A lone rider stops at a well on the outskirts of a Mexican town and witnesses a sadistic beating for a father and his child. But the rider doesn?t intervene, even when it becomes apparent that the child was trying to see his mother who appears to be a captive of the bad guys. Joe, the lone rider journeys on in to the middle of town where he runs into the Baxter gang who give him a hard time. After stopping for a meal and surveying the town with the aid of the inn keeper he decides that there is money to be made. The Baxters are warring with the Rojos and a man fast on the draw can be of service to the highest bidder.

Joe starts by taking out the four Baxter thugs who had made his entry to town so unpleasant. He then offers himself to the Rojos and they are happy to have someone that good on their side. But Joe decides he would rather be on his own and he finds ways of playing the two gangs off against each other. He witnesses the Rojos stealing money from a Government convoy and sets the two factions against each other. While the Baxters and the Rojos shoot it out, Joe wanders around the Rojo stronghold, eventually finding the mother he saw in the opening scene. He takes her back to the Baxters who are happy to exchange her for their captured son.

The Rojos capture Joe and subject him to a fierce beating. The sadistic Chico reminds his fellow thugs that ?Our orders are to make sure he does not die… but also to make sure he regrets the day he was born?. The beating is certainly a good one and Joe is lucky to be alive at the end of it. But in the true hero way he manages to fool his captors and escape just as the Rojos wipe out all the Baxters in a fierce gunfight while the Baxter stronghold burns to the ground. With the help of the inn-keeper Joe hides out in an abandoned mine until he recovers sufficiently to rejoin the battle.

Joe goes back to the place where the mother was held captive and shoots the five bad guys acting as her wardens. He reunites the mother, the father and the child and sends them on their way with part of the money he has made from playing the two gangs off. Joe then returns to town with armour under his poncho and astounds the Rojo thugs when their leader?s bullets don?t kill him. Finally he gets to draw his gun and the inevitable slaughter of the Rojos follows. At the end of the movie Joe rides off to look for more opportunities to earn his fistful of dollars.

This movie is one of the first spaghetti westerns to make any sort of impact outside Europe and introduces the type of character Eastwood was to play in many successive movies. The hero is a ruthless killer who prefers to work alone. Yet he has the capacity to engender great loyalty in some of the people he meets along the way and he shows a soft side by helping out the less fortunate. The movie has plenty of killings and beatings. It can be quite grim but you always know the hero will obliterate the bad guys in the end, even if he has to turn to murder to do it.

The movie was made for a relatively cheap price but it does have a believable set of characters and the almost good guy triumphs over the baddies. It spawned many copycat films, ironically given that Fistful of Dollars itself is based on a Japanese film called Yojimbo. If you like westerns and you like Clint and you can stand the sight of blood this is a good movie to watch. Barracking for Joe the lone rider who you just know is going to belt up the bad guys is almost essential. I enjoyed it and will go back to watch it again.

THE EXTRAS

This is where this set sets itself apart. On disk one there is a second cut of the film with a commentary by Sir Christopher Frayling, a writer who was written about spaghetti westerns as a film genre and done a biography of Sergio Leone. There are many interesting observations and insights that make it one of the better additional features. I watched the movie predominantly because it was a spaghetti western. Little did I know about the religious overtones to the movie, it?s basis in the samurai movie Yojimbo, that Clint did the job for $15,000.00, it?s parallels with James Bond (especially in the opening credits) nor the mix of US, Italian, Spanish, West German and Austrian actors who went into making the movie. Well worth the price if it was only one disk.

But wait, there?s more. Disk Two has even more stuff on it. There?s exclusive documentaries and interviews where Frayling explores the new type of hero Eastwood and Leone bring to the screen. We find out from Clint that he went to make the movie primarily so he could get a holiday in Spain; we also find out that he got the job because he was cheap as plenty of others knocked it back. There are interviews with three close friends/colleagues of Leone; information from the MGM team on the restoration work done on the film to ready it for release to DVD; a series of intercuts between the film and still shots to compare locations; you can see the original promotional material, hear the radio ads to promote the movie, watch the roginal trailer and the double bill trailer.

If that?s not enough, we find out that when the movie went to TV the network bosses didn?t like the lack of morals portrayed in the film and actually had a prologue shot to make Joe less amoral by the US government engaging him to clean up the town. And you can see the prologue as it was shown on TV. Lastly, there?s a Collector?s Gallery of promotion stills from the movie set.

This is the best collection of additional material I have seen so far in the DVDs I have reviewed but be warned, it will take a long, long time to work your way through the lot. I found that I have a much different perspective on the movie now than I ever would had I not seen some of this stuff. I heartily recommend the whole double disk set to you.

CONCLUSION

Joe the lone rider arrives in town and spots an opening for a hired gun to make money in a town split by feuding factions. His speed on the draw makes him an attractive proposition for both factions and he manages to play them off, kill many from both sides and save a family all while he collects his fistful of dollars.