Customer Reviews

For a Few Dollars More

5 star:		(65)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

For A Few Dollars More is, in my opinion, by far the best of the "Man With No Name" trilogy! In "A Fistful of Dollars," director Sergio Leone bowled the viewers over with Clint Eastwood's character being a gruff gunslinger of few words and lots of action. In this sequel Eastwood's character has a lot more depth and even a little bit of humor. I am highly impressed with the script and acting in this particular film, especially in comparison with its predecessor. One can even consider it funny but useful that a few of the villains from the first film that were quite dead at the end of that one, are back now with new names! Magnificent performances by both Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef serve to enhance this movie's style.

The premise:

This movie has a wonderful beginning as we are introduced to Lee Van Cleef's character while he's in the performance of his role of a bounty killer. We are then treated to the reintroduction of Clint Eastwood's character, which actually does have the name of Monco, while he is taking care of his business as a bounty killer as well. Once the director has shown these two acts, he deftly shows how they end up on the same path as they both find out that they can score it big by killing Gian Maria Volonte's character, Indio and his gang. From there, we're taken to El Paso where the film's intrigue and suspense kick into high gear as both Eastwood and Van Cleef's characters meet.

If you've never seen this movie or its predecessor, I highly suggest you check these movies out as they're basically the mold for many of the westerns that followed. Prior to this movie and "A Fistful of Dollars," westerns were much tamer, which lends to the popularity of these movies which have a lot more grit and realism to them.

Special Features:

Just like "A Fistful of Dollars" this movie is jam packed with hours and hours of special features, documentaries etc... This DVD is all about what it's supposed to be, the movie! It does include a great theatrical trailer and an exceptional 8 page booklet that gives a lot of great information about the movie and the people involved. {ssintrepid}

A great presentation,lovely quality,well packaged.But why didnt they use a uncut trasfer?The scene where Eastwood and Lee-Van-Cleef,are beaten up.Is not complete.Check out the Laser disc version.Perhaps if enough people complain,they can rectify this.

This review refers to the Delux Widescreen Edition VHS.....
He's back for the money again. This time as a "Bounty Killer", who always gets his man. When the poster says "Wanted Dead or Alive", look out if Clint's in the neighborhood! The man with no name (they do mention a name in this one but never actually refer it to him, so it's anybody's guess) has been tracking down the small fry, and now the big fish,Indio, has escaped from jail, leaving a bloody trail and a big price on his head.
Clint follows his trail, but he's not alone in his quest,Col. Mortimer(Lee Van Cleef) is determined he will be the one that gets this guy.They each try to "dissuade" the other, but to no avail. So they team up and set a plan in motion. But can Mortimer really be trusted? Is the money his only motive? Will he betray our guy?
There's lots of great western action and classic scenes, as these two persue Indio and his bloodthirsty gang of thieves.You won't want to miss a minute of it as these two quick draws show their stuff.There are also some wonderful comic moments to break up the action,watch for those.
If you're thinking of getting the VHS or waiting for a special edition DVD to come out you'll be happy with this tape. The digital Video transfer is a good picture, the widescreen(there's also a standard format edition if you prefer) lets you view all the great western scenery, and basically the sound(Hi-Fi) is good as far as clarity and the great musical score by Ennio Morricone. But the dubbing of the dialouge is a little off.The movie is so good though, I could not bring myself to take off a whole star just for that reason. It's classic Clint and Director Sergio Leone knows how to make a clasic western!
Sit a spell and enjoy....Oh and where DOES Clint get those wonderful panchos?.......Laurie

here's a couple of package deals for Eastwood Fans:

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Yes - I know it's dubbed, etc. But something bad has happened to this film's transfer to DVD. The speech is so far out of synchronisation from the video that it is almost unwatchable. I have a VHS version of this film and the problem does not exist there. I also have DVDs of 'Fistful of Dollars' & 'Good, Bad & The Ugly', they don't suffer from the same problem. Can MGM (or somebody) get this sorted out?

For A Few Dollars More is one of my favorite movies. The story is tight, lightning fast and the all of the actors are on top of their games. Clint Eastwood plays a hardened bounty hunter who has half a notion to settle down and runs into some competition from Lee Van Cleef while searching for the big fish of bandits, a vicious pyschopath named Indio.

Lee Van Cleef had the coldest stare ever captured on film and when he fixes his eyes on the wanted poster of Indio you just know this is going to be a fight to the death. As for Indio, from the first moment you see him in half shadow lying in a jail cell, it's obvious that he's a certified official Bad Guy. Indio enjoys killing people and he enjoys money but nothing really compares to the apparently greatest moment of his life -- a murder and rape. The only thing he treasures is a gold pocket watch that he took from the scene. When Indio opens that watch and thinks back to the woman he "lost" watch out because there will be a killing in the next few minutes. As the movie makes clear, there are three basic rules for dealing with Indio: 1. Don't ask any questions. 2. Leave the room when he starts fondling the watch and 3. Send your wife and kid to her mother's place in the next state if you think Indio might be stopping by for a drink.

The interplay between Clint and Lee Van Cleef is very well done. This is the one and only time in the Man With No Name trilogy that Clint comes across a man who is his equal in shooting, cleverness and drive. There are a number of shocking twists and turns and it all reaches a huge climax in a shoot out in a dusty street. There is great tragedy in this movie and quite a bit of humor. This is one of those movies that you can watch over and over again and not get tired of.

Prior to this film, the Western movie genre had just been about been done to death in the United States. It took an unknown Italian director (the ingenious Sergio Leone) borrowing from a Japanes film source (Kurosawa's Yojimbu) to create one of the most incredible anti-heroes in movie history: The enigmatic Man With No Name played by the legendary Cline Eastwood.

"For a Few Dollars More" is the second film in the Man With No Name Trilogy. The first film was the highly-influential "A Fistful of Dollars," which seems to be perpetually playing on television. "A Fist Full of Dollars" was made for a mere $ 200,000, but was an incredible film.

"For a Few Dollars More" is even better. It has a much higher budget and a much more complex plot than its predecessor. I don't want to reveal too much about the plot to this film for those who have never seen it. It's a great story. A landmark film that will never be forgotten. Make sure you see all three movies in this trilogy. The final chapter in this trilogy is "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," which might be the most well-known Western in the history of cinema.

Again make sure you get a copy of this film. After watching this film, you'll wonder why Hollywood can't make films like this anymore. They should.

Federico Fellini is often credited as "the Greatest Italian Director." For me, however, Sergio Leone earned those laurels. More than deSica or Fellini, Leone's movies were Italian to the core: Grandiose, operatic, melodramatic, full of vendetta and vengeance. The irony is that Leone's most memorable movies took place not in Rome, the Abruzzi mountains or Sicily, but in the Old West.

With his epic "Once Upon a Time in the West" and "The Man With No Name" trilogy, Leone not only resuscitated the Western genre, but set a new standard. His first Western, "A Fistful of Dollars," was basically a retelling of Akira Kurosawa's "Yojimbo"; a Samurai tale transplanted south of the border in old Mexico. With "For a Few Dollars More," Leone really opens up as a screenwriter and director. Gone is the claustrophobic town of "Fistful," replaced by the full sweep of the great American Southwest (for which the drier regions of Spain provide a reasonable facsimile for those of us who know that Tucumcari is hardly so dry and El Paso nary as mountainous).

Leone also begins staking out his territory as director with this one, too. "For a Few Dollars More" bears more traces of Cecil B. deMille than Kurosawa, as Leone starts trending toward an epic production that reaches full fruition in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and "Once Upon A Time in the West." However, Leone's *style* of Western could never be confused with John Ford -- rather, it hearkens back to the more violent moments found in Westerns such as "Winchester '73" (Anthony Mann), "High Noon" (Fred Zinnemann) and "Rio Bravo" (Howard Hawks), and looks forward to the gritty, realistic violence from directors influenced by Leone, such as Sam Peckinpah, Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.

"For a Few Dollars More" is a tale of three men, and their respective missions: Indio, played by the great Gian Maria Volonte, is a sadistic, psychotic, killer and bank robber. His performance reminds me of Toshiro Mifune's best roles -- big, tough, and foreboding. Clint Eastwood plays one of the men who try to hunt Indio down, a bounty killer named "Manco," reprising his role from "Fistful" as a mercenary for hire who plays by rules from his own book. But it's Lee Van Cleef as Colonel Douglas Mortimer who really steals the show. If you think Clint's squinty-eyed visage fills men with fear, then you ain't seen Van
Cleef -- his eyes are steely, intelligent, intense; you can tell when Mortimer has somebody's number that he isn't bluffing.

The opening scenes set up the story beautifully: Indio and his gang are planning a big robbery at the Bank of El Paso and both Manco and Mortimer have set out to round up the bad guys. After a couple barroom scenes establishing the bounty killers' credentials as ice-cold killers, Manco and Mortimer pair off in a battle of wits, a showdown during nightfall in the streets of El Paso.

After proving to each other what deadly accurate shots they are, Mortimer proposes they team up to go after Indio and his gang, backed up by the realistic observation: "When two hunters go after the same prey, they usually wind up shooting each other in the back."

So working "one on the inside" (Clint) and "one on the outside" (Van Cleef), the two manouever Indio and his gang after they dynamite the bank and steal the safe. The scenes on the streets of Agua Caliente (Spanish for "Hot Water," which Manco and Mortimer will soon be in) are eerily silent. Indio' gang has free rein in the town, the hoofbeats of their horses a harbinger to windows slamming shut on the whitewashed adobe houses.

Though Clint plays a wise guy, over the course of the movie he discovers wisdom beyond his own years in the person of Mortimer. Clint may be cool, but never as cool-headed as Van Cleef, who sees through all of Clint's ruses and double-crosses. Van Cleef rides them out, cutting Clint way too much slack it seems. But by the final scene, a showdown between Mortimer and Indio, all the patience and faith Mortimer has invested in Manco pay off. For the showdown is rigged entirely in Indio's favour, but -- having learned a thing or two at the feet of a real man of integrity -- Manco shows up to make the playing field even for Mortimer. It's a beautiful scene, to see that Manco has dropped his cynical pose and accepted Col. Mortimer as a father figure.

The quintessential Leone Western (I won't degrade it by calling it a "Spaghetti Western"), "For a Few Dollars More" is filmed and cut a lot tighter than "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," though it still comes out over two hours long. Ennio Morricone's soundtrack really melds seamlessly with the action onscreen. Morricone was to Leone as the great composer Bernard Herrmann was to Alfred Hitchcock: Leone's movies were only 60 per cent complete before Morricone laid down tracks just as pungent and larger-than-life as the story and actors on the screen. Today's composers, who are so busy trying to write "understated" scores for today's boring fare, could learn a thing or two from the beautifully bombastic Morricone.

The DVD widescreen presentation is much better than the fullscreen VHS. However, the colours are pretty washed out. I understand that MGM/UA has restored "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"; I hope "For a Few Dollars More" is slated as well for restoration or preservation.

This is a great film, as the plotline is good and has many excellent scenes. From the jailbreak at the fortress to the final gunfight, there are many good sequences.
Also the small parts such as the hat shooting "contest" which happens when the characters played by Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef, and the apples getting shot off the trees. A throughly brilliant film.

The 2nd film in the Dollars trilogy is a better film than the first. With the addition of Lee Van Cleef as Col Douglas Mortimer the film moves up another notch. Mortimer is another bounty hunter who is trying to capture the leader of a group bandits Indio (Gian Maria Volonte). Initially this sets up a marvellous confrontation between Eastwood's Monco and Mortimer during which Monco gets to display his skills with a Pistol and then Mortimer with a Rifle. Sergio Leone directs this scene (and the rest of the film) brilliantly, making the characters behaviour seem almost child-like.

This film also benefits from having a Klaus Kinski as 'Wild', who is a member of Indio's gang. The best scene in the film occurs when Col Mortimer strikes a match on Wild's stubble. Klaus Kinski's look of utter disbelief, not to mention irritation, has to be seen to be believed.

From beginning to end this movie is a masterpiece. However in case that isn't enough this new special edition DVD contains a commentary by Sir Christopher Fraying. He is THE expert on Sergio Leone and to a lesser extent Clint Eastwood. His commentary contains a mine of wonderful stories about the film, the director and the actors involved. If you find this commentry interesting then get his brilliant biography of Sergio Leone "Something to do with Death".

Why? So-so picture quality, but really let down by the sound - for long periods it's completely out of sync with the picture which for me really spoilt the viewing experience. A shame for what is an excellent movie. The transfers for the other Man with No Name films are much better.