A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

Film: A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

Stars: Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, Gian Maria Volonte, W. Lukschy, Sieghardt Rupp, Joe Edger

Director: Sergio Leone

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Clint Eastwood: click here to learn more about Mr. Eastwood (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Clint Eastwood has been a genuine movie star for so many decades, it's hard to kind of comprehend a time before he was famous, or before his name was on a scrolling marquee (he is one of the few actors from the 1960's to not only still be around, but still able to genuinely open a movie...his last one feels like it was one of the bigger casualties of the same-day-as-streaming phenomenon).  But when he was first brought to Hollywood in the mid-1950's, he wasn't a success.  Lanky and ruggedly handsome, there's no doubt why he was hired, but his stiff delivery didn't help him (even if it eventually made him a household name), and he appeared in schlocky horror films for Universal like Revenge of the Creature and Tarantula before the actor was dropped by the studio as they didn't know what to do with him.  A few years as a free agent were tough for Eastwood, who was nearing 30 and hadn't made a name for himself despite key roles opposite actors like James Garner & Ginger Rogers.  Finally, Rawhide came along and changed everything.  The show was a big hit for CBS, and it finally got Eastwood the star-making role he'd dreamt of.  The show would continue for eight seasons, and by the end, Eastwood would be a star thanks to the spaghetti western, the first major one of which we'll discuss today (though we'll move into a more robust history of his time in Italy when we talk about another major film in the genre Eastwood would make next week).

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie features Eastwood as Joe, though he would become known as the Man with No Name (a role that Eastwood would play in some part for much of his career, and which will honestly be a thorough-line through all five of our films this month).  The film centers on this mysterious stranger coming to town, and finding himself in the middle of a long-standing fight between the Rojos and the Baxters, two local clans where both sides seem at fault, though it's pretty clear the Baxters are the lesser of two evils when Ramon Rojo (Volonte) kills a crew of Mexican soldiers.  Joe spends much of the film trying to play both sides, bilking money from each by riling up the other, but when a young woman named Marisol (Koch) is shown to be a sexual slave of Ramon (despite a husband and son at home who miss her), he takes up the mantle of their hero, saving the town from Ramon and riding off into the sunset.

As you're going to find this month, the Eastwood westerns, even when he takes over as the director, have a fairly similar plotline, albeit a tantalizing one-the idea of a stranger coming in and fighting the insurmountable evil at bay has been the plot of everything from Shane to The Shootist, so it makes sense that Eastwood would play into this trope.  But Fistful is one of the best creations in this mold.  It helps that Eastwood is given a little bit more fun here.  For the first half of the movie, he's having a blast being silly and finding ways to milk another $500 a pop from each family.  There's a playfulness that would not be standard in his movie roles, but would be evident in offscreen interviews or testimonials from former costars.  I loved getting to see that in such a young performance from him.

But Eastwood, albeit an underrated actor (with apologies to Ray Liotta), is not the biggest draw here-it's the technical wizardry.  Sergio Leone made what might be my all-time favorite movie, Once Upon a Time in the West, a few years later, and you can see him building to that with this brilliantly-structured film.  The violence onscreen really resonates, both visually and emotionally, as you come to understand just how cruel the old west could be.  The cinematography is fantastic-there were shots in this movie where I just wanted to hit pause and marvel at the use of space & color on the big screen.  And of course, Ennio Morricone is hitting a home run with the score, so effectively simple in drilling every moment onscreen (less grandeur than some of his later work...think of this as his Jaws).  All-in-all, this is a really special way to start our month with an actor that I have been excitedly waiting to get into all year.