"A Fistful of Dollars" Leone and Eastwood. A masterpiece of macaroni western created by the collision of different talents.

The price of the unofficial remake of Yojimbo was expensive

Carla, Sergio Leone's wife, recalls the time as follows:

"I went to see Yojimbo with him [Sergio Leone] and he immediately wanted to turn it into a Western. He really liked Yojimbo... he was excited. He says, ``You know what? The story of Yojimbo is based on an American novel. It would be great if we could bring that story back to America.'' (quoted from an interview with Carla Leone*)

What Leone refers to as ``originally an American novel'' is Dashiell Hammett's `` Blood Harvest .'' This is a hard-boiled novel in which detective Continental Op uses his wits to wipe out the mafia infesting the mining town of Personville. Akira Kurosawa was inspired by this work to create a thrilling historical drama. A Japanese film director turned an American novel into a historical drama, and an Italian film director remade it as a Western drama. It's confusing.

“A Fistful of Dollars” (c)Photofest / Getty Images

Leone thoroughly researched ``Yojimbo,'' and created the scenario structure and action direction in-house. But ``A Fistful of Dollars'' was far too faithful to the original to be an unofficial ``Yojimbo'' remake. Akira Kurosawa and co-screenwriter Ryuzo Kikushima were sued for copyright infringement, and Kurosawa had to pay 15% of the world box office profits for Nandakanda. I expected Leone to be angry at this, but he left a surprisingly quick comment.

"My producer wasn't very good. He would have been happy with a pittance, but he completely forgot to pay Kurosawa the rights and had to pay millions in penalties to make him rich. But that's the way the world is.'' (Quoted from an interview with Sergio Leone )

*" Sergio Leone - The Italian bad boy who shot the myth of Western movies " (translated by Daisuke Onizuka, Film Art Co., Ltd.)

The first leading role that came to Eastwood after many rounds.