DOLLARS TRILOGY

   This is a collective term for Sergio Leone’s three spaghetti Westerns starring Clint Eastwood: Per un pugno di dollari (1964) ; Per qualche dollaro in piu (1965) ; and Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966), all released in the United States in 1967 as A Fistful of Dollars; For a Few Dollars More; and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. While the three films are usually associated as a trilogy because of their cinematic, thematic, and musical style and because they all star Clint Eastwood, they are actually unrelated to each other by plot. None is a sequel to the other. In each film, Eastwood played a character who has been dubbed “the Man with No Name” by fans and critics, but he is actually named in each film — Joe (A Fistful of Dollars), Monco (For a Few Dollars More), and Blondie (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly). Technically, Eastwood played a different character in each film, but he dressed with similar style and was consistently a man of few words from nowhere. All three films emphasize the antihero nature of the Man with No Name, and all three are characterized by Ennio Morricone’s hauntingly original music.