Fistful...the middle of the trilogy?

well it depends if you think they are intended as a connected trilogy, while Fistful and TGTB&TU might be connected, it seems pretty clear to me that as well as Volonte and Van Cleef playing different characters to the other 2 films they are in, Eastwood as well seems to be playing a different character in For a Few Dollars to the other 2 films as well, after all its not until the US release later on that the whole Man with No Name connecting angle was introduced.

Sounds good to me.

"It's getting pretty late, doctor"
"Later than you think."

I have always felt the 'Dollars Trilogy' is not a trilogy at all. There is no continuity between the three films, aside from the same lead actor playing (probably) the same lead character.

I think 'trilogy', and I think three parts of what is esentially one story.

Having said that, you may be right about the intended order of them. I've always thought of them taking place in the order you describe.




Never defend crap with "It's just a movie"
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I'm pretty sure AFOD and FAFDM are connected as in the second one we see the newspaper article referring to the events of the first film

I actually read an essay a while back where the author proposed that the trilogy's continuity ran in reverse order. The author noted that the Man with No Name develops significantly over the course of the movies in reverse order. He starts out as a total scumbag in "tgb&u", teams up with Mortimer in "fafdm" and finally frees the family in "afod". Makes sense to me.

THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY:(third movie in the series and third produced, 1966) This is obviously during the American Civil War (Sibley's New Mexico Campaign Colt Navy & Remington New Army revolvers 1862-1863).

FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE: (Second movie produced in the series and second produced 1965).The thickness of the Newspaper Archive binder that Mortimer looks through in El Paso gives you a clue. It looks like the Marton Brothers were killed in Red Hill Montana, and it was back in 1872. If he finds Monco at the center of that binder that means the last page of the archive would bring us to the present day. At four to six pages per issue, that's a lot of papers, and assuming that in a place like El Paso they didn't publish every day, that binder can represent years. We know that on May 19, 1881: Southern Pacific tracks reach El Paso, Texas, and that "The Rock Island continued its trek westward and soon added "Pacific" to the end of its name as a final destination goal. A line to Colorado Springs was completed in 1888 and trackage rights to Denver was acquired in 1889. A line southwest across Kansas stretched to Tucumcari by the mid-1890s and a connection was completed with the Southern Pacific, thus completing the Pacific goal" in 1901. If we go by these clues, the archive binder and the historical record for the railroads (the key is railroads in both Tucumcari & El Paso) For a Few Dollars More could take place as late as the turn of the century, which would put it closer in time to A Fistful of Dollars.

A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS:(First movie in the series and first produced, 1964). This takes place around the turn of the century (late 1890s fully automatic machine guns, and the Mexican soldiers are in khaki uniforms while the American soldiers are still in kersey blue. The year 1898 was when the US switched to khaki).

It's a good theory. I think the three films aren't related, though. I'm almost certain Clint's playing three separate characters. Even though they dress the same, they're a little too different, behavior-wise... especially "Manco," since he does everything with his left hand and uses his right only to draw his gun. That'd be strange for him to develop a weird quirk that disappears in the other films. But, if he were the same character, the only way it'd work is the way you have it -- with For A Few Dollars at the end, and one could say Clint's character sustained some kind of hand-injury that made him start favoring his left.

One thing, though -- the "prologue" to Fistful is something cooked up by the TV network to try to add some sense of "morality" to what was going on, and it was never in the script. Sergio had nothing to do with that prologue. There was a scene that didn't get put in Fistful where Clint's character killed a guy and took his serape at the very beginning, but I'm not sure Leone even filmed it.

The TV prologue should never be considered part of the story, it was forcibly added by the TV censors in order to try and justify what "Joe" is doing. It's an attempt to moralize the film to a typical American standards of the time. Referring to it as canon does a great disservice to the film.