Few films have got greater claim to making history than Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of dollars. This 1964- movie not only breathed a new life into the dying genre of Westerns but it also went on to create a new sub-genre called Spaghetti Westerns. It also turned Clint Eastwood’s fledgling career on its head and made this Hollywood reject-turned-TV star into a cult figure- ‘A man with no name’. With its two sequels- For A Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, this film established the legendary ‘Dollars’ trilogy.

 

The film is more about style than about a plot. An American gun-fighter, a loner called Joe (Clint Eastwood) rides into a small Mexican town. Two rival gangs- the Baxters and the Rojos are ruling and ruining the town. The economy is in shambles. The only job available is for the coffin-maker. But using his rapid-fire gun and quick brains to good effect, Joe soon makes inroads into both gangs. His double-dealing antics do earn him more than a fistful of dollars but they also land him in trouble, especially when he decides to play the unlikely good man to unite a family tormented by the Rojos. Will Joe come up trumps against these two fierce, feuding criminal families?

 

Italian director Sergio Leone used Italian supporting cast (whose dialogues were later dubbed for Hollywood consumption) and created the grand scenic US West ambience on Spanish locations. He also changed the standard Hollywood Western equations by doing away with typical good- versus- bad character- demarcation. Gone was the all-too-virtuous Western hero romanticized by the likes of John Wayne. Eastwood’s reticent, cigar-chewing, gun-slinging, double-crossing Joe who sports stubble and wears a poncho and a cowboy hat is a total anti-hero - a cynical hard-boiled man with no morals except money. Even his humor is subtle and dark. This laconic, law-unto-himself image became Eastwood’s signature even in his later films.

 

‘Spaghetti Western’ was a term first used in a derogatory fashion to point out the ‘bad’ influence of European ‘outsiders’ like Leone on a ‘once pure’ genre of US Westerns.  But these very Spaghetti Westerns went on to set new standards within the celebrated genre with their gritty, graphic and grey portrayals.