A Fistful of Dollars

Year of Release:  1964
Director:  Sergio Leone
Screenplay:  Victor Andrés Catena, Jaime Comas Gil, Sergio Leone, Adriano Bolzani and Mark Lowell, based on Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa and Ryūzō Kikushima
Starring:  Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, Josef Egger, Wolfgang Lukschy, John Wells, Daniel Martin, Carol Brown, Benny Reeves
Running Time:  99 minutes
Genre:  Western, Spaghetti Western, action

The small town of San Miguel, on the Mexican-United States border, is divided between two smuggler families, who are engaged in a violent and long-running feud.  One day a mysterious stranger (Eastwood) arrives in town and, learning of the situation, decides that he can make some money by playing each side off against the other.

This relatively low budget film with no big stars, and from fairly unknown director, which was panned by the critics on it's initial release, went on to not only launch one of the biggest movie stars, and one of the most iconic characters but almost defined an entire genre.  If you don't know, the term "Spaghetti Western" were Westerns produced and directed by Italian filmmakers and usually shot in Spain.  A Fistful of Dollars was not the first Italian Western but it created the style and the hallmarks of the genre.  Leone wanted to make a Western that felt like an Italian film.  In this film, everything feels exaggerated, the streets of the small town are as wide as most modern city streets, the closeups are extreme so you can read every crevice on the craggy faces, the violence is stylish and fast moving.  This was the first film to star Clint Eastwood, who at the time was best known for the TV series Rawhide (1959 - 1965), and his "Man With No Name" became possibly his defining role (although in this film, an undertaker refers to him as "Joe").  The character is iconic, the man of mystery who you know about as much at the end of the film as you did at the beginning.  The fast shooting, quick drawing gunman with a permanent squint in the eye and sneer who always seems to be two moves ahead of everyone else.
The film is widely regarded as an unauthorised remake of the classic Japanese film Yojimbo (1961), directed by Akira Kurosawa who brought a lawsuit against the filmmakers.  Kurosawa stated "Leone made a fine film, but it was my film."  Leone pointed out that Kurosawa was not the first person to use the plot of an individual playing two sides off against each other, noting the Dashiell Hammett novel Red Harvest (1929) and the 18th Century play Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni.  However, the lawsuit was settled out of court.
A Fistful of Dollars is a must see for all fans of Westerns or action films in general.  Leone and Eastwood would ride again in two sequels: For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966).

Clint Eastwood as The Man with No Name