Featuring a legendary actor famed for his hard-edged performances, For a Few Dollars More cemented Clint Eastwood as a major Hollywood star.
The 1960s Western followed A Fist Full of Dollars, which had proved enormously popular, though Eastwood initially needed persuading to return for the sequel, which would ultimately form part of an iconic spaghetti Western trilogy. The film brought back his legendary character ‘the man with no name’ or Manco and guaranteed his expected role in the third hugely successful instalment.
Genre enthusiasts consider it a “masterpiece” and amongst the finest of its generation.
Helmed by spaghetti Western pioneer Sergio Leone, For a Few Dollars More features Eastwood as enigmatic bounty hunter Manco. He learns that a brutal and murderous bank robber has broken out of prison and intends to raid the Bank of El Paso.
He joins forces with ex-military officer Colonel Douglas Mortimer, portrayed by fellow Western icon Lee Van Cleef, who is likewise a bounty hunter. The intense duo penetrate the vicious gang of thieves and killers whilst putting their own lives at stake, reports the Mirror.
Despite receiving tepid critical reception upon its 1965 release, the picture became a massive success in Italy and Spain, where filming took place.
The worldwide acclaim transformed Eastwood’s reputation from television personality to distinguished and acclaimed cinema star.
It also established the European-produced spaghetti Western’s position in film history. Van Cleef’s flagging career received a dramatic boost.
He had been contemplating retirement but subsequently secured a leading role as the villainous Angel Eyes in the trilogy’s even more triumphant sequel, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
These two characters established him as a distinguished actor in numerous leading roles in subsequent European Westerns.
Grossing approximately $25.5 million globally, the atmospheric picture is arguably more revered and acknowledged for its accomplishments today. Admirers of For a Few Dollars More have expressed their views on Rotten Tomatoes where it achieves a highly commendable 92%.
One said: “The stage is set here for Sergio Leone’s coming masterpieces, which would transcribe this intense, unsettling energy onto a canvas large enough to fit all of its splenetic, bloodletting rage.”
Another simply added: “This Spaghetti Western masterpiece would only be bested by its own follow-up.”
A third praised the characters: “Cinema greatness! And to top it off, Leone has to have some of the most interesting and strange looking people populating his film that you’d swear Fellini loaned him a band of extras.”
Another declared it exceptional: “Lean, mean, atmospheric and blackly comic spaghetti western by the team who all but invented the genre, well deserving of its reputation as one of the era’s very best.”
