Sergio Leone on the role that made Eastwood a movie star

Clint Eastwood rose to movie stardom when he played a shady gunslinger in Sergio Leone’s first spaghetti western, A Fistful of Dollars. In a 1977 interview with the BBC, the Italian director confessed that he “really wanted” another actor to play the now-iconic role.

A man in a dusty poncho and wide-brimmed hat strides down the deserted streets of a desolate desert town. “Get me three coffins,” he instructs his coffin-maker, before confronting a group of men who mock him. “My mistake,” he adds, after shooting the thugs. “Four coffins.” It’s one of the iconic scenes from Clint Eastwood’s brooding gunslinger role in A Fistful of Dollars (1964), a film that changed cinematic history.

In a 1977 interview with BBC journalist Ian Johnston, Eastwood appears in a very different, more genial setting: a jovial, affable actor who bears only a passing resemblance to the stern, ruthless heroes of Sergio Leone’s Westerns.

Eastwood recalls that he wasn’t “particularly” interested in starring in a low-budget European film at first. He was familiar with westerns at the time, having starred in the hit TV series “Rawhide,” which took a more traditionally American approach to the western. [A Fistful of Dollars]But I felt that a European approach might give the West a new flavor.”

While many consider Eastwood’s casting perfect, Leone originally considered James Coburn (The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven) for the role. “I really wanted James Coburn, but he was too expensive,” the Italian director told the BBC. At the time, Eastwood was the more affordable option, earning around $15,000 ($152,000/£116,000 in 2024) compared to Coburn’s around $25,000 ($254,000/£193,000 in 2024).

“I didn’t see any particular character in Rawhide, I just saw the physical figure,” Leone said. “What struck me most about Clint was the way he moved, so leisurely. To me, he seemed a lot like a cat.”

The popularity of blockbuster films, which had dominated Hollywood’s Golden Age, began to wane in the 1960s, and Leone, who was better known for directing low-budget Italian films, decided to try his hand at American Westerns.

The result was A Fistful of Dollars (first released in Italy). Per $1 bet) was a work unlike any of its predecessors in the genre. Akira KurosawaBased on Eastwood’s samurai tale Yojimbo, the film centers on Eastwood’s morally grey “Joe,” later stylized as the Man with No Name, who instigates a gang war for profit in the Mexican town of San Miguel. A Gun and a Knife drew cast and crew from across the United States and several European countries. Eastwood described the film as “a remake of a Japanese film set in the plains of Spain, an Italian-German-Spanish co-production.”

“I knew “arrivederci” and “buongiorno,” [Leone] “He knew ‘goodbye’ and ‘hello’ and that was it,” Eastwood told the BBC. “Then he learned a little English, I learned a little Italian, and in the meantime I learned a little Spanish and we got by.”

The actors deliver their lines in their native languages, which are then dubbed into Italian and English for each audience, and Eastwood said the script is “an Italian representation of what Western slang is like.”

When A Fistful of Dollars was released in the US in 1967, critics were similarly negative: “This wildly unnatural, yet fascinatingly morbid and violent film contains nearly every Western cliché.” Bosley Crowther wrote in The New York Times:The film’s American release was delayed by several years because American distributors feared being sued by Kurosawa after he sued Leone for copying Yojimbo.

Leone’s first western was released in West ItalyA subgenre of Italian-made films colloquially known as the “Spaghetti Western”. The term “spaghetti” alluded to the critics’ initial condescending attitude towards this international production. Similar types of Westerns were given similar names, such as the Spanish “Paella Western” and the Japanese “Ramen Western”.

“It took a while for Leone to make an impact on American cinema, at least initially, because critics were dismissive of his work and that of his colleague Sergio Corbucci,” says Dr. Mary Ann McDonald Carolan, professor and director of Italian Studies at Fairfield University. “Spaghetti Westerns were considered low-budget, ridiculously exaggerated versions of real Westerns.”

Unlike traditional Westerns, Spaghetti Westerns focused on antiheroes and relied on moral ambiguity. Eastwood’s Joe instigates a conflict between two rival smuggling gangs to steal gold. Only when innocent people are harmed does Joe step in to neutralize the gangs. Spaghetti Westerns also depict far more gratuitous violence, such as violence against women and children. According to Carolan, while the typical American Western celebrates the Western frontier and idealizes the Wild West, Spaghetti Westerns parody and subvert this view. By highlighting the violence that was premised on such frontiers, these films were also a broader critique of a tumultuous decade in world politics, especially during the controversial Vietnam War.

The language barrier during production led to simpler, less frequent dialogue, and Leone’s distinctive style emerged: wide establishing shots, quiet dramatic close-ups, and the composer’s memorable score. Ennio MorriconeThe “dialogue,” featuring the iconic whistles and rattles, became a trademark of Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns. “My films are basically silent films,” he told the BBC. “The dialogue just adds weight.” The style is also reflected in the work of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, both of whom Among directors and movie masters He cited Leone as an influence.

A Fistful of Dollars transformed Eastwood from a TV actor into a giant of the silver screen; he went on to star in the sequels A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. The good, the bad, the ugly, The Dollar Trilogy and many other Westerns were produced.

“Just as Jimi Hendrix went to England to make a name for himself, Eastwood’s three Westerns for Leone were the launch pad for his illustrious career,” says David Irving, a film director and associate professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. “Leone breathed new life into the well-worn genre of the Western.”

Despite initial lukewarm reactions from critics, A Fistful of Dollars garnered grassroots support and became a box office hit in Europe and the United States. $14.5 million (approx. £11 million) internationallyIts popularity continued to grow in the decade since its release, garnering a devoted following among moviegoers. The film has inspired works in a variety of media, from comics to video games, as well as other directors, and Leone was posthumously honoured at the festival’s 67th anniversary. Cannes Film Festival In 2014, A Fistful of Dollars was screened on the final night of the festival, and it transformed the film from a mocked “fake Western” into a bona fide classic.

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