For a Few Dollars More

Number 109 on the top 1000 films of all time is Sergio Leone's For a Few Dollars More.  It is the second in the Dollars trilogy, sandwiched between A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

The Man with No Name (Clint Eastwood) and The Man in Black (Lee Van Cleef) are two bounty hunters in El Paso.  They decide to team up to catch the ruthless bandit El Indio (Gian Maria Volonte) who is on the run from the law along with his gang.

If you're wondering why I haven't reviewed A Fistful of Dollars, I must confess that I actually watched this film series backwards.  When I watched The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, I had no idea it was part of a trilogy.  As For a Few Dollars more, was higher up than A Fistful of Dollars and there isn't really any continuity between the films, I figured that I might as well continue watching the series backwards.

I've seen quite a few of Sergio Leone's films.  Obviously I've watched The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, but I've also seen Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in America and if there's one thing that Leone does well, it's setting the scene.  Just like in his other Westerns, he uses great sweeping panoramic shots to clearly establish the desert setting.  The cinematography in this film is no exception: it's awesome.  The film is set in 1872 and the great setting and production designed helped to signify this.  Similar to his next film, Leone also makes great use of close-up shots to help build up the tension.

Speaking of tension, Leone once again used music and sound brilliantly to build tension.  The film score of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is undoubtedly great, but music is also used well in A Few Dollars More.   The best example of this is the music box that El Indio plays just before a duel.  The music is haunting, but powerful.  Originally, the music box had belonged to a young couple.  However, El Indio killed the man, before raping and killing his lover.   I think this is what contributed to the music box being so sinister.  It began as a symbol of innocence and love and was manipulated into something evil.  This really helped to bring El Indio's character to life and to make him a frightening villain.  And this is exactly what music should do in a film.  It should compliment it, not detract from it.

Listen to the For a Few Dollars More theme song

Take a listen to the music box theme

From what I've heard of the Dollars Trilogy, they're supposed to progressively get better and better.  And I'd agree with this.  This was a great film in its own right, but I don't think it matches up to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.  Yes the narrative was simple and easy to follow, the camerawork was great and the music effective, but it just isn't on the same level.