Can We Talk 2

Eastwood Western

                   Okay, I watched a movie in the middle of the day in the middle of the week. And I don't feel guilty about it. It is an old movie, but I had never seen it before, which is hard to believe. "A Fistful of Dollars" did not ring any bells for me; none of it was familiar, so I'm certain that I have never been conned into watching it by my ex-husband, a pretty big Eastwood fan. I've seen many others, but not this one. And I was surprised by how much I liked it.

         My first thought early in the movie was that they certainly made a handsome man look ugly. I know it's stage make-up, but in real life, you'd expect someone who looked that bad to smell bad, too, not considering cigar smoke. Then I wondered if he did his own stunts or some of them. As he hauled himself over a wall and came over the other side, I thought, 'It had to be a pretty tall stunt man.' Then, I noticed all the bad guys in those famous close-up shots Leone is known for. The setting was south of the border in Mexico. They all had blue eyes and beautiful white teeth. What a great dentist in that poor little town. All the criminals had straight, even white teeth. They could have been models, tall models.

         But, of course, it was a spaghetti western. The bad guys (almost all the characters were bad guys) were Italian, German, or Spanish. Only the barkeep bore some resemblance to a Mexican who may have had some Indian blood. The casket maker was the only merchant in town making money and he looked like a real working man, not handsome. We never saw his teeth. Those two were the closest to sidekicks to the Man With No Name, the "Americano". They both helped him; however, neither had a strong role like his sidekicks in the sequels.

         There was no good guy. The leading character was a drifter who stirred up the feuding families and led them into killing each other off. He did do a favor for a small family who had been victimized because they reminded him of someone else. In the end, he rode off without the money he had given away. The undertaker did call out "Joe" a few times near the end, and I couldn't decide if he was calling Eastwood's character or not.

         This was a revisionist western, in that the lead actor is not really a hero, and a lot of violence is depicted. There are cold-hearted and ruthless actions which suit today's audiences. Revisionist westerns did not replace traditional westerns as people thought at the time. In fact, today there is a renewed interest and following of traditional westerns. Those traditional movies, the John Wayne type, were not meant to portray accurately American history, but to be morality plays. Audiences want to see good conquer evil. They want to know what the ideal is. There is a place for both kinds of westerns, and they should exist side by side, for the thinking public.

         The music for this one is good, but not as overpowering and legendary as it becomes in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.