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A Fistful of Dollars

A Fistful of Dollars

List Price: $14.95
Your Price: $11.96
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the truly great Westerns of all time
Review: It is difficult now to realize what a very, very unusual movie this is. It is hard to remember that before this film, Clint Eastwood was merely a well-known and well-liked television personality (Rowdy Yates on RAWHIDE), but not a major star and very definitely not a movie star. His casting in this film was, at the time, surprising. On RAWHIDE, he had played a hotheaded young Turk, full of emotion and with a tendency to say too much rather than too little. The idea of having him star in any movie was somewhat unusual, but especially one in which he had to play a close-mouthed, mysterious, and almost emotionless stranger. And the idea of an Italian director filming a Western in Spain with a largely European cast with most of the voices dubbed was unheard of. And the soundtrack sounded as if it had somehow seeped into our universe from some parallel but much stranger galaxy. But the movie was not only a success, it managed to create a new genre of Western (the spaghetti Western), made Sergei Leone an internationally successful director, and made Clint Eastwood one of the movies greatest stars.

A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS was based on the Akira Kurosawa's YOJIMBO, with Toshiro Mifune playing the Clint Eastwood role. I am a huge fan of Kurosawa, but I have to confess that I like the Western much more. YOJIMBO was in turned based on the Dashiell Hammett novel RED HARVEST, in which the Continental Op (who was himself a man with no name, in that in the few dozen stories and the two novels in which the operative from the Continental Detective agency stars, we never learn his name). In that novel, the Op goes to the town of Personville (which one wag in the book pronounces "Poisonville") and turns the two rival criminal organizations against each other. RED HARVEST was remade yet again in the late 1990s in a much weaker movie starring Bruce Willis called LAST MAN STANDING.

Many things contribute to the success of A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS: Ennio Morricone's shockingly original soundtrack, the highly ritualized and stylized direction of Leone, the marvelous adaptation of the Hammett novel and the Kurosawa screenplay. But in the end, it is the character of "Joe" AKA "The Man with No Name," who makes this movie work. At first, we view him as a cold-blooded and calculating schemer, who is concerned only with how much money he can wring out of the two crime families by playing them against one another. But when he witnesses the plight of a woman who has been stolen from her husband and child and forced to be the mistress of the head of one of the families, his humanity is awakened, and he takes tremendous risks to free her and reunite her with her family. When asked why, we learn the only biographical detail that we learn of The Man With No Name in the three movies that Eastwood made with Leone: "I knew someone like you once."

A great movie. And one of the most improbable successes in the history of the cinema.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great movie
Review: Man, this one of the greatest movies I've seen

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: GREAT.
Review: Most of my friends on the net know me as Blondie - a direct tribute to the one and only, squinty-eyed Man-with-no-Name Clint Eastwood. These are truly great films. Leone is the master of the western genre!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: THANK YOU Amazon.com!!!
Review: My husband is a Clint Eastwood western FANTIC and I have been looking for this movie, the only one we don't have, for two years. All the retail stores we checked told us it was "out of production" with one exception - Amazon.com. You are truly a lifesaver!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Legendary and classic western; one of the best ever
Review: Not many moviegoers have missed Sergio Leone's "A Fistful of Dollars" (released in Italy as "Per un pugno di dollari" in 1964 and in the U.S. as the forementioned title in 1967), nor can they afford to. Combining excellent directing, a great score, unforgettable acting and a script that lasts 'till the end, it's definitely a top-notch film, not to mention one of the best ever. Eastwood is great as the Man With No Name, who journeys into a town ruled by two warring bands. Joining both and leading them to fight each other is just one of the many tasks the MWNN must face. Truly a classic and now a legend, it's a gritty masterpiece that was later followed by two sequels (the third is actually a prequel). Definitely recommended.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: a classic
Review: now im in my late 20s suddenly all those westerns i hated watching with my grandpa seem like the greatest movies ever made i find myself sitting in my chair having a beer watching westerns during the day this like hang em high is a classic eastwood western and belongs in your collection understood punk?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: This is what a re-working should be
Review: Often times when I watch a film that has been "reimagined" from a previous one, I lose interest within the first few scenes. That was not the case with "Fistful of Dollars". Having "Yojimbo" and "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" as two of my favorite films, I wasn't sure what to expect from this movie. I was nicely rewarded with my expectations being met, as well as pleased by how FoD kept my interest throughout. The styling of Sergio Leone that I love so much was present throughout the film. The story from Akira Korusawa's film was changed in such a way that it both held my interest and I didn't feel put off or disjointed by the changes. There are far more in depth reviews available here, so I'll simply end by saying that if you like the Clint Westerns, I highly recommend this film. Also, of course, you MUST see "Yojimbo"...preferably first.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An atmospheric classic!
Review: Sergio Leone gives us an atmospheric, unflinchingly graphic update of the Akira Kurosawa classic Yojimbo. This time, on the other hand, the backdrop is the Old West and not feudal Japan. Clint Eastwood stars as the infamous "man with no name," a gun-for-hire who arrives into a town being ripped apart by two feuding families-the Baxters and the Rojos. Instead of leaving like the local bartender suggests, Eastwood sets up a plan to destroy both families with the help of his .45 pistol. The realism of this film is astounding, no death-defying heroism is shown, no one taking a bullet and surviving(there is one exception to this, but I don't want to give anything away).
Eastwood creates an unforgettable image in his first collaboration with director Leone, who later directed classic westerns such as The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and Once Upon a Time in the West. The amazing fact is that this movie was rumored to have only cost two-hundred thousand dollars to make!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best spaghetti western ever made!
Review: Sergio Leone makes a marvellous effort at directing one of the best films ever made. Complimented by an atmospheric soundtrack and invigorating acting, a story of heroics, violence and climactic rivalry between two rival families/gangs is portrayed. In actual fact i don't have the original video myself, but can consiously remember the scenes as i listen to Ennio Morricone's amazing music. Once again the ultimate team don't fail to amaze: Sergio Leone, Ennio Moricone and Clint Eastwood.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Good Movie Bad Dvd
Review: Sergio Leone's A fistful of Dollars, is a great film to watch.
The opening titles jump at you and the music by Ennio Morricone
Is worth owning as well if you can get it.This film shows Clint Eastwood in his best role to date I think,A bounty hunter.this alone made me want to watch this movie.Though the movie Clint fights of bandits with the legendary QUICK draw, which he is best at....this movie is the first of the classic "dollars" trilogy.once you watch this you will love spaghetti westerns.
thanks.


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