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The "Man With No Name" Series

The "Man With No Name" Series
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef
Director: Sergio Leone

Directed by the incomparable Sergio Leone, these three movies A Fistful Of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, were among the first so-called "spaghetti westerns" to achieve real commercial success in the US, blasting Clint Eastwood (the iconic "Man With No Name") and Lee Van Cleef (who plays two completely different... (See the whole review)

(Added by Matthew Humphreys on 5/27/2004, 10:10am)

Discuss this Movie (16 messages)

Thursday, May 27, 2004 - 1:13pm

Now, we're talking! These are great movies - and I hate Westerns as a rule.

Haunting, powerful and provocative, and genuinely so.

I'd suggest watching them with Clint's Oscar winning Unforgiven.

(And surely Mathew, Fistful of Dollars was first chronologically? Or do you have a theory?)

Thursday, May 27, 2004 - 4:32pm

Peter,

A lot of people who like the movies seem to miss this point. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is definitely a prequel to the other two. Check this site under filmography (the site specifically requests that people link to the homepage only, rather than to individual pages).

Think about the sequence of events - at the start of GBU he's a total cynical bastard in a raincoat. After experiencing the brutality of the civil war he suddenly becomes Mr Nice Guy, comforting the dying soldier, places his coat over the soldier's body, and then next to the soldier he finds the poncho that his character wears in Fistful and FAFDM, and wears that for the final shootout - symbolically he becomes the hero that he is in the other two movies.

MH

Friday, May 28, 2004 - 5:26am

I never liked these westerns that much but as a western fan still watched them.
Eastwood plays the anti-hero in these movies and the western in the sixties did make a radical departure from the values of westerns from the forties and fifties.
These were acceptable westerns for the spirit of the sixties. Heros were neithing black or white.
For heroic westerns I prefer Shane and westerns made by John Ford.
The Searchers in my view is one of the best westerns ever made. Watch it if you can find it in your local libarary.

Friday, May 28, 2004 - 12:10pm

Hi Albert, and seeing it is your first post, welcome to SOLO!!

I am a great western fan also. Shane and The Searchers are terrific westerns. Shane in particular seems to very popular with a number of high profile Objectivists, and rightly so. I'd also say the majority of Ford's stuff is worth seeing. I have to say though that, with the exception of the first half of The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, I've never quite understood the anti-heroism charge levelled at Eastwood's character. If anything I'd say John Wayne's characters in both The Searchers and Red River fit that bill far better.

MH

Friday, May 28, 2004 - 6:02pm

Welcome, Albert.

I never liked westerns as a kid, but later on I developed an interest. Now I am anxious to see all the great ones mentioned here.

Friday, May 28, 2004 - 6:38pm

Regarding the "Man With No Name" movies, I should probably add that there are also benefits to watching them in production order, namely observing how Leone's filmmaking and Morricone's compositional techniques developed in the space of three short years.

Most seem to regard The Good, The Bad And The Ugly as the best of the bunch, though personally I prefer For A Few Dollars More, mainly because Col. Mortimer is just so damned stylish!! That said, the final shootout in GBU still thrills me after countless viewings.

(Edited by Matthew Humphreys on 5/28, 6:44pm)

Sunday, May 30, 2004 - 9:58am

Hi, Matthew.

You noted vis-a-vis Clint Eastwood: >>If anything I'd say John Wayne's [anti-hero] characters in both The Searchers and Red River fit that bill far better.<<

I agree. In fact, I'm trying to think of any John Wayne western, other than Ford's cavalry trilogy, in which he didn't play a character with a shady background.

As much as I like Eastwood's "No Name" series, their ironic gloss is a bit too '60ish for my taste. I think the western matured about ten years or so earlier with Gary Cooper in "High Noon", Gregory Peck in "The Gunfighter", Henry Fonda in "The Oxbow Incident", and, of course, Wayne in "The Searchers". All of these films featured a hero (or anti-hero in "The Gunfighter" and "The Searchers") whose adherence to his principles was challenged by the norms of his comrades. "The Searchers" is particularly interesting, because in that case, Wayne learned his bigotry was wrong and so he had to change. Typically it's the other way around.

While I agree with you that Eastwood's character did mature in the prequel "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly", the problem I have with admiring the Man with No Name is that his principles are nevery really challenged. The plot is always contrived so that we know him as an anti-establishment rogue, but he doesn't actually cause harm to anyone who doesn't deserve it. In other words, the Man with No Name is a rule breaker who breaks no rules. For that reason, I found Eli Wallach's character in "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" to be more interesting.

Oddly enough, I acquired my taste for westerns while I was living in England about twenty years ago. BBC always showed a western movie after noon, which was a good way to recoup from one too many pints at the pub the night before.

Regards,
Bill

Monday, May 31, 2004 - 10:32am

Bill,

I agree. In fact, I'm trying to think of any John Wayne western, other than Ford's cavalry trilogy, in which he didn't play a character with a shady background.

Rio Bravo and The Shootist spring immediately to mind :-)

The plot is always contrived so that we know him as an anti-establishment rogue, but he doesn't actually cause harm to anyone who doesn't deserve it.

Sorry if I'm missing something, but how on earth is harming only those who deserve it a bad thing?

Monday, May 31, 2004 - 4:32pm

Hi, Matthew.

Me: >>The plot is always contrived so that we know [the Man with No Name] as an anti-establishment rogue, but he doesn't actually cause harm to anyone who doesn't deserve it.<<

You: >>Sorry if I'm missing something, but how on earth is harming only those who deserve it a bad thing?<<

It's not, of course. That is why when a director wants you to admire a bad man on the cheap, he'll set up him with a vaguely criminal background but he does not have the character actually do anything that would offend our sense of justice. The director wants the character to appear complex, but he really isn't. He is just another white hat in dirty clothes.

In that sense, the Man with No Name is a more a break in style rather than in substance with old matinee westerns. I think John Wayne's character in "The Searchers" is genuinely complex. He is difficult to like, but he is engaged in an admirable endeavor. We suspect his motives, and then we learn we were right when his hatred of Indians drives him so hard he is almost ready to kill his neice until his sense of justice overwhelms him.

It is by having justice prevail against such a powerful emotion as hatred (especially one fueled by the murder of loved ones), the story makes the virtue of justice so compelling. As entertaining and stylish as the No Name trilogy is -- and I do like these movies -- it really does not deliver a message like that with similar force.

Regards,
Bill

Monday, May 31, 2004 - 8:58pm

Ethan in "the Searchers" is indeed a complex character
But many of the characters are colorful and many one liners in this movie.

"Capt. Rev. Samuel Clayton: "Well, the prodigal brother. When d�you get back? I ain�t seen you since the surrender. Come to think of it, I didn�t see you at the surrender.

Ethan Edwards: "Don�t believe in surrender. I still got my saber, Reverend. Didn�t turn it into no plowshare, neither."

also

"That'll be the day" later a song by Buddy Holly

There is a reverend who is also a Texas Ranger, a "half-breed" who joins Wayne to find his sisters (by adoption).

The immigrant Jorgensens - Mrs Jorgensen:

Now Lars!... It so happens we be
                         Texicans... We took a reachin' hold,
                         way far out, past where any man has
                         right or reason to hold on... Or if
                         we didn't, our folks did... So we
                         can't leave off without makin' them
                         out to be fools, wastin' their lives
                         'n wasted in the way they died... A
                         Texican's nothin' but a human man
                         out on a limb... This year an' next
                         and maybe for a hundred more. But I
                         don't think it'll be forever. Someday
                         this country will be a fine good
                         place to be... Maybe it needs our
                         bones in the ground before that time
                         can come...

There is a commitment to values displayed in this movie that I find very heroic although as you say - Ethan is driven by hatred and vengeance but is transformed from an anti-hero to a real hero in the end.

There is NO self doubt in the righteousness of his and Marty's endeavour (motives we are not sure).

The music is great too - but then I'm old fashioned.

Love this movie. Wayne's best.

Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - 7:58am

Bill,

Ok I see what you're getting at regarding the Man With no Name, though I don't entirely agree - at the start of GBU he is basically a criminal (turning Tuco in, collecting the bounty then helping Tuco escape and splitting the reward, then repeating the scam in a series of towns).

The Searchers is one movie I will probably dig up and re-watch now that I'm home for summer.

MH

Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - 9:24am

Hi, Albert.

You remarked about "The Searchers": >>But many of the characters are colorful and many one liners in this movie.<<

Indeed, it is rich in those. I'm especially fond the Texican speech by Lars's wife, although I've always wondered what an Objectivist should make of it. After all, it's a paean to sacrifice for the future. It is one thing to work hard now to produce a reward for yourself down the road. But how does an Objectivist square the sacrifices of a hard life for future benefits you will never see?

Regards,
Bill

Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - 9:31am

Hi, Matthew.

You noted: >>Ok I see what you're getting at regarding the Man With no Name, though I don't entirely agree - at the start of GBU he is basically a criminal (turning Tuco in, collecting the bounty then helping Tuco escape and splitting the reward, then repeating the scam in a series of towns).<<

Yes, you're right. Because, as you say, "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" was a prequel, I wonder if Leone was using that opportunity to give the No Name character some heft. I think the turning point in that film for the Man With No Name was when Tuco's brother, the priest, dresses him down and then Tuco rebukes his brother in kind. An important scene.

However, the best scene in the movie has got to be the three-way shoot-out in the cemetery. There's a good one for game theory to work out.

Regards,
Bill

Thursday, June 3, 2004 - 10:09am

Bill,

I agree the scene with Tuco's brother is the start of the character's transformation, exacerbated I would say by becoming caught up in the war and what he witnesses there.

If anyone is interested, I have posted a review of Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West, which he made after the Man With No name trilogy, here.

MH

Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - 9:42am

mmmm... it brings out the "conservative" in me I guess.
Creating a good place to live and for your children to live in would be a most worthy lifetime goal.
Even when the benefits may be not in the here and now but in the future I believe there is a spiritual payoff.
Perhaps leaving a part of one's ideas or spirit to be carried by future generations can be part of our rational self interest - even if we don't have kids.

Monday, July 10, 2006 - 9:59am

One of the great scenes is in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. All three are just standing in a triangle, staring each other down. You have the music and the faces. No words are spoken. It's great movie-making.