Where to watch A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

Trivia & production notes

• The film was originally titled Il Magnifico Straniero (The Magnificent Stranger) before being renamed A Fistful of Dollars.
• Sergio Leone offered the lead role to Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson before either actor declined, with Bronson calling the script bad.
• Multiple established actors including Henry Silva, Rory Calhoun, Steve Reeves, Ty Hardin, and James Coburn turned down the role of the Man with No Name.
• Richard Harrison, an American actor Leone approached for the lead, suggested Clint Eastwood for the part after initially refusing the role himself.
• Clint Eastwood had watched Yojimbo years earlier at a Los Angeles theater and thought it would make a great Western, then recognized the A Fistful of Dollars script as an obvious adaptation of the same film.
• Leone did not speak English, so Clint Eastwood communicated with the Italian cast and crew through actor and stuntman Benito Stefanelli, who served as an uncredited interpreter.
• All footage was shot silent with dialogue and sound effects dubbed in post-production, and in the Italian version Eastwood's voice was dubbed by actor Enrico Maria Salerno with a sinister tone that contrasted with Eastwood's own darker humor.
• Ennio Morricone composed the score under the initial pseudonym Dan Savio and drew inspiration from a Peter Tevis recording of Woody Guthrie's Pastures of Plenty for the opening title theme.
• The film was released in Italy in September 1964, typically the worst month for box office sales, yet it grossed 2.7 billion lire and became the highest-grossing Italian film to that point despite initial negative critical reviews.
• The American theatrical release was delayed until January 1967 because distributors feared being sued by Kurosawa over the film's adaptation of Yojimbo.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article A Fistful of Dollars, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.