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Shot in Spain and Italy, “A Fistful of Dollars” tells the story of an anonymous drifter who comes to the wasted town of San Miguel where two ultra-violent gangs — the Baxters and the Rojos fight for control. However, why the two gangs fight for this impoverished dustbowl is anyone’s guess.

All the men folk have died, there are no women in this town - only widows - and the only person who does good business is the undertaker. It is to this place that the magnificent stranger (that was the movie’s original name and it was changed to “A Fistful of Dollars” three days before its 1967 release) comes to stir things up. He sets the two rival gangs against each other and rids the town of all anti-social elements and rides off into the sunset.

The movie, the first of Sergio Leone’s “Dollars” trilogy and is a little rough around the edges for it. The good thing is the stuff that characterised the following two movies — “For a Few Dollars More” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” — from a laconic anti-hero whose sharp shooting is matched by a sharper tongue, the psychotic villain, the wide shots showing expanses of shrub land as well as the tight close ups, the shoot outs and the atonal music has a novel feel to it.

There are urban legends aplenty about the film from the fact that Leone was not impressed with schoolmate Ennio Morricone’s earlier work but became a devout convert after hearing the initial scoring to Clint Eastwood’s fortuitous casting. Eastwood was personally responsible for the look of the man with no name — the jeans came from a sports store in Hollywood while the hat came from Santa Monica and Eastwood, a non-smoker, bought the black cigars from Beverly Hills and cut them into three for the trademark shorter cigars he smokes in the film. While we have the bright sun and brighter lights to thank for the squint, wonder where the poncho — Feroz Khan sported a similar one in another spaghetti western rip off, “Khote Sikke”— came from.

The movie is a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s film “Yojimbo”. What is with Japanese films and westerns? “The Magnificent Seven” was a remake of Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” which caught another young hotshot filmmaker’s eye and was made into “Sholay”. While the plot of “Sholay” owes a lot to “Seven Samurai”, the soul is from the “Dollar” movies.

Amitabh Bachchan’s character has a lot in common with Eastwood’s while the dreaded dacoit chief, Gabbar Singh, will find a soul brother in Ramon Roja played by Gian Maria Volonte whose El Indio in “For a Few Dollars More” seems to share a closer kinship with Gabbar.

Unfortunately for a movie as influential as this one — I would put it right there with “Dr. No” and “The Godfather” — there is a disappointing lack of extra features. But then one can go with Martin Scorsese’s views on the matter, that the film should speak for itself and this film does so eloquently with brilliantly orchestrated shoot outs and persuasive silences.

Incidentally, though Clint Eastwood’s character is referred to in film history as “the man with no name”, in each of the movies he has a name. He is called Joe in this film, Monco in “For A Few Dollars More” and Blondie in “The Good, The Bad, The Ugly”!

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