By: Francis Agustin / BBC
Translation: Telegrafi.com

A man wearing a dusty poncho and a hat on his head moves down an empty street in a deserted city. "Get three coffins ready," he instructs a carpenter before confronting the men who had taunted him. "My mistake," he added after killing the bandits. "Four coffins." This is one of the defining moments of the tough gunslinger played by Clint Eastwood in A fistful of dollars [A Fistful of Dollars, 1964], the film that changed the course of cinema.

In a 1977 interview with BBC reporter Iain Johnstone, Eastwood appeared in a different setting and with different demeanor. Cheerful and charming, the actor bore little resemblance to the tough and rigid protagonist of Sergio Leone's western.

Read also: When John Wayne said that Clint Eastwood has ruined the western

At first, Eastwood recalled, he "wasn't really" interested in joining a low-budget European film. He was no stranger to the Western world, having starred in the popular television series at the time. Rawhide"I liked [A fistful of dollars] and I felt that maybe a European approach would give a new flavor to the western”.

Although they considered Eastwood's choice the right one, Leone initially had James Coburn in mind. "I wanted James Coburn more, but he was too expensive," the Italian director told the BBC. At the time, Eastwood was the more affordable option, costing around $15 ($152 or €138 in 2024) compared to Coburn's around $25 ($254 or €230 in 2024). "I didn't see any character in the series Rawhide"...just a physical figure," Leone said. "What struck me most about Clint was his clumsy way of moving. It seemed to me that Clint was more like a cat."

The blockbuster epics that had reigned during Hollywood's Golden Age began to fade in popularity in the 1960s. Leone, who at the time was well known for directing low-budget Italian films, decided to challenge himself with the American Western.

The result was A fistful of dollars (which was first released in Italian cinemas under the title For a bunch of dollars), which was very different from the previous films of this genre. Based on Akira Kurosawa's samurai story, Yojimbo, the film focused on "Joey", played by the emotionally distant Eastwood, who was known as the Man with No Name and who instigated a gang war in the Mexican city of San Miguel in order to make money. The film brought together a cast and crew from all over the United States and several European countries. As Eastwood put it, the film was "an Italian-German-Spanish co-production of a remake of a Japanese film in the fields of Spain".

"I knew the words 'arrivederci' and 'buongiorno' and he [Leone] knew 'goodbye' and 'hello' and that was it," Eastwood told the BBC. "Then he learned a little English, I learned a little Italian - and we both learned a little Spanish - and we moved on."

The actors spoke the words in their native language, which were then dubbed into Italian and English for the film's respective audiences. The script consisted of an "Italian concept of what a Western slang could be," Eastwood said.

Italian critics saw the film when it premiered in Italy on September 12, 1964. Negative reviews followed in other countries. "The film's sadism was offensive if not for the neutralizing laughter," wrote British critic Philip French in The Observer. When the film was released in the United States in 1967, reviews there were similar. "Almost a cliché Western ... it is a synthetic, extremely morbid, violent film," wrote Bosley Crowther in the New York Times. The film's US debut was delayed for several years because American distributors feared being sued by Kurosawa, who had sued Leone for copying Yojimbo-s.

The release of Leone's inaugural western spurred the western show all'Italiana, a subgenre of films produced in Italy, which in everyday language became known as the "spaghetti western." The word "spaghetti" was from the critics' initial disdain for this international achievement.

"It took a while for Leone to make an impact on American films, because initially critics scorned his films and those of his colleague Sergio Corbucci," says Mary Ann McDonald Carolan, professor and chair of Italian Studies at Fairfield University. "The spaghetti western was considered a low-budget, ridiculous exaggeration of the 'real' western."

Unlike their traditional counterparts, spaghetti westerns focused on anti-heroes and dealt with moral ambiguities. Eastwood's Joe instigates the conflict between two rival gangs of smugglers in order to steal their treasure; only when innocent people are hurt does he step in to neutralize the gangs. Spaghetti Westerns had more violence, sometimes against women and children. According to Carolan, typical American Westerns glorified the westward reach and idealized the Wild West, while the spaghetti western subverted that view. By emphasizing violence, these films were also a critique of the decade of turbulent global politics, especially in the midst of the controversial Vietnam War.

Due to language barriers during production, dialogue became simpler and sparser, helping to showcase Leone's distinctive directorial style. The haunting scenes and musical scores by composer Ennio Morricone became the hallmarks of Leone's "spaghetti westerns". "My films are essentially silent films", he told the BBC. "The dialogue just gives it weight". His style is echoed in the works of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, both of whom are among the major film directors who have cited Leone's influence.

A fistful of dollars transformed Eastwood from a television actor into a giant of the silver screen. He went on to star in sequels to the trilogy, For a few dollars more [For a Few Dollars More] and The good, the bad, the ugly [The Good, the Bad and the Ugly].

"Like Jimi Hendrix going to England to become famous, the three Westerns Eastwood made for Leone launched his brilliant career," says David Irving, a director and associate professor at New York University's School of the Arts. "Leone breathed new life into the Western."

Despite initial criticism, A fistful of dollars had viewers and became a commercial hit in Europe and the US, earning $14.5 million globally. It continued to grow in popularity in the decade following its release and have a following among cinema connoisseurs. The film has gone on to inspire other works, across multiple forms of media, from cartoons to video games, as well as directors, and Leone was posthumously honored at the 67th Cannes Film Festival in 2014 when A fistful of dollars was shown on closing night, showing the transformation from "a fake western" to a genuine classic. /Telegraph/

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