A Fistful Of Dollars: Special Edition (2 Discs) (5.1/DTS)

Taking the plot from Hammett's Red Harvest via Yojimbo worked perfectly. Leone's direction and Eastwood's charisma made it a classic. Excellent reissue but for collectors there's a stunning German wooden box that also contains a slightly better edition of For A Few Dollars More, a senitype and a working (but sadly non-musical) pocket watch

This is one of the greatest westerns ever made for the big screen and introduces us to italian director Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood and Ennio Morricone. The three of them changed the sound, direction and the portrail of a typical hero in the western. This is also the 1st film in the Dollars trilogy.
The film was made on a shoe string budget but what it acheived was amazing, it revitalised an tiresome genre with a breath of fresh air. The film is essentially a remake of the Kurosawa film "Yojimbo" an awesome film in its own right, so there for the story is identical a town has two boss the Rohos and the Backsters and Eastwood's man with no name in the middle, Eastwood plays the two sides off against each other and cleans up the town.
This film marks the begining of the eastwood personna the throw away one lines, the silence and his cat like movement, and the charcter dubbed the "man with no name", this sort of charcter Eastwood would return to in many of his films to come.
On the whole this film is brilliant with the amazing vision of Leone and the chilling and masterful score by Morricone and Eastwood's awesome performance. What make this film for me is how Eastwood's character doesn't say much but you can see it all in the eyes with Leone's amazing close ups.
One of the greatest Westerns ever made and the birth of a new heeo the anti-hero. A must buy for any western fan, and at a great price too!

This is the first of three of the spaghetti western trilogy starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Sergio Leone. The film tells the story of a stranger travelling through a small Mexican town and gets caught between two warring families. Of the trilogy this is probably the weakest, however you can't overlook the films' class and style.

if you haven't seen any of these movies yet your in for a treat.
the series of spagetti westerns were a landmark in terms of movies, the characters, even the leads got dirty,bloody and bruised.
a man with no name enters a border town to find opposing
gangs either end of the main street,they both trade in weapons,above all they don't trust each other.
the man with 'no name' ( clint ) see's an oppertunity to make money by convincing both family's his gun is there's ?
in truth he's just stirring up the hadred that's allready there.
the film is in the main is 'dubbed' pretty badly as it goes,
but it's 'action' packed with bucket loads of dry humour that 'clint' carries through many of his films.
the man's an 'icon' just enjoy the film in the spirit intended.
these films set the platform for 'clint eastwood' to grow into 'super stardom'

A gunslinger arrives in a town ruined by the constant fighting between two rival gangs. Realising there is a profit to be made he decides to play the gangs against each other but soon finds the stakes raised far higher.

Truth be told I have never been a huge fan of the spaghetti western but this is certainly one of the best examples of the genre with Clint Eastwood of course faultless as 'the man with no name'. For your money you get everything you would expect from a western of this era including the obligatory close up shots during shootouts, a dramatic score and badly dubbed Mexican actors.

When compared to more modern westerns such as 3:10 To Yuma these older movies don't quite stand up but there is certainly still enjoyment to be had in watching a masterful director like Sergio Leone do his thing.