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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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9
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5 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Stark,
heat-blasted landscapes. Tight close-ups of sweaty, unshaven
(and
often quite homely) faces. Long, pregnant pauses and tense standoffs.
Amoral heroes and twisted villains. Eruptions of violence punctuated
by high-pitched gunshots. All choreographed to a distinct 'surf
rock meets Home on the Range' musical score. This is
the mondo of the Sergio Leone spaghetti western, a European
view of the American West that would change cowboy cinema forever.
For
a Few Dollars More was the second of Leone's collaborations
with Clint Eastwood, following up the box-office success of
1964's A
Fistful of Dollars. By the time their third effort,
The Good,
the Bad &
the Ugly, received a U.S. release in 1967, Eastwood
had become an international star and Leone recognized as an
A-List director. United Artists distributed the films in America
as "The Man With No Name" trilogy, after the mysterious, laconic
gunslinger whom Eastwood portrays. This despite the fact that,
in each of the movies, the character does indeed have a name.
("Joe" in Fistful; "Monco" in For
a Few Dollars More; the nickname "Blondie" in the final
flick.) The second and third films aren't really even sequels
in the truest sense of the word; The Good,
the Bad &
the Ugly takes place during the Civil War (to include
an epic, full-scale battle sequence), while the events of A
Few Dollars More (film # 2) would seem to occur sometime
after the end of that conflict. There's also the fact
that the same actor, Lee Van Cleef, plays a sympathetic good
guy in the second film but a dastardly villain in the third
("the Bad" of the movie's title). But I'm just quibbling. Each
of the films —
particularly the second and third —
stands alone as a trend setting, breakthrough western adventure-drama.
For
a Few Dollars More: Two tough bounty hunters —
Eastwood's pancho-wearing,
cigar-chomping Monco and retired Confederate Army officer Col.
Mortimer (Van Cleef) —
find themselves rivals in pursuit of south Texas' most wanted
man: insane, bloodthirsty brigand Indio (Gian Maria Volonté).
A soldier of fortune, Monco is after Indio for the $10,000 in
reward money. The Colonel ("the best shot in the Carolinas")
has a different agenda: revenge. Despite their incredible shooting
skills each man realizes he cannot go after the quarry alone.
Indio, surrounded by his gang of ruthless cutthroats (including
Klaus Kinski as a hair-trigger hunchback), will have to be brought
down by team effort. But can either man trust the other enough
not to put a bullet in his back when,
and if, the job is
done?
This is a substantially
better film than A Fistful of Dollars;
all the signature elements of the spaghetti western are honed
to a fine edge here. I was surprised at how brutally violent
this almost 40-year old movie was, especially considering it
hardly shows a drop of blood. (Example: Indio has an 18-month
old infant shot to death —
offscreen.) The deserts of Spain (standing in here for the Tex-Mex
border) are painted as a bleak, existential stage upon which
the gritty drama unfolds. Ennio Morricone's score is perhaps
his most memorable besides that of The
Good, the Bad &
the Ugly. Director Leone deftly blends moments of quiet
with sudden bursts of violence; a surprising amount of screen
time is spent delving into the fractured mind of the crazed
villain. And Clint
Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef are perfect in their iconoclastic,
larger-than-life roles. Despite being second billed, this is
as much Van Cleef's movie as it is Eastwood's. Even with his
hawk-like countenance and forbidding demeanor, his Col. Mortimer
emerges as the most human, and thus more likable, of the two
heroes.
Still, the film is
too long —
I certainly could've done without a couple of badly-dubbed incidental
characters (a cranky old coot, the dwarf hotelier) who babble
on to the point of annoyance. One scene, a key moment in which
Indio gives a doomed ex-gang member a chance to draw against
him, seems to go on for an eternity. 10 to 15 minutes could
have easily been cut to fashion a leaner, more compact narrative.
(Ironically The
Good, the Bad &
the Ugly, with a nearly three-hour running time, seems
to suffer less in this regard, likely due to its sprawling,
epic scope.)
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is definitely a film worthy of better treatment by MGM. While
thankfully presented in 2.35:1 widescreen format — converting
a Leone film to fullscreen "Pan &
Scan" is nothing short of an abomination — the print used is far
from pristine. Colors are fine, there's no serious damage, but
speckles and nicks abound, especially in the first and last 5
minutes of the movie. While the digital mono audio track is adequate
to the task it really would've been nice to hear Morricone's score
in true stereo. As far as extras are concerned, there's only the
American theatrical trailer and an 8 page insert booklet of liner
notes. I was disappointed,
true, but that disappointment was somewhat mitigated by the disc's
low price. (It's been issued as a "budget" title.) And
if you've seen just how butchered the Leone-Eastwood films look
when cropped for VHS or broadcasts on cable TV, I think you'll
agree. 10/15/01 |
| UPDATE
A remastered 2-disc Collector's Edition was released in June 2007;
a Blu-ray version was issued in 2011. |
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