For a Few Dollars More

The Man With No Name returns in For a Few Dollars More (1965), the second of Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy." Much more ambitious and large-scale than the modest, cheaply-budgeted A Fistful of Dollars, it shows signs of the Leone who would soon produce some of the greatest Westerns ever.

Psychotic outlaw El Indio (Gian Maria Volonte) is sprung from jail by his gang. Indio plots the robbery of the heavily-guarded bank at El Paso. Two bounty hunters - the amoral, quick-drawing Monco (Clint Eastwood), the coolly professional sharpshooter Colonel Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef) find themselves on Indio's trail. They form an uneasy alliance to take the bandit down, with Monco infiltrating his gang, but Indio's own crazy scheming threatens to foil the bounty hunters' well-laid plans.

For a Few Dollars More is more purely "Spaghetti Western" than most of Leone's work. It is full of laconic heroes, exaggerated, sadistic violence (21 people die in the first twenty minutes), an earthy sense of humor (Mortimer bursting in on a bathing woman, Blondie flirting with a slutty hotel clerk (Mara Krup)), nods to American Westerns (a key scene from The Tin Star is restaged comically), a simple yet convoluted plot, and cheapjack dubbing. Leone manages to make all this work, creating a movie that is incredibly enjoyable, deliciously convoluted and wickedly funny.

Leone's amoral, cynical take on the West is in full flower. "Life has no value," says the opening caption, and our amoral, coldly professional gunslingers are in place. Mortimer does have a motive for tracking down Indio, but the main motivation for both him and Monco is greed. Our two "heroes" are parodies of machismo, scuffing each other's boots and shooting each other's hats like children, each trying to out-scheme the other and come out on top. The only Sheriff we see is corrupt and cowardly, and very few townspeople are seen at all. Cynicism about progress is humorously expressed by the Old Prophet (Joseph Eggert) in a scene out of a Looney Tunes short; in a more serious, pointed form it would return in Once Upon a Time in the West.

Moving beyond the set-bound necessities of Fistful, Leone shows an ambitious, keen camera eye. The Almerian countryside is beautifully captured by Massimo Dallmano, the harsh, alien desert a perfect arena for the story. Carlo Simi also provides a wonderfully rustic and memorable set-design. Ennio Morricone provides an excellent score, as usual: the music runs the gamut from the jaunty, almost comic main theme (with whistles and Jew's harp) to the stately, oboe-and-choral "Goodbye, Colonel" track, and musical chime and organ for a church showdown.

Clint Eastwood plays the Man With No Name with more humor and self-awareness than before. Lee Van Cleef propels himself from a career as a bit-part Hollywood bad guy (High Noon, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) to Spaghetti superstar (The Big Gundown, Day of Anger); his Mortimer is a simple character beautifully rendered. Gian Maria Volonte (Face to Face) provides an excellent counterpart to Eastwood and Van Cleef's stoicism, cackling, chewing scenery and smoking reefer as one of the hammiest villains ever. Luigi Pistilli (Death Rides a Horse) and Klaus Kinski (Doctor Zhivago) show up as two of Indio's more colorful henchmen.

For a Few Dollars More is no masterpiece, but it's fun and extremely enjoyable.