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STORY STUDY - MEDIUM: FILM - “For a Few Dollars More”

Jeffrey Tung
Mar 13, 2017
3 min read

“Where life had no value, death, sometimes, had its price. That is why the bounty hunters appeared.”

This is the title card that appears after the credits roll in the beginning of For a Few Dollars More, the first sequel to A Fistful of Dollars.

Directed by Sergio Leone, screenplay by Leone and Luciano Vincenzoni, and story by Leone and Fulvio Morsella, the film is about a pair of bounty hunters, the first introduced being Colonel Douglas Mortimer, and the second being “Manco,” a.k.a. the “Man with No Name,” from the previous film, who team up to go after their latest bounty.

This latest bounty is El Indio, a ruthless gang leader who, after his gang springs him out of prison, aims to rob the bank of El Paso.

Manco aims to turn in El Indio and his gang for the bounty; For Mortimer, the money is only an afterthought. Their plan involves them getting into El Diablo’s good graces.

Even from the first scene, the film is very clear that Mortimer is the protagonist; he is the one with the emotional journey, and has a clear mission (though the revelation of this is revealed in the end). He is even the only one who is involved in the final showdown. Manco is just a bounty hunter who’s come along for the ride.

Speaking of Manco, it’s interesting to see him being a bounty hunter. While Joe could easily take on the job of a bounty hunter, it’s never explicitly or even implicitly stated that he was in A Fistful of Dollars. In fact, it’s up for debate on whether or not it’s the same character (yet, it’s the same actor playing him… we’ll explore a little bit more on this subject on next week’s post.)

El Indio’s scenes that showcase him as a cold-hearted killer are perfect: he kills the wife and child of the man (a former member of his gang) who turned him in for the bounty; then, he challenges (forces) him into a gun duel. El Indio shows a pocket watch that plays a chime when it opens. “When the music stops, start” is what he says. What follows is a tension filled score by Ennio Morricone.

For me personally, I remember watching this film without any expectations (but I was confused on why Lee Van Cleef was in this, but NOT as his character from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly) and remember telling myself that this was my favorite in the trilogy: it’s the same director, so it has beautiful shots, the music score is still legendary, the action was more or less the same (just a bunch of shooting with crazy gun sound effects, and blood) but this time it had a more noble story; it’s out of revenge, but it’s something that anyone can get behind.

Even though I had not seen The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, I knew the layout and location of the climactic duel. After re-watching For a Few Dollars More for this post… yeah, this film’s climactic duel looks kind of familiar, doesn’t it?

For a Few Dollars More is more in line with a traditional film, or at least contains a traditional character arc for a western-action film. For anyone who is more of a fan of the anti-heroic actions of the Man with No Name from the previous film, sadly, that is not present here outside of money as his motivation.