Morricone grew to resent the focus on his collaboration with Leone, despite his contribution to the ‘Dollars trilogy’ affording him creative freedom. Moreover, it helped shape the tone of the sequels, as Leone played the music on set to guide the actors and achieve the rhythms he would refine while editing.
In many ways, his score for For a Few Dollars More is a variation on the first film’s initiatives, as the pounding timpani, growling guitars and shrill whistling all return. But Morricone made the chanting more guttural and exploited the evocative twang of a jaw harp, the mournful wail of a recorder and the plinking honky tonk of a player piano to counterpoint the sly allusions to J.S. Bach. He also used a musical box to conjure nostalgia, and church bells and an organ to hint at the story’s spiritual subtext. Most ingeniously, he gave El Indio (Gian Maria Volonté) a musical pocket watch, the subtle shifts in tune of which convey the character’s changing mindset.
David Parkinson, bfi.org.uk
Most people know that A Fistful of Dollars was based on Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, and that The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is the epic, but this centrepiece of Leone’s ‘Man with No Name’ trilogy was the first spaghetti western to reach for real greatness and become something operatic, psychological and, for a sweet moment in time, sui generis. The chiming pocket watch of Indio (Gian Maria Volonté) – whenever its baleful chiming stops, someone dies – could be the template behind Tarantino’s approach to writing dialogue. His dialogue teases and pokes at the viewer in a taunting dance of death; and when it stops, things happen.
Tim Lucas, Sight & Sound, February 2013
‘Well’, says the hunchbacked baddie with a nervous twitch and pop eyes who bears a striking resemblance to a gargoyle on the parapet of Bamberg Cathedral. ‘Well, if it isn’t the smoker …’ ‘It’s a small world,’ grunts Lee Van Cleef in reply. ‘Yes,’ says the hunchback, ‘And very, very … bad.’ It was at this moment during the screening of the rough cut of Sergio Leone’s For a Few Dollars More (1965) that composer Ennio Morricone – normally a restrained sort of person – surprised everyone by exploding with laughter at Klaus Kinski’s performance: over the top, mannered, bizarre, and yet one of the most memorable things about the film.
Sight and Sound, February 1992
A contemporary review
In the old days badmen died decently. But in Sergio Leone’s derivative imitation of the American Western the badmen are tortured beforehand and death comes in a leering close-up of a red hole in the head. This is the second in this particular series, and it is possibly even more ostentatiously sadistic than its predecessor, A Fistful of Dollars. Clint Eastwood as the laconic stranger, he of the chewed cheroot, well-worn poncho and growth of beard, is here joined by Lee Van Cleef, whose distinguishing characteristics are his ironic smile and his pipe. This, though, is just about the only innovation. As killers, these two are almost supercilious in their professionalism, summed up in the final shot of a wagon-load of victims (who include, incidentally, a pathological murderer and a hunchback). There is no denying that the whole thing is efficiently done; an occasional scene (like the one in which the bounty hunters shoot up each other’s hats) reveals a grain of originality; and Lee Van Cleef’s intelligent performance provides some antidote to the poisonous effect of the bloodletting. The ear-splitting soundtrack seems, in the context, quite appropriate; but the film’s total effect is to leave a sour taste in the mouth.
Monthly Film Bulletin, November 1967
FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (PER QUALCHE DOLLARO IN PIÙ)
Director: Sergio Leone
Production Companies: P.E.A. – Produzioni Europee Associate, Arturo González P.C., Constantin Film
Producer: Alberto Grimaldi
Production Manager: Ottavio Oppo
Production Supervisors: Norberto Soliño, Manuel Castedo
Production Secretary: Antonio Palombi
Assistant Director: Tonino Valerii
Continuity: Maria Luisa Rosen
Screenplay: Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Leone
Scenario/Story: Sergio Leone, Fulvio Morsella
Director of Photography: Massimo Dallamano
Cameramen: Eduardo Noé, Aldo Ricci
2nd Unit Camera Operator: Julio Ortas
Camera Assistant: Mario Lommi
Special Effects: Giovanni Corridori
Chief Editor: Adriana Novelli
Editors: Eugenio Alabiso, Giorgio Serralonga
Sets/Costumes: Carlo Simi
Assistant Art Directors: Carlo Leva, Raphael Ferri Jorda
Head Make-up Artists: Rino Carboni, Juan Farsac
Make-up Assistant: Amedeo Alessi
Music by: Ennio Morricone
Music Conducted by: Bruno Nicolai
Sound: Oscar De Arcangelis, Guido Ortenzi
Sound Recorded at: R.C.A.
Synchronisation: International Recording Studios (Rome)
Music Publisher: Eureka
Interiors Filmed at: Cinecittà
uncredited
Executive Producer: Alfredo Fraile
Assistant Producers: José Sánchez, Antonio Palombi
Production Supervisor: Fernando Rossi
Assistant Director: Julio Sempere
Assistant to the Director: Fernando Di Leo
Continuity: Mariano Canales
Screenplay: Sergio Donati
Dialogue: Luciano Vincenzoni
Camera Assistant: Isidoro Muro
Special Effects: Baquero, Sagguci
Set Furnishings: Menjibar, Luna, Mateos
Set Construction: Cabero, Montoro
Shoes: Borja
Costumes Supplier: Cornejo
Make-up Assistant: Isabel Mellado
Laboratory: Fotofilm Madrid
Guitar/Whistling: Alessandro Alessandroni
Choir: Cantori Moderni di Alessandro Alessandroni
Sound Mixer: Renato Cadueri
Synchronisation: Fono España
Cast
Clint Eastwood (Monco)
Lee Van Cleef (Colonel Douglas Mortimer)
Gian Maria Volonté (El Indio)
Mara Krup (Mary, hotel manager’s wife)
Luigi Pistilli (Groggy, 3rd man, Indio’s gang)
Klaus Kinski (Wild, hunchback)
Josef Egger (‘The Prophet’, old man over railway)
Panos Papadopoulos (Sancho Perez)
Benito Stefanelli (Luke, 4th man, Indio’s gang)
Roberto Camardiel (Tucumcari station clerk)
Aldo Sambrell (Cuccillio, 2nd man in Indio’s gang)
Luis Rodríguez (gang member)
Tomás Blanco (Santa Cruz telegrapher)
Lorenzo Robledo (Tomaso)
Sergio Mendizábal (Tucumcari bank manager)
Dante Maggio (El Indio’s cellmate)
Diana Rabito (woman in bathtub)
Giovanni Tarallo (El Paso bank guard)
Mario Meniconi (El Paso bartender)
Mario Brega (Nino, 1st man, Indio’s gang)
uncredited
A. Molino Rojo (Indio henchman)
Eduardo Garcia
Hans Abrolat (Slim)
Enrique Santiago
Antoñito Ruiz (Fernando, the boy)
José Marco (‘Baby’ Red Cavanaugh)
José Montoya
Guillermo Méndez (White Rocks sheriff)
Francisco Braña (Blackie)
José Canalejas (Chico)
Jesús Guzmán (carpetbagger on train)
Kurt Zipps (Mary’s husband, hotel manager)
José Terrón (Guy Calloway)
Román Ariznavarreta (shaved bounty hunter)
Enrique Navarro (Tucumcari sheriff)
Rafael López (El Paso tavern owner)
Rosemary Dexter (Mortimer’s sister)
Peter Lee Lawrence (Mortimer’s brother-in-law)
Diana Faenza (Tomaso’s wife)
Carlo Simi (El Paso bank manager)
Francesca Leone (crying baby)
Ricardo Palacios (Tucumcari bartender)
Nazzareno Natale (Paco, member of Indio’s gang)
Aldo Ricci
Italy/Spain/West Germany 1965
126 mins
MORRICONE
The Battle of Algiers (La battaglia di Algeri)
Sun 1 Aug 15:10; Wed 25 Aug 14:30
The Sounds of Ennio Morricone
Mon 2 Aug 18:10
A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari)
Mon 2 Aug 20:45; Sat 7 Aug 11:30; Tue 10 Aug 20:50; Mon 30 12:20
Two Mules for Sister Sara
Wed 4 Aug 18:00; Sat 21 Aug 20:30
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Salò o Le 120 giornate di Sodoma)
Thu 5 Aug 20:45; Tue 10 Aug 17:45; Wed 25 Aug 17:50
The Untouchables
Fri 6 Aug 17:45; Tue 24 Aug 14:30
The Thing
Fri 6 Aug 20:50; Tue 24 Aug 20:50
For a Few Dollars More (Per qualche dollaro in più)
Sat 7 Aug 14:00; Sun 22 Aug 12:10; Mon 30 Aug 15:00
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo)
Sat 7 Aug 17:10; Sun 29 Aug 18:20; Mon 30 Aug 18:15
White Dog
Sat 7 Aug 20:50; Fri 20 Aug 18:10; Fri 27 Aug 20:45
Once upon a Time in the West (C’era una volta il west)
Sun 8 Aug 12:00; Fri 27 Aug 14:00; Tue 31 Aug 14:00
The Mission
Sun 8 Aug 15:10; Thu 12 Aug 20:30; Thu 26 Aug 18:00
Days of Heaven
Mon 9 Aug 21:00; Tue 31 Aug 17:50
Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down (Atame!)
Wed 11 Aug 20:50; Thu 19 Aug 14:15; Mon 23 Aug 21:00; Tue 31 Aug 20:45
The Hateful Eight
Sun 15 Aug 15:00; Sun 22 Aug 18:00
Once upon a Time in America
Tue 17 Aug 17:40; Sat 28 Aug 11:20
The Legend of 1900 (La leggenda del pianista sull’oceano)
Sat 21 Aug 11:50; Sun 29 Aug 15:10
Cinema Paradiso (Nuovo Cinema Paradiso)
Sat 21 Aug 14:30; Thu 26 Aug 14:30
Promotional partner
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Programme notes and credits compiled by the BFI Documentation Unit
Notes may be edited or abridged
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