Sergio Leone’s second Western doesn’t just repeat A Fistful of Dollars. It doubles the board. Two bounty hunters, one target, and a pocket watch that ticks through every killing.
Trailer, via Amazon MGM Studios.
Two Hunters, One Bounty
Manco and Colonel Douglas Mortimer both chase El Indio, a bank robber with a large price on his head. Clint Eastwood plays Manco. Lee Van Cleef plays Mortimer, a former army officer. Gian Maria Volonté plays Indio, and Klaus Kinski appears as the hunchback Wild.
The two men learn separately that Indio’s gang has broken him out of prison, killing all but one jailer. They meet in El Paso and study each other. Neither backs down. So they team up.
A Pocket Watch, Wound Into Guilt
Indio carries a musical pocket watch taken from a woman who shot herself while he was raping her, after he had murdered her husband. The act haunts him. He smokes an addictive drug to cloud the memory.
That detail is the film’s spine. Leone gives his villain a conscience that works like a wound, and Volonté plays it without a wink.
Almost a Million Dollars
Indio plans to rob the Bank of El Paso, whose disguised safe holds “almost a million dollars.” Mortimer persuades Manco to join the gang and “get him between two fires.” Manco frees a friend of Indio’s from prison to earn his way in.
Indio sends Manco and three others to rob a bank in Santa Cruz. Manco guns down the three and sends a false alarm that draws the El Paso sheriff away. The gang blasts the rear wall and steals the safe, but can’t open it. Groggy suspects Manco. Indio accepts his story, thanks to a neck wound Mortimer gave him to sell it.
The gang rides to Agua Caliente. Mortimer is already waiting.
Why the Man in Black Wins
The tagline calls the man in black “a walking arsenal – he uncoils, strikes and kills!” That’s the pitch, and the film earns it.
What matters most:
- The pocket watch — Indio’s guilt made physical, the best device Leone ever wrote.
- Mortimer’s motive — Van Cleef gives the film a second center Eastwood can play against.
- The El Paso heist — a long con that turns on a faked wound.
9.2 Out of 10
For a Few Dollars More was an international co-production between Italy, West Germany and Spain. It reached the United States in 1967, marketed as the second installment in the Dollars Trilogy. The published critical score is 9.2 of 10, with a 92% Rotten Tomatoes rating.
Key facts
– Release: 1965 (US: 1967)
– Director: Sergio Leone
– Runtime: 132 minutes
– Genre: Western
– Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
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