Dollars Trilogy

Dollars Trilogy
Directed by	Sergio Leone
Produced by	Arrigo Colombo Giorgio Papi
Written by	Sergio Leone Luciano Vincenzoni Fulvio Montella Víctor Andrés Catena A. Bonzzoni
Starring	Clint Eastwood Lee Van Cleef Gian Maria Volonté Eli Wallach
Music by	Ennio Morricone
Studio	United Artists
Distributed by	United Artists
Country	Italian

The "Dollars Trilogy" (Italian: Trilogia del dollaro), also known as the "Man with No Name Trilogy", refers to the three Spaghetti Westerns starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Sergio Leone: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966).

A Fistful of Dollars is an unofficial remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1961 film Yojimbo starring Toshirō Mifune. Although it was not Leone's intention, the three movies came to be considered a trilogy following the exploits of the same "Man with No Name" (Eastwood, wearing the same clothes and acting with the same mannerisms).

The "Man with No Name" concept was invented by the American distributor, looking for a strong angle to sell the movies as a trilogy. Eastwood's character does have a (nick)name in all three movies: a different one in each. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is theorized to be a prequel by some, since Eastwood's character gradually acquires the clothing he wears in the other two films and because it takes place during the American Civil War (1861–1865), whereas the Lee Van Cleef character in For a Few Dollars More appears to be a Confederate veteran who has come down in the world and a graveyard scene in A Fistful of Dollars features a gravestone dated 1873; some, however, believe the discrepancies with dates to be nothing more than a simple error. Both the DVD^[1] and Blu-ray^[2] box set releases make specific reference to the set of films as "The Man With No Name Trilogy."

Four actors have appeared twice in the trilogy, playing different characters. They are: Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volonté, Luigi Pistilli, and Joseph Egger. The only actors to appear in all three movies besides Eastwood are Mario Brega, Aldo Sambrell, Benito Stefanelli, and Lorenzo Robledo. Composer Ennio Morricone provided original music score for the three films, although in A Fistful of Dollars he was credited as "Dan Savio".

All three films were released by United Artists.

"I think [the Leone films] changed the style, the approach to Westerns [in Hollywood]. ... They made the violence and the shooting aspect a little more larger than life, and they had great music and new types of scores. ... They were stories that hadn't been used in other Westerns. They just had a look and a style that was a little different at the time: I don't think any of them was a classic story—like [John Wayne's 1956] The Searchers or something like that—they were more fragmented, episodic, following the central character through various little episodes."

—Clint Eastwood reflecting on the impact of the films.^[3]

References

1. ^ The Man with No Name Trilogy (DVD) (20 March 2008): "A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" (1967)
2. ^ The Man with No Name Trilogy (Blu-ray) (1 June 2010): "A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" (1967)
3. ^ Eliot (2009), p.114-115

Bibliography

• Eliot, Marc (2009). American Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood. Harmony Books. ISBN 978-0-307-33688-0.