Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy

[Os Cangaceiros]

Welp, with my viewing of For A Few Dollars More last night, I've officially seen all three. What are people's thoughts on them?

A Fistful Of Dollars - Clint Eastwood rides into town and starts playing two rival families (who are involved in gun-running IIRC) against each other.

For A Few Dollars More - Clint Eastwood is a bounty killer who teams up with another bounty killer (Lee Van Cleef) in order to kill a notorious bandit.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly - My favorite, and probably the most famous. Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach are all scoundrels who are hellbent on finding a secret stash of gold, in the latter half of the Civil War. Such an epic film.

[Magón]

I like them all, but my favorite is probably For A Few Dollars More.

[Metacomet]

I prefer the first one, but like all 3.

[Smyg]

I absolutely love The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.

[Manic Impressive]

I'm not a fan of the good, the bad, the ugly the acting is a bit cheesy and for me the storyline drags.
my favourite has to be a few dollars more I love the way the tension builds.

[Invader Zim]

The trilogy is a master piece, every film is a work of genius. Ok, you can see the set sway in the wind in a couple of scenes, and Clint blatently is pointing his gun in the wrong direction in at least one shot, but these are more than forgivable given the way the whole thing is shot.

Personally I love For a Fist Full of Dollars, but I love Yojimbo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yojimbo_%28film%29) (watch, all of y'all) and Leone's reimagining is the only film to have surpassed the origonal. And TGTBATU is in the IMDb top 5 for a reason.

[Weezer]

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly is in general one of my favorite films, but I really should see the other parts of the trilogy.

[Tim Finnegan]

Great films. I'm going to chime in alongside those saying A Few Dollars More- like Mass Prole Tirade says, the building up of tension is handled brilliantly, although unlike Zim I'd place it and Yojimbo neck and neck. ;)

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is definately one of my favourite films. I've seen the other two, but not as often or recently. I certainly remember enjoying them, however.

[Manic Impressive]

would anyone like to expand on why they prefer TGTBATU I can't really understand. For me it's an inferior film in every way. Which scenes for you stand out? do you prefer the score in TGTBATU to the score of either of the other films? How can you bare the staggeringly slow storyline?

I'm not saying it's not a good movie but in comparison to the other two it just falls flat. I'm not looking for an argument I'd just like to try and understand your opinions.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I find the characters amusing and interesting, much more interesting than the characters in the other films. Tuco is the only one that the audience really gets to know in the film, Van Cleef's and Eastwood's characters remain question marks. As far as the acting goes I don't really see how it's any cheesier than any number of other westerns of it's type, Eli Wallach's sometimes OTT Mexican bandit not withstanding.

It's a long movie, but for me the storyline does not drag. It would be pointless to try and argue that it's not a matter of personal opinion, though. I will say though that I think the Civil War backdrop propels the story in a way that the other, less expansive entries do not.

[Manic Impressive]

thanks that's some good points. I'd agree that TGTBATU is a more character driven film than the others. Perhaps I also don't appreciate the significance of the civil war backdrop the same way Americans do.

[Tim Finnegan]

Stepping outside of the Dollars trilogy for a moment, I saw Leone's Fistful of Dynamite/Duck, You Sucker! the other day. I thought it was pretty good if you set aside the iffy accents on the main characters- although I'm an instant sucker for any film that teams up Villistas and Fenians :lol:- even if not quite up to the level of the Dollars trilogy. Anybody else seen that one?

[Klaatu]

Here is something to think about:

I think it was in "the good, the bad and the ugly" film, which was supposed to take place during the U.S. Civil War,
which had ended in 1865. They were using dynamite to blow up a bridge, but dynamite was not invented until 1867,
two years after that war was over. Go figure.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamite)

[Tim Finnegan]

And in A Fistful of Dynamite, set in 1913, John Mallory is a member of the IRA, despite the IRA not being formed until 1919. The films aren't always spot-on with every minor historical detail. :laugh:

[bcbm]

Stepping outside of the Dollars trilogy for a moment, I saw Leone's Fistful of Dynamite/Duck, You Sucker! the other day. I thought it was pretty good if you set aside the iffy accents on the main characters- although I'm an instant sucker for any film that teams up Villistas and Fenians :lol:- even if not quite up to the level of the Dollars trilogy. Anybody else seen that one?

that movie is great, especially the tripped out ending

[Commissar Rykov]

I enjoyed the entire trilogy though I liked Fistful of Dollars slightly better than A Few Dollars More. I found The Good, The Bad and the Ugly to be a little tedious and drawn out at times.

[Rooster]

Stepping outside of the Dollars trilogy for a moment, I saw Leone's Fistful of Dynamite/Duck, You Sucker! the other day. I thought it was pretty good if you set aside the iffy accents on the main characters- although I'm an instant sucker for any film that teams up Villistas and Fenians :lol:- even if not quite up to the level of the Dollars trilogy. Anybody else seen that one?

I prefer Fistful of Dynamite, to be honest. Maybe I just like that more sombre type of film and the characters were more complex. I prefer the use of music in it (the sort of romantic music reminds me of Cannibal Holocaust for some reason with the flash backs). I also prefer the depth and the detail of Dynamite over the Dollar trilogy. Generally, I think it's a much more epic film, which is saying a lot as The Good, The Bad and The Ugly was pretty epic itself.

[x359594]

As Invader Zim noted, A Fistful of Dollars was a pirated version of Yojimbo (and Leone settled a lawsuit brought against him by Toho and Kurosawa Productions by assigning Asian distribution rights to Toho with a percentage of box grosses going to Kurosawa.)

But as Kurosawa admitted later, Yojimbo was a pirated version of Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest, and Bernardo Bertolucci developed a treatment of Red Harvest in the mid-1970s that was never produced (alas.)

Finally there's Walter Hill's Last Man Standing, his version of A Fistful of Dollars set during the same time frame as Hammett's Red Harvest.

[Pirate Utopian]

I love them all. But The Good, The Bad and Ugly is one the best movies ever made.

[Invader Zim]

would anyone like to expand on why they prefer TGTBATU I can't really understand. For me it's an inferior film in every way. Which scenes for you stand out? do you prefer the score in TGTBATU to the score of either of the other films? How can you bare the staggeringly slow storyline?

I'm not saying it's not a good movie but in comparison to the other two it just falls flat. I'm not looking for an argument I'd just like to try and understand your opinions.


Well, as it happens For a few dollars more is my personal favourite, but clearly TGTBATU is the best films. It has the most developed characters, it builds the most tension, it has the best script, it has the best casting, its sets look better, it is better choregraphed, the story line you dislike is actually the one with the most depth, and it was better shot and acted.

Though I actually find the For a Few Dollars More more enjoyable because of its glaring flaws, and find the cliched plot endearing in part because it is so familiar.

[Invader Zim]

I prefer Fistful of Dynamite, to be honest. Maybe I just like that more sombre type of film and the characters were more complex. I prefer the use of music in it (the sort of romantic music reminds me of Cannibal Holocaust for some reason with the flash backs). I also prefer the depth and the detail of Dynamite over the Dollar trilogy. Generally, I think it's a much more epic film, which is saying a lot as The Good, The Bad and The Ugly was pretty epic itself.

The problem with Dynamite is that it lacked a lot, in terms of score, character development and tension. While a lot happened to the characters and you learn a lot about their back story they never really came to life for me and I never found my self caring. It is also unengaging and too long.

It failed, in those respects, where Once Upon a Time in the West succeeded.