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Posted on 10/12/2025 11:08:47 AM PDT by Twotone
Perhaps because it came out the year I was born, I have a hard time imagining a world without A Fistful of Dollars, Sergio Leone and the spaghetti western. It's easy to forget how much this single film changed not just the western but the movie hero, whose credibility forever afterward came with stubble and unkempt hair, abundant sarcasm and an implacably bad attitude. It became an article of faith that the only honest way to look back at the world arrayed against the hero was through a squint.
By the time I actually understood what a western was, Leone had completed the three films in what would be called the Dollars or the Man with No Name trilogy, though he had no plan to make a series when he finished A Fistful of Dollars. In the meantime the spaghetti western genre had exploded and Leone's films would affect the style and substance of westerns forever afterward. The '60s had begun with John Ford's elegiac The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, but it would end with Sam Peckinpah's brutal The Wild Bunch; something had obviously changed.
The effect of A Fistful of Dollars in North America was delayed by the fact that it wasn't released officially here until over two years after it came out in Italy, when all three of the Dollars films would come out a few months apart in 1967. A publicity campaign by United Artists landed the films in America as a single artistic statement – a fait accompli that they certainly weren't when Leone began production on his ultra low budget western in Spain in the spring of 1964.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
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Loved them as cheesy as some were.
The first Spaghetti Western I ever saw was called FINGER ON THE TRIGGER with Rory Calhoun(1965) filmed in Spain. I knew it was foreign when the Indians had short hair, hair on their chests using Roman era bows and spears.
The "get three coffins ready" vignette is a favorite. The climactic shootout (which was given an homage in "Back to the Future III") is also a fave. The rest of it notsa good. In one of the making of (perhaps an alt audio track on a DVD) Volonte's Marxism was mentioned as the reason his career fell apart. I think it's probably why he was so effective as a bad guy on screen. 😊
"there are two kinds of people in the world my friend"
yeah, those who made "toxic masculinity" entertaining, and those who make today's "testosterone challenged" dreck
RIP amici
I’ve watch all 3 of the early Clint Eastwood “spaghetti westerns” and have yet to see the bowl of spaghettin in any of them.
If they would have just apologized for making fun of his mule.
Paul Hogan had a comedy TV show years ago. The only skit I remember was a spoof of a Spaghetti Western called “A Fistful of Ravioli,” starring “Clunk Eastman.” LOL.
The 50’s Westerns were some of the best movies made. Real actors and beautiful women who liked being women.
“ Paul Hogan had a comedy TV show years ago. The only skit I remember was a spoof of a Spaghetti Western called “A Fistful of Ravioli,” starring “Clunk Eastman.” LOL.”
Pocket Full of Yen - Kentucky Fried Movie
The best Leone spaghetti was One Upon a time in the West.
Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Jack Elam, Woody Strode, Keenan Wynn
Funny about spaghetti. I heard that in Italy spaghetti is considered one of the side dishes with the entrees. In the US we think the opposite.
Jimmy Stewart would have apologized for them.
One of his best skits.
“I wanted Sophia Loren”.
I loved the Bud Spencer / Terrance Hill ones.
They played so well off each other.
But I love ‘em BOTH! :-)
Yes it was.
Just watched Squint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars and Unforgiven a couple nights ago.
They were delayed in the US due to a lawsuit with Kurosawa Akira because “Fist-full of Dollars” was a nearly shot for shot adaptation of “Yojimbo.” Both movies are excellent in their own ways.
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