I put off writing a post for Sergio Leone for years, because I never wanted to deal with the fact that I'm not really a fan of his movies. This is unfortunate, because he's without question one of the most influential action filmmakers who ever worked, and almost single-handedly changed the western genre as we know it. However, there was always something about Leone that kept me at a distance. Maybe it was his extensive use of dubbing. Maybe it was the oddity of Caucasian actors regularly playing Latino characters. Maybe it was just that the existential bleakness of Leone's vision of the American West fundamentally didn't appeal to me.
I can admire Leone's filmmaking from a technical standpoint, especially the editing, the cinematography, and the use of music. I like his sense of humor and his use of space. However, when it comes to his characters, I have significant difficulty connecting to the macho, hardened gunslingers and bandits trying to eke out their survival in the sun-baked wasteland. I understand their motives, but those motives also tend to keep me at a distance. In "A Fistful of Dollars" and "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," the primary motive is greed, which I respect, but don't really respond to. Revenge and regret, however, are things I can get behind, which is why my favorite Leone character is Colonel Douglas Mortimer played by Lee Van Cleef, from "For a Few Dollars More."
I'll admit that I frequently get the "Dollars" movies mixed up, and misremember which scenes happened in which movies. However, every time I revisit them, "For a Few Dollars More" always leaves me more satisfied than the others. It's the film that made me a fan of Lee Van Cleef, an actor primarily known for playing villains, perhaps most famously as Angel Eyes in "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." "For a Few Dollars More" is considered his breakthrough film, where he plays a rival bounty hunter to Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name. We don't understand his motives until nearly the end of the film, which are revealed to be heroic. Up to that point, Colonel Mortimer is just another ruthless gunslinger, playing out the film's familiar western cat-and-mouse games with both the primary protagonist, the Man With No Name, and Gian Maria Volonte's evil El Indio. The film excels at its scenes of action and intrigue, ramping up the tension and thrills from what we saw in "A Fistful of Dollars."
What sets "For a Few Dollars More" apart for me is how it uses these tantalizing hints of deeper emotions and past history throughout, which are eventually paid off, and add an entirely new context to the events we've seen take place. Leone's later films would often go back to these themes and this storytelling device, using flashbacks to fill in character details and motivations. However, I don't think it was ever executed better than in "For A Few Dollars More," where the throughline is so clear, and the story is so simple and heartbreaking. I enjoy many elements of the "Once Upon a Time" trilogy, where this device comes into play constantly, but those films are often very rambling and indulgent. The length of Leone films is another reason why I find much of his work difficult to embrace. Amazingly, "For a Few Dollars More" is one of his shortest films at 132 minutes.
It doesn't hurt that "For A Few Dollars More" has one of my favorite Ennio Morricone scores, and certain music cues are actually integral to the plot. Also, this is the one where Klaus Kinski shows up as a hunchback reprobate, and is somehow not the most interesting person onscreen most of the time. "For a Few Dollars More" was specifically created to be a sequel to "A Fistful of Dollar," and Leone went to great lengths to get Clint Eastwood to star, but ultimately it's Lee Van Cleef's movie. I suspect that's a big reason why it tends to be overlooked when people talk about the "Dollars" trilogy - it's not about the Man With No Name. But good grief, it's hard to think of what the rest of Leone's filmography, and spaghetti westerns in general, would have looked like without its influence.
What I've Seen - Sergio Leone
A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
For a Few Dollars More (1965)
The Good the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Duck, You Sucker (1971)
Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
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