If you’re a huge fan of Western icon Clint Eastwood, you should probably make sure you have an Amazon Prime membership if you don’t already. The streaming platform is adding a couple of classic Eastwood films to its large movie roster. The movies being added are “A Fistful of Dollars” from 1964 and “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” from 1966.
These are arguably two of Eastwood’s most popular movies from earlier on in his career. These Sergio Leone/Eastwood classics helped shape the Western genre. These are the first and third movies in the “Man With No Name” trilogy or “Dollars Trilogy.” The second movie, “For A Few Dollars More,” is not available on Prime.
This series became known for helping to establish what is known as the Spaghetti Western genre. This is a subgenre of Western films that are produced in Europe. Now, the films are still rated as some of the best Western films in history.
Iconic Western Films
Clint Eastwood stars in all three as the “Man with No Name.” He struts around in his poncho, his brown hat, cowboy boots, and constantly smokes his cigarillos. The trilogy was meant to be just one movie, but its success was what led to more.
Besides Eastwood, Mario Brega, Benito Stefanelli, Lorenzo Robledo, and Aldo Sambrell all appear in each of the movies as well. Composer Ennio Morricone also provided the original music for all three movies too. It’s a good opportunity to see a couple of Eastwood movies in one spot. Recently, Netflix took off “Mystic River” from its collection.
For Eastwood, these movies continue to be a huge part of his career. “I think [the Leone films] changed the style, the approach to Westerns [in Hollywood]. … They made the violence and the shooting aspect a little more larger than life, and they had great music and new types of scores … were stories that hadn’t been used in other Westerns. They just had a look and a style that was a little different at the time: I don’t think any of them was a classic story—like [John Wayne’s 1956] The Searchers or something like that—they were more fragmented, episodic, following the central character through various little episodes,” Eastwood said, according to Far Out Magazine.
Clint Eastwood Got Sick Filming
There was one consistent thing that bothered the Western icon while he was filming the “Dollars Trilogy.”
His character was iconic in that he always swooped in to kill the bad guys and save the day, meanwhile, a cigarillo hanging out of his mouth halfheartedly. According to his biography, “Clint: The Life and Legend,” Eastwood hated smoking the cigars. So much so that they would actually make him sick after a while.
“You better get it this time, because I’m going to throw up,” he would tell his director, Sergio Leone. The tobacco just didn’t sit well with him, especially the huge amount he had to consume.
Luckily, now actors can smoke a fake cigarette instead.
