Per qualche dollaro in più (For a Few Dollars More). 1965. Italy/West Germany/Spain. Directed by Sergio Leone. Screenplay by Luciano Vincenzoni, Leone, Fulvio Morsella. With Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volonté, Klaus Kinski. 4K DCP restoration. 130 min.
The least appreciated—though arguably the best—of the three Man with No Name films, For a Few Dollars More was tepidly received by critics on its theatrical release, something hard to fathom now that our collective movie unconscious has been burnished with Clint Eastwood’s legendary antihero, Sergio Leone’s self-consciously stylized direction, and Ennio Morricone’s score. Morricone’s signature whistle has become jauntier in this film, hurried along by the cantering drumbeat, the men’s grunted chants, and the twang of a mouth harp…making the haunting lullaby of the infamous pocket watch so devastating during the film’s explosive outbursts of violence. “Unlike American Westerns,” the British filmmaker Alex Cox would observe, “Spaghettis could include mercy killings, prolonged scenes of sadistic cruelty, and the murders of whole families in order to provoke revenge. And so they did.”