Well, I at least picked a good time to watch A Fistful of Dollars, not only was it a worthy May Recommendation, but it also reminded me that its predecessor had reached its sixtieth birthday. For A Few Dollars More, the second installment in Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy, just so happens to be my favorite among the Dollars films. Sure, A Fistful of Dollars was an amazing Western, for a million reasons it invented the term Spaghetti Western and The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly was the definition of iconic Spaghetti Western, but for me, For A Few Dollars More was a fantastic Spaghetti Western that has a great list of actors that you root for from beginning to final frame but you also have a fantastic villain that you just love to hate and despise. But most importantly you also have a fantastic story that I just love out of all the Dollars storylines.
In the Wild West, a murderous outlaw known as El Indio (Gian Maria Volonte) and his gang are terrorizing and robbing the citizens of the region. With a bounty on El Indio's head, two bounty hunters, Monco (Clint Eastwood) and Col. Douglas Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef), come to collect the prize. Upon their first meeting, the two men view each other as rivals, but they eventually agree to become partners in their mutual pursuit of the vicious criminal.
What I love about the movie is simply that it's about two bounty hunters tracking down a notorious killer moreover it's a simple concept that I can get by with a mix of Clint Eastwood's iconic performance but more importantly Lee Van Cleef's stellar performance and his motive as to why he's on a revenge mission against, El Indio played by Gian Maria Volonte who previously was the main antagonist in A Fistful of Dollars. After the success of the first Dollars film, Leone and his partner Alberto Grimaldi wanted to begin production for a sequel. Although Eastwood wasn't ready to sign on for a sequel, Leone and his crew had to rush in get an Italian-language version of the film out for him to see. Even though Eastwood couldn't understand the language, it was the style and action that convinced Clint to sign on for another film. With Clint Eastwood back on board, Leone had to find his co-star that could rival Eastwood's character, at first Leone wanted to cast Henry Fonda as Mortimer, but Fonda turned him down so, Sergio went in search for Charles Bronson for the second time but turned him down as well, and yet the surprising factor is both Ford and Bronson would later star in one of Leone's classic western's Once Upon a Time in the West. Lee Marvin was the next candidate though turned down because he was in the Jane Fonda film Cat Ballou, and so the Leone finally offered the role of Mortimer to Lee Van Cleef (The Man who Shot Liberty Vallance) who wasn't getting a whole line of movie work after the filming How the West was Won, though was doing some decent work in Television. Lee Van Cleef was also grateful to Leone, even though he thought at first that he was just there for a couple of scenes but later was astounded when he finally realized that he was co-staring alongside Eastwood. But Cleef was grateful for Leone because he was going through hard times due to his heavy drinking, and this film marked a resurgence in his career, for which Cleef would later star in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Gian Maria Volonte who played the previous antagonist Ramon Rojo in A Fistful of Dollars moreover does a fantastic job playing the sadistic outlaw El Indio in For A Few Dollars More, during filming was becoming angry at Leone, because Leone felt he was being a bit theatrical, used a lot of takes on Volonte, for which he was massively angry and tired, upon which Volonte stormed off set but came back anyway due to not finding a ride in the desert. Which in all honesty, that's nothing new considering Michael Mann drove Al Pacino mad when doing the scene in Heat, in which he's talking about a**'s. Like it's last film, Leone does break a lot of rules at that time in the sixties with a lot of graphic scenes including killing a horse and as well as shooting a wife and child (despite you don't see it) and although those scenes were tamed now, back then it was shockingly graphic to see on screen. Leone delivers at every level and the same goes with both duo of Eastwood and Cleef, though Ennio Morricone the composer behind majority of Sergio Leone's films does a fantastic job reinventing what movie composing as well as giving working movie composers a household name. Moreover gives a new definition to epic movie soundtracks that we can all listen to and love over and over again, and Morricone explains that he himself had to write the score during production, unlike scoring the entire movie when it's all said and done, because Morricone in his own words states that Leone wanted the music to be in important part of the movie furthermore kept some of the movie scenes longer because he didn't want the music to stop. For which leads me to the real reason why I love the film so, much is its final climax in which Cleef is squaring off with Volonte's character, which Volonte gets the drop on Cleef and has his famous pocket watch duel and you see Cleef having no shot at Indio, and feeling that he let himself down and when the music ends it soon begins and both men see Eastwood making his entrance with Cleef's identical pocket watch, and you soon realize Eastwood comes to save Mortimer and once he says "Now we Start" you have this satisfaction of Indio going to meet his end. Which to me is a well-directed scene with a tone of emotions, not knowing what is going to happen but then is relieved with the combination of Morricone's epic score, it just shows how amazing a well-directed film that I always watch numerous times because of how great the climax is. Now, granted it's been a long time since I sat down and watched The Good, The Bad and The Ugly but for now I still look at For a Few Dollars More and see that there's absolutely nothing I would change in that movie and would continue to watch that film from start to finish. Now, if you’re a big fan of Western's I would highly recommend watching For A Few Dollars More for its greatness as well as breaking all the rules in terms of what it great Western should be and at the time in the sixties when John Wayne was ruling the Western genre with his greatness, Sergio's A Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More to me brings a breath of fresh air of not always relying on the iconic hero theme in what westerns were always approaching in America cinema back then, but more importantly makes me realize that we need more of the Anti-Hero's in a lot of the Western genre because those are great ways to tell stories in the Wild West, because it wasn't a pretty place to live in and sometimes you always need another kind of evil to cheer for. Now yet again Tubi is bringing the house down in terms of movie watching experience so, if you have a Tubi account or not I would highly recommend watching this great film on Tubi as well as Amazon Prime, just in case you’re suffering from PTSD of so many commercials.
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