Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Watch The Western Classic For A Few Dollars More

By Lizzie Copeland

Leone's Dollars Trilogy is without a doubt one of the all time classic series when it comes to all out action, suspense and, well, coolness. The film in the series that is considered a "Great Film" would have to be The Good the Bad and the Ugly, but the absolute coolest of the series is, without a doubt, For a Few Dollars More. Maybe not the best, but certainly the most fun of the entire trilogy, and definitely one to put on your queue the next time you sign into your movie download service.

The movie is just full of neat, fun ideas. We get to see Clint Eastwood walking slowly towards a saloon, in the rain, with one hand hidden, and beating up on a bounty with only one fist. We get to see Lee Van Cleef pulling out a big arsenal of rifles and pistols and piecing them together bit by bit to snipe at a fleeing bad guy. And the villain is probably the strangest and coolest of the series.

See, he uses a pocket watch every time he kills someone. It's a musical pocket watch, so he winds it up and lets it play while staring down his adversary. When the music comes to a stop... He draws and fires. Definitely a great villainous ritual for any western baddie to commit to.

Cleef plays Colonel Mortimer, a Civil War Hero turned bounty hunter who teams up with Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name to take this guy out. The Colonel has personal history with the guy, so while The Man With No Name is just out to make a buck, Mortimer is out for revenge. The way their two objectives intersect and reinforce one another is really something to see.

The two have one of the all time best Man Movie bonding scenes, shooting each other's hats off of their respective heads in an effort to impress and intimidate one another.

The music really makes the film, primarily with some scenes revolving around the pocket watch. The simple, twinkly melody it plays is played again in an orchestrated, layered arrangement for the finale, where we have a duel not just with matching pistols, but with matching pocket watches. The tension in this scene is almost tangible, physical in nature.

Sergio Leone has made some of the greatest contributions to film, and his career was cut sadly short just before Stalingrad, the WWII film which might have been his Magnum Opus.

The one thing missing is perhaps Eli Wallach. There aren't really any characters in the film with the depth and complex humanity of Tuco in The Good the Bad and the Ugly, but the film is certainly the most fun film of the trilogy. - 40732

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