A Fistful Of Dollars

Question: It's commonly known that A Fistful of Dollars is a remake of Yojimbo. But I recall reading somewhere that the inspiration for Yojimbo was the Alan Ladd version of The Glass Key. Is this true?

Answer: I've read that Akira Kurosawa cites the Alan Ladd version of Dashiell Hammett's The Glass Key (1942) as one of his inspirations for Yojimbo (1961). But Yojimbo's plot, which revolves around a masterless samurai (Toshiro Mifune) who blows into a lawless town ruled by warring gangs and r read more

Question: What is a spaghetti Western? And how does it differ from a regular Western?

Answer: The short answer is that spaghetti Westerns are Italian productions set in the American West. The longer answer involves a confluence of historical, economic and cultural forces. The popular reimagining of the American West began as the West was still being won, with pulp novels, Wild West shows and touring theater productions. Movies were the next logical step in the process, and their formative years followed so closely on the heels of the conquest of the frontier that real-life legend Wyatt Earp (1848-1929) lived long enough to act as an advisor on early Westerns. American Westerns ranged from simple adventure fables aimed at children to more psychologically and socioeconomically sophisticated stories. But by the early '60s, after more than 40 years of movies and TV shows, American Westerns were running out of steam. European read more