"A Fistful of Dollars": The First 15 Minutes Quiz

Answer: Climb into another building beneath a barred window

Before the story of the film begins, the boy was separated from his mother. He is now attempting to sneak into the building where she is being held captive, so that he can see her. The boy lives with his father who, like the boy, is not allowed to see the boy's mother, his wife, either.

The main antagonist of the film, Ramon Rojo, is keeping her from her family because he feels the boy's father cheated him in a game of cards. "A Fistful of Dollars" is the first of the trilogy of spaghetti westerns starring Clint Eastwood; the two other films are "For a Few Dollars More" and "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". "A Fistful of Dollars" was originally released in Italy in 1964 and then in the United States in 1967. "The Man with No Name" is played by Clint Eastwood, of course. Eastwood's character is referred to as "Joe" by a couple of other characters who befriend him, but as he never tells them this is his name, they call him this presumably because they don't know what else to call him, except some generic, Americanized name.

Answer: They notice "the man with no name" at the well staring at them.

The banditos have chased the boy from the building he entered and back into the road, where they terrify the boy and attack his father. After the banditos notice Eastwood's character staring at them, they immediately halt their assualt on the boy's father. "The man with no name" turns to look at the barred window through which the boy climbed, and there he sees the distraught face of a young woman, the wife of the assaulted man and the mother of the boy.

The woman's name is Marisol, and she is played by Marrianne Koch, a German actress who also starred opposite Gregory Peck in 1954's "Night People".

Answer: Adios Amigo

"Adios Amigo", when translated to English, means "Good-bye, friend". "Adios" was originally derived from the Latin for "to God", an appropriate message to post as a tag on a dead man's back, if you think about it. "A Fistful of Dollars" was directed by an Italian (Sergio Leone), filmed in Spain, and performed by actors who spoke different languages from one another--Italian, Spanish, English, and German. Obviously, communication was a problem, especially when one considers that Leone could not speak English and his star, Eastwood, could not speak Italian. Eastwood depended on stuntman Benito Stefanelli as a translator. Certainly, this language situation accounts for why there are several scenes in which Eastwood doesn't speak for long periods of time. Furthermore, the entire movie was filmed in silence and the dialogue and sound were added later during editing.

Answer: Juan de Dios

Of course, the prophetic church bell ringer is named Juan de Dios. His name literally means "John of God" in English; such an appellation is appropriate since he rings a church bell and behaves more or less as a prophet. John the Baptist from the gospels was believed to be somewhat crazy himself; he lived in the wilderness, dressed in hairy animal skin, and ate locusts. One may find it interesting to know that Eastwood was not Leone's original choice for the lead role, Henry Fonda was. However, Leone's production company could not afford him.

Then, he sought Charles Bronson, but Bronson turned down the role claiming the script was no good. Both of these guys would star in Leone's later production "Once upon a Time in the West". Then Leone went through several other actors, including James Coburn and Richard Harrison, before settling with Eastwood, whom Harrison had recommended to Leone.

Answer: Several of them shoot at the feet of the stranger's mule causing the mule to leap into a chaotic run.

Eastwood himself contributed to his character's highly stylized wardrobe. He bought the hat, the jeans, and the black cigars himself from various stores in California. The spurs, the gun belt, and the Colt revolver he brought with him from the set of "Rawhide", the American television western program in which he played a prominent role as Rowdy Yates. Carlo Simi, the costume designer for the film, and Leone decided to have Eastwood also don the poncho after coming across the garb in Spain. Interestingly, Eastwood doesn't smoke and never has; however, he decided to add the cigars because they helped him feel more "in character".

Answer: The stranger hears the hammering of the coffin maker outside the window of the inn.

The stranger opens some shutters to look outside and sees a carpenter putting together a coffin. Piripero, the coffin maker, seems to have all the business he could ever want in this town, where there have been "too many killings", even if no one else has any steady work. Silvanito, the inn keeper, is played by Jose Calvo, who was a Spanish actor who appeared in many westerns and later in several Spanish films, including some slap stick comedies, until he died in 1980. Piripero, the coffin maker, was played by Joseph Egger, an Austrian character actor who also appeared as a loony prophet who hates trains in Leone's "For a Few Dollars More".

He died in 1966, a year after the release of "For a Few Dollars More". He was known as mostly a vaudeville-style act who could amuse people with odd things he could do with his beard.

Answer: "Me right in the middle".

The stranger has decided deliberately to place himself in the middle of the two families and their gangs, for that is the most advantageous position he can place himself in if he wants to get rich by pretending to be loyal to each family. Obviously, Eastwood is not playing a traditional heroic character. Rather than rid the town of its evil, "the man with no name" decides to exploit it.

He plans to manipulate the two warring families so that he can selfishly earn or "steal" money from them both.

In the 2009 book "Aim for the Heart" by Howard Hughes, Eastwood is quoted as saying the following: "In 'Rawhide' I did get tired of playing the conventional white hat. The hero who kisses old ladies and dogs and was kind to everybody. I decided it was time to be an anti-hero".

Answer: He wants the men to apologize to the mule.

The stranger continues to speak, "Now, if you all would apologize...". Then the men laugh uproariously until the stranger flips over a fold of his poncho to reveal his pistol and they are quickly silent. The stranger speaks again, "I don't think it's nice you laughin'. See, my mule don't like people laughin'. Gets the crazy idea you're laugin' at him. Now, if you apologize, like I know you're goin' to, I might convince him that you didn't mean it". Of course, they don't apologize but attempt to draw their pistols.

The stranger mows them down in a matter of seconds. Before they draw on the stranger, however, Leone makes use of his trademark style of cinematography--close ups that shift from one face to another with a few close ups of hands mixed in while dramatic music is playing. Leone wanted his westerns to play out like operas, and he felt that these face scenes were like the arias; he wanted to use characters' silent faces as landscapes and dialogue to tell a story through pictures instead of words. Ennio Marricone composed the music for the film, and Don Miguel Rojo was played by Antonio Prieto.

Answer: the town sheriff

He is the town's sheriff and shows the stranger his badge, and the viewing audience learns here that he is obviously a corrupt one or perhaps a sheriff in name only. The audience knows now for certain that this town has no real law being maintained here, for the sheriff is also John Baxter the patriarch of the Baxter family and gang.

He is played by the German actor Wolfgang Lukschy, who also played in the 1962 film "The Longest Day". Upon learning that this man is the sheriff, the stranger says, "Well, if you're the sheriff, you better get these men in the ground".

Answer: "My mistake--four coffins".

Such a response by the stranger helps Leone demonstrate to the audience that the stranger is not bothered by killing, for he makes light of his actions with a joke. Akira Kurosawa, the Japanese film maker, sued Sergio Leone over Leone's production of "A Fistful of Dollars", for much of the film was a rip off of Kurosawa's 1961 samurai film "Yojimbo". Leone settled out of court but defended himself by saying that before "Yojimbo" there had been the 18th-century play by the Italian writer Carlo Goldoni called "Servant of Two Masters". Leone believed he was bringing the story back home to its roots.

He also admitted that he was heavily influenced by the American Dashiell Hammett's "Red Harvest".