September 13, 2025

Leone's "Man With No Name" Trilogy BEGINNING (A Fist Full of Dollars 1967)

1 hour 9 minutes

This isn't just a movie series; it's the genesis of an entire film movement. Before 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly' became a cultural touchstone, there was a beginning, a raw, gritty blueprint laid by Sergio Leone. Join us as we journey back to the very first shots fired in the iconic 'Man With No Name' trilogy, films that didn't just break the mold, they shattered it.

A Fistful of Dollars is a 1964 spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood in his first leading role, alongside Gian Maria Volonté, Marianne Koch, Wolfgang Lukschy, Sieghardt Rupp, José Calvo, Antonio Prieto and Joseph Egger. The film, an international co-production between Italy, West Germany and Spain, was filmed on a low budget (reported to be US$200,000), and Eastwood was paid $15,000 for his role.

Released in Italy in 1964 and in the United States in 1967, the film initiated the popularity of the spaghetti Western genre. It is considered a landmark in cinema and one of the greatest and most influential films of all time. It was followed by For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, both also starring Eastwood. Collectively, these three films became known as the Dollars Trilogy, or the Man with No Name Trilogy, after the United Artists publicity campaign referred to Eastwood's characters in all three films as the "Man with No Name". All three films were released in sequence in the United States in 1967, making Eastwood a national celebrity.

The film has been identified as an unofficial remake of the Akira Kurosawa film Yojimbo (1961), which resulted in a successful lawsuit by Toho, Yojimbo's production company. Kurosawa wrote to Leone directly, saying, "Signor Leone, I have just had the chance to see your film. It is a very fine film, but it is my film. Since Japan is a signatory of the Berne Convention on the international copyright, you must pay me." He and Toho received 15 percent of the film's revenue. Kurosawa earned more money from this settlement than from Yojimbo.

Few spaghetti Westerns had been released in the United States at the time, so many of the European cast and crew adopted American-sounding stage names. These included Leone ("Bob Robertson"), Gian Maria Volonté ("Johnny Wels") and the composer, Ennio Morricone ("Dan Savio"). A Fistful of Dollars was shot in Spain, mostly near Hoyo de Manzanares close to Madrid, but also (like its two sequels) in the Tabernas Desert and in the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park, both in the Province of Almería.