The sun scorches the desert sand and sweat slides down every brow, but there’s nothing about this famous spaghetti western that isn’t cool as fuck. As it approaches fifty years old, it—along with the rest of Sergio Leone’s “Man With No Name” trilogy that follow—still feels contemporary. It’s never stopped being an influence. From Ennio Morricone’s uniquely Italian, almost operatic, score to Clint Eastwood glowering on screen as one of the great mystery men of Western movies, this shit still works.
The story about a stranger in a troubled town who manipulates two violent rivals against each other to make a little money and rectify some injustice is taken from Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo from just three years earlier (and caused a lawsuit that kept A Fistful of Dollars off American screens for three years), but Kurosawa himself yanked elements of his film from Dashiell Hammett and John Ford so let’s call this conflict even.
Shot in Spain by a Spanish and Italian crew. Almost every affordable tough guy actor and western star in Hollywood and Europe turned down the lead role in this one. B-movie actor Richard Harrison, after saying no to the part himself, recommended Clint Eastwood (then most well-known for his work on the TV series Rawhide) to Leone. Eastwood accepted the role partly just for the European trip and became a movie star.