For a Few Dollars More (Italian: Per qualche dollaro in più) is a 1965 Italian spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Gian Maria Volontè. German actor Klaus Kinski also plays a supporting role as a secondary villain. The film was released in the United States in 1967 and is the second part of what is commonly known as the "Man with No Name" trilogy.
The film was novelized in 1965 by Joe Millard and is part of the "Dollars Western" paperback series based on the "Man with No Name" character.
Plot
Eastwood (marketed as the "Man with No Name") and Van Cleef (as Colonel Douglas Mortimer and marketed as "The Man in Black") portray two bounty hunters in pursuit of "El Indio" (Gian Maria Volontè), one of the most wanted fugitives in the western territories, and his gang (one of whom is played by Kinski). Indio is a ruthless, intelligent man. He has a musical pocketwatch that he plays before engaging in gun duels. "When the chimes finish, begin," he says. Through flashbacks we learn that the watch (and perhaps cannabis addiction though more likely opium) originates from a young woman, Mortimer's sister (Rosemary Dexter), who killed herself while being raped by Indio after he had found her with her lover (in Joe Millard's novelization of the film, the young man is her newly-wed husband) and killed him. The watch bears a photo of the woman and was presented as a gift by the young man before being killed.
The film begins with Colonel Mortimer (Cleef) illegally stopping a train in Tucumcari, and soon after collecting a bounty of $1000 on Guy Calloway (José Terrón). Mortimer's gunslinging skill is displayed as he easily kills him from long distance. After collecting the bounty he inquires about Red "Baby" Cavanagh (José Marco), who has a $2000 bounty, and was last seen in White Rocks.
Mortimer is told that Cavanagh has already been targeted by Eastwood's character, who is referred to as "Manco" (meaning one-armed in Spanish - see below for an explanation). We see Manco ride into town and track down Cavanagh at a saloon playing five-card draw poker. Manco kills him and his men, and takes the bounty. Eventually, the two bounty hunters, after learning about each other from different sources, meet in El Paso and, after butting heads, decide to team up to take down Indio and his gang.
Indio's primary goal is to rob the Bank of El Paso and its disguised safe containing "almost a million dollars". Mortimer persuades a reluctant Manco to join Indio's gang during the robbery in order to "get him between two fires". Manco is offered membership in the gang after rescuing one of Indio's friends from prison.
When Indio robs the bank, he brings the gang (and the money) to the small border town of Agua Caliente, where Mortimer reunites with Manco. The hunchback Wild (Klaus Kinski) recognizes the Colonel from a previous encounter in which the Colonel had deliberately insulted him and forces a showdown in which he is killed by the Colonel. The Colonel then proves his worth to Indio by cracking open the safe without using explosives, but Indio states his intention to wait a month if necessary to allow the furor over the bank robbery to die down and locks the money away. Manco and the Colonel plan to steal the bank money from Indio, but the bandits catch them in the act and beat them severely. Indio's right-hand man Nino (Mario Brega), on orders from Indio, kills their guard and releases the bounty hunters, and Indio informs his gang that they "got away". He does this with the intention of setting the gang against the bounty killers while he and Nino take all the loot for themselves. However, the smarter Groggy (Luigi Pistilli) figures out what Indio is up to, kills Nino and plans to kill Indio too, but finds that the Colonel has already removed the stolen money from where Indio had hidden it. Indio convincecs Groggy to join forces with him to trap the bounty-killers.
The next morning, Manco and Mortimer shoot down the gang, one by one, in the streets of the town. Standing alone, Mortimer shoots Groogy when the outlaw tries to run for it, but then has his gun shot out of his hand by Indio, who then takes out his pocketwatch and begins playing it. As the chimes nears the end, Manco suddenly appears with an identical pocketwatch (playing the same tune as Indio's), which Mortimer realizes had been taken from him earlier. As this happens, Manco holds a Winchester rifle on Indio and gives his gunbelt and pistol to Mortimer, evening the odds. "Now we start," Manco announces and sits while Mortimer and Indio face off. During the standoff, Manco looks down at the pocketwatch and sees the same picture of the woman Indio had raped. The music finishes, and Mortimer outdraws and guns down Indio.
At this juncture, Mortimer takes Indio's pocketwatch. Manco gives him back the other watch and remarks on a family resemblance; the Colonel replies, "Naturally, between brother and sister." His revenge complete, he decides to take no part of the bounty. As Manco tosses the last of the bodies into a wagon and counts them (by the reward for each one), he realizes he is short of the $27,000 total, and spins around to gun down Groggy who had survived and was about to shoot him in the back. As he leaves, he recovers the money stolen from the bank of El Paso, though it is not clear whether he intends to return it. He then rides off into the distance with a wagon full of the lifeless bodies of the entire gang tied to his horse.
Cast
Screen captures of the film. Lee Van Cleef is pictured bottom right.
- Clint Eastwood as Manco ("The Man With No Name")
- Lee Van Cleef as Col. Douglas Mortimer
- Gian Maria Volontè as El Indio
- Mara Krupp as Mary, Hotel Manager's beautiful wife
- Luigi Pistilli as Groggy, Member of Indio's Gang
- Klaus Kinski as Juan Wild, The Hunchback
- Joseph Egger as Old Prophet
- Panos Papadopulos as Sancho Pérez, Member of Indio's Gang
- Benito Stefanelli as Hughie, Member of Indio's Gang
- Roberto Camardiel as Station clerk
- Aldo Sambrell as Cuchillo, Member of Indio's Gang
- Luis Rodríguez as Member of Indio's Gang
- Tomás Blanco as Santa Cruz Telegrapher
- Lorenzo Robledo as Tomaso, El Indio's Traitor
- Sergio Mendizábal as Tucumcari bank manager
- Mario Brega as Niño, Member of Indio's Gang
- José Terrón as Guy Calloway, Mortimer's 1st Criminal (uncredited)
- José Marco as 'Baby' Red Cavanaugh, Monco's 1st Criminal (uncredited)
- Werner Abrolat as Slim, Member of Indio's Gang (uncredited)
- Frank Brana as Blackie, Member of Indio's Gang (uncredited)
- José Canalejas as Chico, Member of Indio's Gang (uncredited)
- Nazzareno Natale as Paco, Member of Indio's Gang (uncredited)
- Antonio Molino Rojo as Frisco, Member of Indio's Gang (uncredited)
- Rosemary Dexter as Mortimer's Sister (uncredited)
- Peter Lee Lawrence as Mortimer's Brother-in-law (uncredited)
Production
After the box-office success of A Fistful of Dollars in Italy, director Sergio Leone and his new producer, Alberto Grimaldi, wanted to begin production of a sequel, but they needed to get Clint Eastwood to agree to star in it. Clint Eastwood was not ready to commit to a second film when he had not even seen the first. Quickly, the filmmakers rushed an Italian-language print (a U.S. version did not yet exist) of Per un pugno di Dollari to him. The star then gathered a group of friends for a debut screening at CBS Production Center and, not knowing what to expect, tried to keep expectations low by downplaying the film. As the reels unspool, however, Eastwood's concerns proved to be unfounded. The audience may not have understood Italian, but in terms of style and action, the film spoke volumes. "Everybody enjoyed it just as much as if it had been in English", Eastwood recalled. Soon, he was on the phone with the filmmakers' representative: "Yeah, I'll work for that director again," he said. The film was shot in Almería, Spain, with interiors done at Rome's Cinecittà Studios.
The production designer, Carlo Simi built the town of "El Paso" in the Almería desert: it still exists, as a tourist attraction. The town of Agua Caliente, where Indio and his gang flee after the bank robbery, is Albaricoques, a small "pueblo blanco" on the Nijar plain.
Characters
Manco
In the English-dubbed version of the film, Eastwood's character is said to "go by the name of 'Manco'".[1] "Manco" is a Spanish word that means "one-armed" and "lame of one hand"; Eastwood's character performs nearly all actions using only his left hand, to leave free his right hand, with which he draws. His behavior thus bears a joking resemblance to that of a one-armed man.
The Italian equivalent of the Spanish word "manco", which serves as Eastwood's character's sobriquet, is "monco". In many written sources, the Man with No Name is called Monco, either due to the Italian form or to faulty spelling. In any case, the dubbed voices of the film's characters seemingly pronounce "Manco" when they refer to him.
El Indio
Gian Maria Volontè as "El Indio" towards the end of the film.
El Indio (Spanish for "The Indian") played by Gian Maria Volontè (appearing in the cast as Jon Wels) is a ruthless character, considered by the authorities in the film to be one of the worst criminals of the times; according to a bank official "Not even Indio would dare to rob that one." In a flashback sequence it is revealed that he shot a young man and raped his wife. The girl shot herself in the process. The girl was the sister of Van Cleef's character. El Indio smokes what seems to be cannabis or opium to ease the intensity of the memory. In the film El Indio has a gang of fourteen men who rob the bank in El Paso.
Colonel Douglas Mortimer
Colonel Douglas Mortimer is a rival bounty hunter, though he is much older than Eastwood's character: "almost fifty years of age"). Clint Eastwood's character travels to visit a man known as "The Prophet" early in the movie to find out all he can about this rival bounty killer. "The Prophet" explains Colonel Douglas Mortimer to have "once been a great man, a soldier" and "the finest shot in the Carolinas. Now he's reduced to being a bounty killer same as you." At the bank in Tucumcari, Mortimer explains to a bank manager he was from the Carolinas. The bank manager is encouraged by Mortimer's presence, giving the indication Mortimer has a large amount of money elsewhere which the bank of Tucumcari would be glad to accept. Unlike Manco, Clint Eastwood's character, Mortimer's motivation throughout the movie is not the bounty over El Indio and his gang, but vengeance for the death of Mortimer's sister many years before, who killed herself while being raped by Indio. During an encounter with El Indio in the movie, Mortimer exclaims, "This is Colonel Mortimer, Douglas Mortimer... does the name mean anything to you?" Having seen the death of Indio, Mortimer leaves all of the bounty to be collected by Manco, Eastwood's character, at the end of the movie. Mortimer says to Manco, after being questioned by Manco about the bounty, "It's all for you, I think you deserve it." Mortimer rides off alone at the end, as his purposes were then completed.
Music
Ennio Morricone composed the film's soundtrack as he did for A Fistful of Dollars. In the United States, Hugo Montenegro released a cover version as did Leroy Holmes who released a cover version of the soundtrack album with the original American poster art. Maurizio Graf sang a vocal "Occhio Per Occhio"/"Eye For An Eye" to the music of the cue "Sixty Seconds to What" track that did not appear in the film but was released as a tie-in 45rpm record.[2]
The rock band Year Long Disaster has recorded a song called Per qualche dollaro in più. However, it is unknown how large the connection with it is.
References in other media
- In the online multiplayer fantasy game, EverQuest II, in the Kylong Plains, starts a long quest series first entitled, "A Fistful of Metal" (in which two sides are pitted against each other by your character), which then continues on to, "For a Few Coins More". In "For a Few Coins More", there is a character NPC (Non Player Character; computer controlled by the game) named Colonel Leevan, a bounty hunter in black (obviously the game character's name is a play on the actor's name Lee Van Cleef), that wants you to find who killed his sister. You are eventually sent to a creature known as a Drolvarg, named "Indigo" (yet another play on names). You wind up fighting his gang of drolvargs, and then "bringing justice" for Colonel Leevan. When Indigo is dead, you receive a Music Puzzle Box that you return to Leevan with to complete this second in a three-part quest line. The third quest is called, "An Ugly Bounty".
- In the Terry Pratchett novel Men at Arms, the character of Captain Samuel Vimes is to be presented with a pocket watch as a retirement gift. In the climactic scene where Vimes confronts the main villain of the story, Corporal Carrot uses the musical chime of the watch to prevent Vimes from killing the villain. Pratchett has confirmed that it is supposed to be the same chime as the pocket watch in For a Few Dollars More.
- In the Japanese animated series Noir, a musical pocket watch features prominently throughout the story. In the second to last episode, the watch's chime prevents one of the Noir candidates from killing another, setting up a three-way standoff highly reminiscent of the final fight between Manco, Mortimer and Indio.
- The 187 Lockdown song "Gunman" on features a sample of the musical chimes from the film. The song is on the band's 1998 album 187.
- In Stephen King's Dark Tower series, one of the many aliases of Randall Flagg, a nemesis of Roland Deschain (who King has revealed to be modeled after The Man With No Name), is the Man in Black.
- In the 1978 film Every Which Way but Loose Clint Eastwood, playing an amateur boxer, faces down a group of bikers before a fight. As he squares off with the gang's leader one can hear the whistling tune similar to that in heard in the spaghetti westerns.
Notes
See also
External links
