Story of movie For A Few Dollars More :
For a Few Dollars More (Italian: Per qualche dollaro in più) is a 1965 spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone. It stars Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef as bounty hunters and Gian Maria Volontè as the primary villain. German actor Klaus Kinski plays a supporting role as a secondary villain. The film was an international co-production among Italy, West Germany, and Spain. The film was released in the United States in 1967, and is the second part of what is commonly known as the Dollars Trilogy, following A Fistful of Dollars and preceding The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The films catapulted Eastwood and Van Cleef into stardom.
| For a Few Dollars More | |
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Italian theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Sergio Leone |
| Produced by | Alberto Grimaldi |
| Screenplay by |
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| Story by |
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| Starring |
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| Music by | Ennio Morricone |
| Cinematography | Massimo Dallamano |
| Edited by |
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Production company | Produzioni Europee Associati (PEA) Arturo González Producciones Cinematográficas Constantin Film |
| Distributed by | PEA (Italy) United Artists (US & UK) |
Release date |
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Running time | 132 minutes |
| Country | Italy West Germany Spain |
| Language | Italian English |
| Budget | $600,000 |
| Box office | $15 million |
Film historian Richard Schickel, in his biography of Clint Eastwood, believed that this was the best film in the trilogy, arguing that it was "more elegant and complex than A Fistful of Dollars and more tense and compressed than The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." Director Alex Cox considered the church scene to be one of "the most horrible deaths" of any Western, describing Volontè's Indio as the "most diabolical Western villain of all time."
Screenplay
The man many call Manco (Eastwood) is a bounty killer who makes a living collecting rewards issued for wanted outlaws, a profession shared by a former member of the army named Colonel Douglas Mortimer (Van Cleef). Eventually, the two learn that a ruthless psychopath named "El Indio" (Volonte) was broken out of prison by his gang, slaughtering all but one of his jailers. While murdering the family of the man who captured him, Indio carries a musical pocketwatch that was a memento of his youth, using it to time the duel. Flashbacks reveal that he had taken the watch from a young woman (Rosemary Dexter), who had shot herself as he was raping her after having murdered her husband. The incident has haunted Indio, and he smokes an addictive drug to cloud his memory.
Indio plans to rob the Bank of El Paso, which has a disguised safe containing "almost a million dollars". Manco arrives in the town and becomes aware of Mortimer, who had arrived earlier. He sees Mortimer deliberately insult the hunchback Wild (Kinski), who is reconnoitering the bank. Manco confronts Mortimer after the two have studied each other, and they decide to work together as neither intends to back down. Mortimer persuades Manco to join Indio's gang and "get him between two fires". Manco achieves this by freeing a friend of Indio from prison despite Indio's suspicions.
Indio sends Manco and three others to rob the bank in nearby Santa Cruz. Manco guns down the three bandits and sends a false telegraphic alarm to rouse the El Paso sheriff and his posse, who ride to Santa Cruz. The gang blast the wall at the rear of the El Paso bank and steal the safe, but are unable to open it. Groggy (Luigi Pistilli) is angry when Manco is the only one to return from Santa Cruz, but Indio accepts Manco's version of events thanks to Mortimer having given Manco a convincing wound. Manco manages to convince the gang to ride to the small border town of Agua Caliente rather than travel through Rio Bravo. Mortimer, who anticipated Manco would deviate from their planned ambush, is already there. Wild recognises Mortimer, forcing a showdown that results in the hunchback's death before Mortimer offers his services to Indio to crack open the safe without using explosives. Indio locks the money in a strongbox and says that the loot will be divided after a month.
Manco and Mortimer break into the strongbox and hide the money, only to be caught immediately afterwards and beaten up. Mortimer has secured the strongbox lock, however, and Indio believes that the money is still there. Later that night, Indio has his lieutenant Niño (Mario Brega) kill the guard stationed to guard Manco and Mortimer with a knife belonging to Cuchillo (Aldo Sambrell). Once Niño frees the prisoners, Indio reveals that he knew they are bounty hunters and executes Cuchillo to make it appear he betrayed the gang, while sending his men after Manco and Mortimer in hopes they would all kill each other so that he can split the money just between Niño and himself. But Groggy realizes the scheme and forces Indio to open the strong box after killing Niño, only for the two to find the money not there. Eventually, after he and Manco kill the bandits, Mortimer calls out Indio while revealing his full name. Mortimer shoots Groggy as he runs for cover, but is disarmed by Indio who plays the pocketwatch while challenging the bounty hunter to regain his weapon and kill him when the music ends. But as the music ends, the same tune begins from an identical pocketwatch which Manco had pilfered from Mortimer. Manco gives his own gunbelt and pistol to Mortimer, saying: "Now we start". The music plays to completion and Mortimer shoots first, killing Indio.
Mortimer takes Indio's watch and Manco remarks on Mortimer's resemblance to the woman in the photographs. Mortimer reveals himself as her brother and with his revenge complete, declines his share of the bounty and leaves. Manco tosses the bodies of Indio and his men into a wagon, finally adding Groggy's body after killing him, and rides off to collect the bounties on them all, before briefly pausing to recover the stolen money from its hiding place.
- Clint Eastwood as Manco
- Lee Van Cleef as Colonel Douglas Mortimer
- Gian Maria Volontè as El Indio
- Mario Brega as Niño
- Luigi Pistilli as Groggy
- Aldo Sambrell as Cuchillo
- Klaus Kinski as Wild
- Benito Stefanelli as Hughie
- Panos Papadopulos as Sancho Perez
- Robert Camardiel as Tucumcari station clerk
- Josef Egger as Old Prophet
- Tomás Blanco as Tucumcari sheriff
- Lorenzo Robledo as Tomaso, Indio's Traitor
- Dante Maggio as Carpenter in cell with El Indio
- Werner Abrolat as Slim, Member of Indio's Gang
- Joseph Bradley as El Paso Tavern Keeper
- Frank Braña as Blackie, Member of Indio's Gang
- José Canalejas as Chico, Member of Indio's Gang
- Rosemary Dexter as Mortimer's Sister
- Fernando Di Leo as Cigar Smoking Card Player
- Eduardo García as Member of Indio's Gang
- Jesús Guzmán as Carpetbagger on Train
- Peter Lee Lawrence as Mortimer's Brother-in-Law
- Sergio Leone as Whistling Bounty Hunter
- Antonio Molino Rojo as Frisco, Member of Indio's Gang
- Ricardo Palacios as Tucumcari Saloon Keeper
- Carlo Simi as El Paso Bank Manager
Development
After the box-office success of A Fistful of Dollars in Italy, director Sergio Leone and his new producer, Alberto Grimaldi, wanted to begin production of a sequel, but they needed to get Clint Eastwood to agree to star in it. Eastwood was not ready to commit to a second film when he had not even seen the first. Quickly, the filmmakers rushed an Italian-language print (a U.S. version did not yet exist) of Per un pugno di dollari to him. The star then gathered a group of friends for a debut screening at CBS Production Center and, not knowing what to expect, tried to keep expectations low by downplaying the film. As the reels unspooled, however, Eastwood's concerns proved to be unfounded. The audience may not have understood Italian, but in terms of style and action, the film spoke volumes. "Everybody enjoyed it just as much as if it had been in English", Eastwood recalled. Soon, he was on the phone with the filmmakers' representative: "Yeah, I'll work for that director again", he said. Charles Bronson was again approached for a starring role but he passed, citing that the sequel's script was like the first film. Instead, Lee Van Cleef accepted the role. Eastwood received $50,000 for returning in the sequel, while Van Cleef received $17,000.
Screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni wrote the film in nine days. However, Leone was dissatisfied with some of the script's dialogue, and hired Sergio Donati to work as an uncredited script doctor.
Production
The film was shot in Almería, Spain, with interiors done at Rome's Cinecittà Studios. The production designer Carlo Simi built the town of "El Paso" in the Almería desert: it still exists, as the tourist attraction Mini Hollywood. The town of Agua Caliente, where Indio and his gang flee after the bank robbery, is Albaricoques, a small "pueblo blanco" on the Níjar plain.
Post-production
As all of the film's footage was shot MOS (i.e. without recording sound at time of shooting), Eastwood and Van Cleef returned to Italy where they dubbed over their dialogue, and sound effects were added. Although it is explicitly stated in the movie that the Colonel Mortimer character is originally from the Carolinas, Van Cleef opted to perform his dialogue using his native New Jersey accent rather than a Southern accent.
Music
The musical score was composed by Ennio Morricone, who had previously collaborated with director Leone on A Fistful of Dollars. Under Leone's explicit direction, Morricone began writing the score before production had started, as Leone often shot to the music on set. The music is notable for its blend of diegetic and non-diegetic moments through a recurring motif that originates from the identical pocket watches belonging to El Indio and Colonel Mortimer. "The music that the watch makes transfers your thought to a different place," said Morricone. "The character itself comes out through the watch but in a different situation every time it appears."
| For a Few Dollars More | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soundtrack album by Ennio Morricone | ||||
| Released | 1965 (Original album) | |||
| Genre | Soundtrack | |||
| Label | RCA Italiana | |||
| Ennio Morricone chronology | ||||
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A soundtrack album was originally released in Italy by RCA Italiana. In the United States, Hugo Montenegro released a cover version as did Billy Strange and Leroy Holmes who released a cover version of the soundtrack album with the original American poster art. Maurizio Graf sang a vocal "Occhio Per Occhio"/"Eye For An Eye" to the music of the cue "Sixty Seconds to What" track that did not appear in the film but was released as a tie-in 45rpm record.
All tracks written by Ennio Morricone.
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