Movie: Fist Full of Dollars

Cincinnati Babyhead didn’t have a lot of movie going history under his belt when he sat in a movie theater and watched a Fist Full of Dollars.

He was just a kid going to the movies with his old man. He was engaged right from the opening credits and the music that he heard.

It opens with a guy riding into a desolate town in sparse, hard country. Thing is he’s not riding a horse. he’s riding a mule. Pretty hard to be cool on a mule. This guy pulls it off.

Right off the bat a group of badasses spook his mule with some gunfire sending the mule kicking and bucking out of control with the stranger still on him. The stranger bails off in front of a cantina. He goes inside and gets the scoop on what’s going on in this shit hole of a town from the cantina guy. The stranger figures “there’s money to be made in a town like this”

He makes his way back to the assholes who spooked his mule. Passing the undertaker he tells him to”get 3 coffins ready”. OK even CB can figure that one out.. He continues on until he comes to the bad guys who are still chuckling about the spooked mule. They ask the stranger what the hell he wants and why is he still in town. The stranger tells them that the mules needs an apology. They all laugh some more. The stranger throws back his poncho revealing his gun.  Bad guys stop laughing, go for their guns and end up dead. Real fast and violent.

That’s how you deal with things in this movie. Babyhead hasn’t moved a muscle. He’s looking up at the screen totally absorbed in what he just watched. He’s not moving out of his seat. He just became a life long Sergio Leone fan and he doesn’t know it. He just wants to see what this guy in the poncho does next. What he does is apologize to the undertaker for getting the kill count wrong. “my mistake, 4 coffins” Yeah he’s cool.

The look, the music, the characters, even the voices that are wonky. There wasn’t anything CB didn’t like. The only thing Cincinnati was disappointed in was when the movie ended. If his old man would have let him he would have sat through it again. ( A habit That CB would acquire as his movie going career continued, sitting through flicks multiple times)

FF$ didn’t have any pretty boys or bs. The bad guy, Ramon was a beauty. One of the best bad guys that Babyhead has seen. Ramon’s gang was no day at the beach either. Scary badass  dudes with a little ugly on the side.

Nothing slick or pretty about this film. Gritty, rough,dusty, dirty and mean. After this flick the bar was set for westerns. CB liked this style and wanted more. He has watched it several times since the initial experience. It still holds up. He digs it. Leone, Eastwood and Moricconi would do it again a couple more times but this was the 1st time and it hooked CB.

If Cincinnati’s take doesn’t grab you, watch the original trailer. It’s worth a watch on it’s own. “He is perhaps the most dangerous man who ever lived.” “The man with no name.”

It was an adult dose for Babyhead but other than coming away wanting to drink whisky and smoke nasty cigars, he was unscathed. So slap on the VHS, Beta,DVD, Blu-ray, make some popcorn, crank up the volume and go hang out in Spain for an hour and 40 minutes.

CB is going to jump on a mule and smoke a nasty little cigar and catch a game.

Stay cool!