This Thursday, January 12, 2023, France 3 broadcasts from 9:10 p.m. the western For a fistful of dollars, worn by Clint Eastwood and directed by Sergio Leone. But do you know why the film earned the filmmaker a lawsuit? We will explain everything to you.
Make way for a spaghetti western this Thursday, January 12, 2023 from 9:10 p.m. on France 3, with the broadcast of the classic For a fistful of dollars. Released in 1964, it is the first part of the Dollar Trilogy, with Clint Eastwood in the skin of The Man with No Name (hero in the mythical poncho!), the main character who will allow him to revolutionize the image of the cowboy in Hollywood. And, among the things you may not know about this cult film, there is a dispute that had earned Sergio Leone and the film’s production company a lawsuit…
For a fistful of dollarsadapted from a Japanese film itself adapted from an American novel
It all started in 1929: Dashiell Hammett, American writer, published his thriller The red harvestconsidered by the Time as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the last century. The plot, mixing detective and gang leaders, will inspire the film The Bodyguard by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, released in 1961. Before being taken over by Sergio Leone for For a fistful of dollars three years later. “Can’t say it was a masterpiece. It was a markdown of The Red Harvest by Dashiel Hammett. However, I liked the theme: a man arrives in a town where two rival gangs are at war. He places himself between the two camps to demolish each gang. I thought that it was necessary to replace this story in its country of origin: America. Kurosawa’s film was set in Japan. To make a western of it made it possible to find the direction of the epic“, said the director, father of the spaghetti western. Until then, nothing very extravagant in the world of adaptation…
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A complaint for plagiarism against the production of For a fistful of dollars
After contact between Leone and Kurosawa, the latter accepts the project of his Italian colleague, in exchange for 10,000 dollars in royalties. A request that the production company Unidis Jolly Film is not at all ready to accept for what it imagines to be a small film, without an international future… Which the future will contradict! Akira Kurosawa will file a complaint for plagiarism against the company, which then intended to export the film abroad in the face of its success, thus blocking any distribution of the western elsewhere than in Italy. The case will be settled amicably, and with money, in 1966: the Japanese director will withdraw his complaint in exchange for the exploitation rights of the film in Asia, a Unidis Jolly Film project which had acted as a drop of money. water ! It will thus be necessary to wait until 1966 so that For a fistful of dollars is broadcast in France, and 1967 for the United States.
