"For a Few Dollars More" Establishes Leone as a Master of Creating Emotion

Copyright © 2008 Ed Bagley

For a Few Dollars More (Per qualche dollaro in piu in Italian) 4 Stars - Excellent

After the unexpected, smashing success of Sergio Leone's direction in "A Fistful of Dollars" with the newly-found presence of Clint Eastwood as the gunfighter who would become The Man With No Name, Leone 's direction in "For a Few Dollars More" was even more successful, artistically and financially.

Leone's A Fistful of Dollars became the first spaghetti western to receive a major international release, and American males were ready for The Man With No Name, a new, no-nonsense hero that took care of business the old-fashioned way.

In the second of Leone's spaghetti western trilogy, Clint Eastwood's role as the loner with a purpose became even better defined as a bounty hunter. Even the prelude to the film declares that "Where life had no value, death, sometimes, had its price. That is why the bounty killers appeared." The Man With No Name hunted down and killed wanted criminals for money.

Eastwood's character in the film would be joined by another equally ambitious bounty hunter, Colonel Douglas Mortimer (played by Lee Van Cleef). They will clash and then eventually become partners in their chase to catch El Indio (Gian Maria Volonte who played Ramon Rojo in A Fistful of Dollars). El Indio is a ruthless, intelligent gang leader given to laughing when torturing his victims, and then smoking marijuana (cannabis) to relieve this stress afterward.

El Indio is one bad dude. He is being sought by The Man With No Name for the $10,000 bounty on his head. He is being sought by Colonel Mortimer—an apparent Confederate military officer in the Civil War and the best shooter in the Carolinas)—for raping his sister after killing her husband in cold blood. His sister is able to take El Indio's gun and commit suicide while he is raping her.

El Indio has his gang on target to relieve the impregnable Bank of El Paso of its "special" safe containing $1 million, and does so despite the trap that The Man With No Name, who has become an insider in Indio's gang, and Colonel Mortimer have set for Indio. You must see and learn about the special safe, it is too good to give away here.

There are many great moments in this film, but two of them are at the beginning and the end of the film. This first occurs when Colonel Mortimer goes after an outlaw with a price on his head. He interrupts the bad guy while he is in the tub with a prostitute. After sliding a "Wanted" sign under the door of the room, the outlaw dashes to the balcony of the hotel and jumps from the first floor to his horse to make a getaway.

Mortimer crashes the door, assesses the situation, coolly walks downstairs and out the front door, hits a release on the side of his horse which appears to be a blanket but really holds several rifles, picks an appropriate weapon, and calmly shoots the outlaw off of his horse. The outlaw is wounded but stands upright, only to receive a second bullet in his forehead. Male moviegoers thrive on this kind of controlled violence.

The second occurs when El Indio has Colonel Mortimer outfoxed and ready to kill him when The Man With No Name makes their standoff a 3-man face-off by allowing Mortimer to have an equal draw against Indio. Mortimer easily kills Indio and retrieves the watch Indio had taken and held, which showcased a picture of his sister. Mortimer had a watch to match the one Indio had stolen.

Lee Van Cleef (Colonel Mortimer) claimed to be faster on the draw than Clint Eastwood, and in fact he was. Film shows that Lee Van Cleef took exactly 3 frames (one eighth of a second) to draw, cock and fire his weapon.

Director Sergio Leone had originally wanted Lee Marvin for the role of Colonel Douglas Mortimer, but I believe that Lee Van Cleef proved to be an excellent choice for the part.

The final scene is spectacular in its presentation. It is a huge circular area and Leone's brilliant direction captures with moment with extreme close-up views of the participants, building upon the emotions of fear and the satisfaction of vigilante justice in the process.

Leone's taciturn characters, precise filming, extreme close-ups and the haunting music of Ennio Morricone all add to making For a Few Dollars More a legend, and one of the classic westerns ever made.

For a Few Dollars More gained even more steam in the United States as it was double-billed with A Fistful of Dollars. For a Few Dollars More was released in 1965, one year after the release of A Fistful of Dollars.

Despite becoming what is now recognized as one of the greatest westerns ever filmed, For a Few Dollars More could not collect a single award. It does not really matter, as Leone' second spaghetti western keeps being replayed while other award-winners now sit in the can on a shelf.