Dollars Trilogy

The Dollars Trilogy (Italian: Trilogia del dollaro), also known as the Man with No Name Trilogy (Italian: Trilogia dell'Uomo senza nome), is an Italian film series consisting of three spaghetti Western films directed by Sergio Leone. The films are titled A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Their English versions were distributed by United Artists, while the Italian ones were distributed by Unidis and PEA.

The series has become known for establishing the spaghetti western genre, and inspiring the creation of many more spaghetti western films. The three films are consistently listed among the best-rated western films in history.

The three films came to be considered a trilogy following the exploits of the same so-called "Man with No Name", portrayed by Clint Eastwood. The "Man with No Name" concept was invented by the American distributor United Artists, looking for a strong angle to sell the films as a trilogy. Eastwood's characters in all the films have names: "Joe", "Manco" and "Blondie", respectively.

The first film has the Man with No Name arriving in the Mexico–United States border town of San Miguel, the base of two rival smuggling families, the Rojos and the Baxters. The Man with No Name, referred to by the old undertaker Piripero as "Joe", plays them against each other by collecting prizes for giving information, capturing prisoners and killing men, while also helping a woman, her husband and their son, held captive by the ruthless Ramón Rojo, to escape. He is discovered by the Rojos and tortured, but escapes. The Rojos massacre the unarmed Baxters while searching for him, but helped by Piripero he hides away from the town. The Man with No Name returns as the Rojos are preparing to hang the local innkeeper, Silvanito, who had befriended him. He kills Don Miguel Rojo, uses his last bullet to free Silvanito, and kills Ramón in a gunslinging duel. After the last remaining Rojo brother, Esteban, is killed by Silvanito while trying to shoot from a window, the Man with No Name departs from the now-peaceful town.

The second film introduces the Man with No Name, nicknamed "Manco", as a bounty hunter killing bandits for money, and Colonel Douglas Mortimer, a bounty hunter hunting for the same criminals. Both searching for the psychopathic Mexican bandit known as "El Indio" who escaped from jail, they rival each other, but realize that to kill him, they must work together. Manco infiltrates El Indio's gang, while Mortimer acts from the outside. Manco discovers El Indio's elaborate plot to rob the Bank of El Paso, and is forced to take part in it, being careful to avoid wounding innocents. El Indio transfers his gang to Agua Caliente, Mexico, where Manco and Mortimer attempt to steal the money to take it back to the Bank. El Indio discovers their plot but lets them escape as part of an operation to murder all but one of his associates, to split the money in two instead of with the entire gang. Battle ensues between the bounty hunters and the bandits, as the two kill all of them, although the one El Indio meant to spare is killed. Manco discovers that Mortimer's hunt for El Indio is personal and lets him kill the bandit in a duel. Manco keeps all the money and rides away. Manco piles the bandit corpses in a horse-drawn cart and rides away with the stolen bank money to collect his bounty earnings.

In the third film, set during the American Civil War, Mexican bandit Tuco Ramírez and the Man with No Name, whom Tuco calls "Blondie", work together to scam small towns. Blondie collects the bounties on Tuco and then frees him as he is about to be hanged. A mercenary, "Angel Eyes", is searching for a man named "Jackson", who has stolen $200,000 from the Confederate Army. Angel Eyes threatens the family of one of Jackson's former accomplices and learns that Jackson goes under the alias of "Bill Carson", who has murdered both of his original accomplices. The partnership between Blondie and Tuco sours when Tuco complains that being repeatedly placed in a noose with only a single bullet standing between himself and death demands a larger cut than 50/50. Blondie betrays Tuco, but is caught and tortured by Tuco, who tries to put Blondie in a noose, but the raging war encroaches and drives them apart. Tuco catches Blondie and drags him through the desert. Tuco's revenge is interrupted when they stumble upon a Confederate carriage carrying the bullet-riddled and barely-alive Carson. Bleeding and desperate for water, Carson tells Tuco the name of the cemetery in which the gold is hidden, but while Tuco goes to get water, Blondie crawls past and gets the name of the grave in which the treasure is buried just as Carson dies. Tuco realizes that he cannot find the bounty without Blondie, and the two form an alliance. During their journey to the treasure, they are arrested by Union Army soldiers and taken to a prison camp where Angel Eyes is posing as a Sergeant. Angel Eyes tortures Tuco into revealing his half of the secret and recruits Blondie to show him the grave. All three leave the prison. Blondie, Tuco, and Angel Eyes commence a game of betrayal and subterfuge. Tuco and Blondie are blocked by the warring Union and Confederates. Blondie tricks Tuco into revealing the name of the cemetery. The gunslingers arrive at the graveyard where the treasure is hidden, but find themselves in a three-way standoff. Blondie takes up a burnt-ended cigar and a rock and tells the others that he will write the name of the grave marker on the bottom of a stone. He places the stone in the middle of the cemetery and a duel begins. After the duel, Blondie takes his half of the money, then forces Tuco to hang himself in a noose, balancing on an unstable wooden cross on a grave. After riding a fair distance, Blondie frees him by shooting his rope with a rifle. Afterwards Blondie rides further, while Tuco is cursing him.

A Fistful of Dollars is an unofficial remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1961 film Yojimbo starring Toshiro Mifune, which resulted in a successful lawsuit by Toho.

The actors who appear in all three films are Eastwood, Mario Brega, Aldo Sambrell, Benito Stefanelli and Lorenzo Robledo. Four actors appear twice in the trilogy, playing different characters: Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volonté, Luigi Pistilli, and Joseph Egger.