365+ movies in 365 Days: Day 79 - For A Few Dollars More

I resumed my review of "spaghetti westerns" by watching a For A few Dollars More, the sequel to A Fistful Of Dollars and the second film in the "Dollars" trilogy.

Directed by Sergio Leone and once again starring Clint Eastwood as the man with no name. This time the Eastwood character is making a living as "Bounty Killer" bringing outlaws to justice dead or alive. He has competition from another bounty killer, Colonel Mortimer (The Man In Black) played by Lee Van Cleef. Both Eastwood and Van Cleef are on the trail of a desperado named El Indio, who is planning to rob the bank at El Paso.

After the success in Italy of Fistful Of Dollars Leone was able to get backing for the new movie right away. He once again signed on Eastwood to star as well as Gian maria Volte as El Indio. Volte also starred as the villain Ramone Rojos in Fistful Of Dollars. Not only did the sequel go into production right away, but it had a bigger budget and that is it's downfall.

By necessity the first film had a tight script and a short running time and mostly relied on Eastwood to carry the film. With the bigger budget For A few Dollars more adds a second protagonist in Van Cleef, so we don't get as much Eastwood. There are flashback scenes that attempt to give psychological motivations to the outlaw and there are other protracted scenes, like one of Eastwood talking to an old-timer in a railroad shack, that just don't belong. The film is overly long at 2 hours and 11 minutes. Leone does capture an authentic, grimy, dusty feel of the west and the musical score by Ennio Morricone once again stands out.

At The Movie House rating *** stars

Note - many people (including myself) are distracted by the poor dubbing of the English language to the Italian actors. I have found by watching the DVD with the subtitles on I tend to read the words instead of watching the actors mouths and it is much less annoying.