Fistful of Dollars (1964)
Directed by Sergio Leone (1929-1989)
Written by... Well, several people but the film is a virtual scene by scene remake of Yojimbo, so the real credit goes to Kurosawa though Toho, Kurosawa's company had to sue to get it.
Fistful of Dollars was the first of the Leone's "Dollars" trilogy. It was followed by For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966). Taken together, these are the founding films of a genera usually called "Spaghetti Westerns" because most were produced by Italian directors. The term may have been coined by a Spanish journalist. Most of the actors in the Spaghetti Westerns were Europeans but they usually had one or two Hollywood stars...some who were over the hill, others who were rising.
Of course Leone's "Dollars" films more or less made Clint Eastwood. Before Fistful of Dollars his only major role was on the TV show Rawhide. His movie career took off after he appeared in these films.
Fistful and the other "Dollars" films also introduced American audiences to the music of Ennio Morricone (1928-2020). The theme to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (hear it here), is still one of the most easily recognizable movie themes. Morricone went on to compose over 500 works for TV and movies.
Fistful, is set in "San Miguel" somewhere in the Southwest United States or Northwest Mexico...or is it. The landscape is intentionally somewhat surreal. It was filmed entirely in Spain. The cast was international, featuring many members from Italy and Spain as well as members from Germany, Austria, and the US. However, to the best of my knowledge, there were no Mexican or Mexican-American cast members in any of the "Dollars" movies.
As noted above, Fistful is a very close remake of Yojimbo. Allegedly, Kurosawa wrote a letter to Leone that said "Signor Leone, I have just had the chance to see your film. It's a very fine film, but it is my film." What's for sure is that Leone was sued by Toho, the company that produced Kurosawa's film. Toho got more than $100,000 and 15% of the box office. You can see a nice video comparing side by side shots of Yojimbo and Fistful here (optional).
Despite the fact that Fistful is an obvious rip-off of Yojimbo changing the film's setting does have significant effects on the plot and the two films end up being pretty different. One aspect of the comparison is somewhat technical. A key plot point of Yojimbo is the introduction of a gun into a society that does not have them. In Fistful they can't quite do the same thing. The plot role is taken by the introduction of a kind of machine gun, but it doesn't have the same resonance.
More importantly, in Kurosawa's film, there really are no significant differences between the Ushitora and Seibei clans. Ushitora is ultimately stronger and, because of that, more wicked. But, both are really the same in other ways. In Fistful Leone chooses to inject issues of race/ethnicity. In Fistful some characters, including Eastwood's "Man With No Name" are Anglo/white and others are Mexican. In so doing, Leone is certainly following the conventions of Westerns, but it makes for some uncomfortable stuff. In Fistful it's the Rojo brothers versus the Baxter family. The Rojos are cast as the Ushitora and the Baxters are the Seibei. That means that it's the Rojos who are stronger and more wicked. Like the Ushitora, they mercilessly massacre the Baxters after setting fire to their house. And that it's the white Stranger character who massacres the Rojos at the end. On the one hand, the Baxters and Rojos are all evil. But, on the other, it's ultimately brown people who are worse than white people and the (mostly) brown town that is saved by the white guy. All of this is absent in Kurosawa's film.
Interestingly, because they are in so many ways the same film, Kurosawa's film is far better than Leone's, though both are classics after their fashion. Because the gun is novel in Kurosawa's film and because the issue of race is non-existent, Yojimbo becomes far more than a samurai film. It engages issues of tradition versus modernity, of the corruption of culture, of the nature of fate, and of individual responsibility. These are important questions in any era, but are particularly relevant in Post War Japan. In Leone's film, all of these are far more muted and the film largely ends up reinforcing and further defining the Western genre and the issues of white racial superiority that have traditionally been associated with it.
Staring:
Clint Eastwood (Joe/The Man With No Name) (1930-). As noted above, this was Eastwood's breakout role. Eastwood's career is both too long and too well known to comment on. He's been actor, producer, director and, occasionally, even musical composer. A few of his recent films are The 15:17 to Paris (2018), Sully (2016), American Sniper (2014), and Jersey Boys (2014). Eastwood has often been associated with conservative US politics.
Marianne Koch (Marisol) (1931-) Koch, a German actress, appeared in numerous films in the 50s and 60s. In the 70s she went back to med school and became an MD. She appeared as one of the hosts of a German TV talk show and had a medical advice program on radio.
Gian Maria Volonte (Ramon Rojo) (1933-1994), An Italian actor who worked in theater and TV before joining Leone on Fistful. He played in the other Leone films and then had major roles in Italian films in the 60s and 70s. He was known for leftist politics and his temper.
Wolfgang Lukschy (John Baxter) (1905-1983) A German actor who made many film and TV appearances in the 60s and 70s. He had been in The Longest Day (1962) a super popular US film about D-Day that had an extensive all-star cast (it included John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Sean Connery, Robert Wagner, and many, many others).
Sieghardt Rupp (Esteban Rojo) (1931-2015), An Austrian actor whose career stretched from the late 50s until the mid 1990s. Rupp frequently played bandits, gangsters, and mercenaries. He frequently played Mexican characters.
Here's a recent review of the film (optional)