Wednesday 19 September 2012

The Dollars Trilogy by Sergio Leone

An admirer of the Western Genre of films would always know how great the contribution of Sergio Leone to this genre was.
If you are fascinated by people who wear Stetson hats, bandannas, spurs, & buckskins and use revolvers or rifles as everyday tools of survival, and ride between dusty towns, then these films are definitely for you.
Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy is an epic one . Clint Eastwood appears as The Man With No Name in these three films.They are some of the finest films of Eastwood's career. The films are realistic and portray real human emotions with the artistic form of Leone's direction. Each film has its distinct story and its setting, our main character, The Man With No Name is generally portrayed as an outsider, a mercenary or a bounty hunter, or even an outlaw. The three films released in this trilogy were A Fistful Of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.


A Fistful Of Dollars was the first movie in the trilogy and introduced the us to this character, the man with no name/stranger. The movie starts with our stranger arriving in a town and befriending an inn-keeper who briefs him about the crime structure in that town.  He learns that there are two families who are constantly in feud to wipe each other out and be the sole controllers of the town.
The man with no name immediately sees this situation as an opportunity to make a fortune for himself. He attempts to get involved in both the families and play them against each other, thus making out a win-win situation for himself.
The movie was executed and presented well and had many other elements to its story which made it more entertaining.


For A Few Dollars More has two main characters - our Stranger and the other Colonel Douglas Mortimer, portrayed as bounty hunters. They are in pursuit of the same fugitive named El Indio ("The Indian"). They both are trying to trace him from place to place and one day come across each other. Initially reluctant, they agree to unite in their quest for El Indio.
They trace him to a town, where is planning a huge bank robbery. Mortimer convinces our Stranger to join Indio's gang and keep a track of him. The robbery, Mortimer's personal anger towards Indio and other things form the latter part.
A rightful successor to the first movie, For A Few Dollars More turned out to be no less then what was expected of it. A complete entertainer which has its moments.



The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, is in no doubt the best movie in this trilogy. It takes you out on a cinematic adventure. Its the story of three guys - Tuco (Eli Wallach), Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef), Blondie(Clint Eastwood).
Angels Eyes comes to know about a treasure through his weird assignments of killing people for money. Tuco, a bandit is on the flee and a huge bounty is on his head when Blondie captures him and hands him over. But Blondie later frees Tuco and divides the share from the bounty. One day Blondie ends the partnership and leaves Tuco in the middle of a desert, angering him.
When Tuco later tracks Blondie down to kill, something unexpected happens. Through a series of events they come to know about the treasure but in such a way that they both know only the half of secret each and to get it they must work together. So Tuco cannot kill Blondie now.
Later they are captured and come across Angel Eyes who is now in power and thus the three form an alliance. But will this continue? Would it all go well? The answer lies in this great movie. The Mexican Standoff at the end is well executed and this movie would go down in the history of Westerns as one great epic.

8 comments:

  1. Sounds good. though not much a fan of wetern genre, have heard of the third one. btw I was surprised to know u are an atheist. the book I have written is for atheists and fanatists. the intro is for atheists and u can check out the intro if u click the cover page in this link.
    http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009BATQUA

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    1. Checked out the intro, seemed interesting..Would surely read it. :) :)
      Btw is it just available only on Amazon? Because amazon doesn't take my address well, isn't it there on some other site??

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  2. Well, Clint eastwood made his name from there and I am a great fan of Clint eastwood's movies.. and he is a damn good actor
    but as you have pointed out now the director Sergio Leone .. WOW , i did not know about him, for some reason it was always clint eastwood whose name was in fore-front
    Bikram's

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    1. Clint Eastwood is one of most amazing and creative people on this planet. He has proved it with his acting as well as directing.
      Sergio Leone was great too..Did you know he turned down the offer to direct The Godfather? Because he had other gangster story in his mind which turned out to be 'Once upon a Time in America'. His other hits include 'A Fistful Of Dynamite' and 'Once upon a time in West'.

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  3. I will catch it up. Thanks for a nice pick.:)

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  4. hmhm... yup i love the trilogy but un-forgiven will always be my favorite western.. :)

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    1. Yeah Unforgiven is awesome too.
      You know what, its really difficult to compare between Eastwood's movies and select the best. :P

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