long, and the filmmaking and music are both superb. It’s not surprise that this movie launched a whole trilogy. The Man With No Name is a character for the ages and taking Yojimbo and spinning the story this way turned out to be a great move.