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A Fistful of Dollars is the first installment of Sergio Leone’s famous “The Man With No Name” trilogy. The title is misleading because the star of this picture, Clint Eastwood, goes by the name of Joe. The plot of this movie is a remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1961 film Yojimbo, except the setting is shifted from Japan to the Old west and swords are replaced with guns. The movie starts out with Joe riding into the dusty Mexican town of San Miguel, which is controlled by two warring families: the Baxters and the Rojos. He instantly sees a money making opportunity where he can work as a hired gun and informant, playing both sides without either of them finding out what is going on. The plan goes off without a hitch until he decides to help a beautiful woman, Marisol (Marianne Koch), who is held against her will by the Rojos and gets caught in the process.

Clint Eastwood’s acting is not timeless because of his limited acting range, but rather because of his presence on screen. He fits perfectly into the role of Joe in this movie. Joe is a tough and fearless assassin who wears a cowboy hat and a poncho. He’s a man of few words because he lets his guns do the talking. However, he’s not a typical hero because he’s willing to cheat, steal, and even hit a woman (by mistake). Joes is also as dirty in his appearance as he is in his ways because he looks like he needs a shave and a long soak in the bath. The only time we see a glimmer of humanity is when he decides to rescue Marisol from her kidnappers. As previously mentioned, it appears as if the role was especially written for Clint and it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing the part.

You have probably heard the term “Spaghetti Western” before and this is the film that started this genre. The term is a condescending in a way, since it refers to a low-budget Western made by an Italian film company. Nevertheless, this new take on Westerns became extremely popular in Europe as well as in the US. Unlike the traditional Westerns, Spaghetti Westerns are uncompromising and gritty by incorporating more violence and by blending the lines between the heroes and villains. Leone’s hero Joe is a man with almost no conscience who is capable of being just as cruel as the evil men he is fighting. We also begin to see the incorporation of senseless violence into cinema as the fight scenes become long and cruel for no apparent reason. One particular scene that demonstrates this point is when the Rojos set the Baxter’s house on fire and then shoot all the people who come running out of the house. We are repeatedly shown men getting mowed down without a chance of fighting back, and just when you think everyone in the house is dead, more men come out and the same thing happens all over again.

As would be expected, the movie ends with a final showdown and a grand shoot out. However you do not feel satisfied despite the fact that all the bad guys are now dead. Maybe it is because the film is unpolished and unromantic, or because there is really no moral to the story, or simply because the story itself is not all that interesting. As for the film itself, just by looking at the surface one might even say that it is just terrible. The audio is horribly dubbed, a lot of the shots are grainy, and the cuts are amateurish. Nevertheless the film does have a sense of style. The musical themes are catchy, there is a sense of suspense, and the characters are quite interesting despite their quirkiness. I like to think of this movie as a work in progress as Leone was still perfecting all the different elements. Leone was definitely on to something and it is no wonder that this film was followed by two sequels that have made Clint into a super-star.