80/80-Man of the Eastwest

Clint Eastwood is probably second only to John Wayne in name association with the western genre - some of his best film have been within the genre. In fact some of his westerns rank among the best the genre can offer.

A Fistful of Dollars, made while Clint was still appearing in the long running Rawhide TV show, may not be the best of the three Dollar films but it changed the genre and, being the first, was the most influential. All of Eastwood's subsequent westerns owe much to this movie and it can be argued that in every western he made he was playing a version of the character he invented here. What was William Munny but an aged Man with no Name! Hogan from Two Mules for Sister Sarah was the mysterious stranger right down to the clothing he wore, Josey Wales was his bastard son. And even to some extent Dirty Harry was the mysterious stranger transported to modern times and given a cooler gun.

That's not to lessen Clint as an actor - on the contrary the character he created, and yes he did create him despite what Leone said, here was a revolution. At a time when western had grown tame, almost one dimensional, Clint brought in a hero who didn't confirm to the traditional conventions of the western hero. He wasn't so much the anti-hero as the anti-hero on steroids.

Clint cut down his dialogue to the bone and would just stand there, dominating the screen. He didn't in fact so much stand as lounge. When the character stands off against a group of bloodthirsty baddies, he almost looks bored, knowing the inevitable outcome. And no one on the planet could look as cool as Eastwood in those dirty Levis and that poncho.

Watching the film now it's low budget is so visible on the screen and its limitations stand out - however reinvention doesn't begin to cover what was created here. The genre and movies in general would never be the same again.

"He's going to trigger a whole new style of adventure!!!!" A Fistful of Dollars poster tagline.

The sequel, For A Few Dollars More (1965) had an increased budget and is a far better film which means basically that it's celluloid gold. The action scenes are far punchier, the storyline is tighter and has far more depth and Leone's operatic style of filming has been perfected. The film also benefits from a great turn from Lee Van Cleef. The violence was also taken to a new level and ,whilst some scenes feel sadistic, it's very stylised and at times surreal.


There is an unwritten law in cinema that sequels are never as good as the original, but there are exceptions to prove the rule - Godfather II is better than the first one, Empire Strikes Back pisses over Star Wars, but with the Leone/Eastwood westerns each film is progressively better. And The Good, The Bad and the Ugly is a masterpiece and arguably the best work each man has ever produced.

I personally rate The Good, the Bad and the Ugly above both Josey Wales and The Unforgiven. In terms of the best westerns ever made I would place it above Shane and just below The Searchers. Many people rate Once Upon a Time in the West as Leon's best film but that's the trendy choice, and although it is a superb movie The Good, the Bad and the Ugly kicks it's ass.

Everything about this film is perfect - the comedy, the action, the suspense. The Civil War scenes take the movie towards the level of epic and Leone works much pathos into this sequence. The plot twists and turns and the script is intricately put together. The climax, the three way stand off, has been imitated countless times by everyone from Tarantino to Stephen Spielberg.


I watch these three movies, back to back, at least once a year and have done since I was a kid - these days I can speak the dialogue along with the characters, know every frame almost intimately. But the films still excite and surprise me - truly, classics of the art-form.