Everything about The Man With No Name totally explained
The
Man with No Name is a
stock character in
western films, but the term usually applies specifically to the character (or possibly characters) played by
American actor Clint Eastwood in what is often called
"The Dollars Trilogy" directed by
Sergio Leone.
Characteristics
The "Man with No Name", as personified by Eastwood, embodies the
archetypical characteristics of the American movie
cowboy — toughness, exceptional physical strength or size, independence, and skill with a gun — but departed from the original archetype in his moral ambiguity. Unlike the traditional cowboy, exemplified by actors
John Wayne,
Alan Ladd, and
Randolph Scott, the Man with No Name will fight dirty and shoot first, if required by his own self-defined sense of
justice. In the
1966 film The Good, The Bad and The Ugly The Man with No Name is called Blondie by
Tuco. Although he tends to look for ways to benefit himself, he has, in a few cases, aided others if he feels an obligation to, such as freeing a couple held captive in
A Fistful of Dollars and comforting a dying soldier after the bridge explosion in
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
He is generally portrayed as an
outsider, a
mercenary or
bounty hunter, or even an
outlaw. He is characteristically soft-spoken and laconic, speaking only when necessary, with as few words as possible. The character is an often-cited example of an
anti-hero, although he's a soft spot for people in deep trouble.
Image
The character's distinctive appearance consists of a battered brown hat with a telescope crown, black jeans, tan boots, a wool-lined leather vest, and a patterned
sarape or "
poncho." He is usually armed with one
revolver with a metal snake on the grip, which is holstered on a gunbelt. In contrast with other Western heroes of the early- to mid-1960s, The Man is unshaven, almost to the point of sporting a full beard. He habitually smokes a small cigar while working.
Due to low budget considerations, Eastwood made the initial investment for his character's appearance and demeanour. Most of the clothing was purchased second-hand in California (with the exception of the, which was provided by Leone); the gunbelt and holster were from Eastwood's previous TV series
Rawhide. The Man's trademark cigars were also from California; their harshness put Eastwood in what he called a "scratchy mood," which aided in his characterization.
Consistence through the series
In the "Dollars" Trilogy, Eastwood plays a character with the same mannerisms, wearing the same
poncho, lambskin vest and hat, and sporting a silver rattlesnake-shaped plate on the handle of his gun. The question whether the intention was to portray the same individual character in all three films is debatable, but many fans believe that the last film in the trilogy,
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a
prequel of sorts to the earlier two, since it's set during the
American Civil War and before the period thought of as the "Wild West". Furthermore, Eastwood's character gradually acquires the clothing that he wears throughout the other films in the series, getting his hat, vest and other clothing from the assassin "Angel-Eyes" and taking his signature
serape from an anonymous, dying soldier, in exchange for his duster. It can also be noted that the actor portraying the undertaker (
Joseph Egger) from the first film shows up in the second as someone Eastwood's character is familiar with. Whether this points to the old man playing the same person or not is unknown as many of the same actors played roles in the three films of characters who were obviously unrelated (such as Lee Van Cleef, who appeared in both
For a Few Dollars More and
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as different characters). An expanded version of the movie soundtrack from
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly released in 2004 featured a previously unreleased piece titled
Il Bandito Monco, for example the "The Bandit Monco" (Monco is the nickname of Eastwood's character in the preceding movie and means "one handed" in Italian), lending support to the theory that Eastwood is intended to portray the same character in the three movies. Another interesting note is that towards the end of the first film, one of The Man With No Name's hands is badly injured in a torture scene, and is never shown to totally heal: this might be a connection to the second movie, in most of which he uses only one hand, the other one being saved for shooting only. However,
Christopher Frayling has pointed out in his Leone
biography,
Sergio Leone: Something To Do With Death, that the three films were not intended by Leone or his various script collaborators to be seen as a history of the exact same individual and that it was
United Artists, not the filmmakers, who came up with the idea of specifically linking the three films together as a series by referring to the Eastwood character as The Man With No Name in all advertising materials for the movies.
Occasional names
The credits for
A Fistful of Dollars list Eastwood's character as "Joe" and though the
undertaker in the movie calls him by that name, he's the only character to do so (and it's further worth noting that "
Joe" is often used as a generic nickname). Thus, during the entire incident in the beginning of the movie, he uses only his left hand when lighting his cigar, dealing the cards and striking the man he's hunting (keeping the right hand on his gun the whole time). However, he uses both hands equally throughout the rest of the film. Critic
Richard Schickel states in the special edition release of
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly that Eastwood's character did have a name as the character is sometimes referred to as "Blondie", although
Tuco Ramirez is the only one to do so. Given that Eastwood's character never states his own name and shows no evidence of having visited any of the locations in the three films previously, a possible conclusion from viewing the films alone is that all of the above ("Joe", "Monco" and "Blondie") are nicknames given to him by the other characters simply for the sake of having some means of addressing him.
Japanese origin and evolution
A Fistful of Dollars was directly adapted from
Akira Kurosawa's
Yojimbo. It was the subject of a successful lawsuit by
Yojimbo's producers. The film's protagonist, a gruff, unconventional
ronin played by
Toshiro Mifune, bears a striking resemblance to Eastwood's character: both are quiet, gruff, eccentric strangers with a strong but unorthodox sense of justice and superhuman proficiency with a particular weapon (in Mifune's case, a
katana; for Eastwood, a
revolver).
Like Eastwood's character, Mifune's ronin is nameless. When pressed, he gives the
pseudonym Sanjuro Kuwabatake (meaning "thirty-something mulberry field"), a reference to his age and something he sees through a window. The convention of saving an arm to kill is shared as well with Mifune's character typically wearing his arms inside his kimono, leaving the sleeves empty. Prior to signing on to
Fistful, Eastwood had seen Kurosawa's film and was impressed by the character. During filming, he didn't emulate Mifune's performance beyond what was already in the script. He also insisted on removing some of the dialogue in the original script, making the character more silent and thus adding to his mystery. As the trilogy progressed, the character became even more silent and stoic.
Yojimbo is itself, however, believed to have been based on
Dashiell Hammett's novel
Red Harvest. Leone himself clearly believed this theory, stating:
Kurosawa's Yojimbo was inspired by an American novel of the serie-noire so I was really taking the story back home again.
Kurosawa never credited the author, despite acknowledging the source. The name of the lead character in
Red Harvest is also unrevealed, referred to only as
the Continental Op after the detective agency he works for.
A subsequent film
Last Man Standing with
Bruce Willis is a credited remake of
Yojimbo..
Other media
The popularity of the character brought about a series of spin-off books, dubbed the 'Dollar' series due to the common theme in their titles were written by
Joe Millard and
Brian Fox. They included novelizations to
A Fistful of Dollars, written by
Frank Chandler and
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and are as follows:
In July of 2007, American comic book company
Dynamite Entertainment announced that they were going to begin publishing a comic book featuring The Man With No Name. Set after the events of
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the comic will be written by
Christos Gage. The first issue is to be released in the Spring of
2008, entitled,
The Man with No Name: The Good, The Bad, and The Uglier.
The Man with No Name in popular culture
Other films featuring characters very similar to the Man with No Name include Leone's later
Once Upon a Time in the West featuring
Charles Bronson in a role somewhat akin to Eastwood's (known in the movie as "
Harmonica" since he plays one); Eastwood's own films,
High Plains Drifter and
Pale Rider; The
Tonino Valerii film
My Name Is Nobody starring
Terence Hill as Nobody; and the more recent Yojimbo remake
Last Man Standing, starring
Bruce Willis (directed by
Walter Hill).
Tony Anthony played "the Stranger" in a trilogy of
spaghetti westerns produced by
Allen Klein and released by
MGM.
The protagonist of George Miller's "Mad Max" trilogy, played by Mel Gibson, shares many traits with the archetypal Clint Eastwood character. In the third film of the series, "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", the announcer at the Thunderdome introduces the "Max" character to the crowd as "The Man With No Name".
In the movie version of
Paint Your Wagon, although Eastwood's character bears little resemblance to the traditional Man with No Name, he still lacks a name and is referred to simply as "Pardner" throughout the movie. At the end he reveals that his name is Sylvester Newel.
The Man with No Name was the inspiration for
Roland Deschain, the protagonist of
Stephen King's epic, seven-volume
Dark Tower series. Character
Eddie Dean even notes "He's some sort of Clint Eastwood."
The Man With No Name is also the inspiration for the main character in the
computer game Red Dead Revolver.
George Lucas attributes the character of
Boba Fett to The Man with No Name in the
DVD commentary on
The Empire Strikes Back. His armour is reminiscent of Eastwood's poncho used throughout the trilogy. The most obvious similarity between the characters is that they're both
bounty hunters. In true style of "a man with no name", Fett's name isn't mentioned once in
The Empire Strikes Back. When he enters the scene on
Cloud City after
Darth Vader blocks
Han Solo's blaster shots with his hand, the clink of spurs can be heard clearly, even though the character doesn't wear spurs.
In one episode of
The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh,
Tigger featured in a Wild West parody as an outlaw wanted for stealing a train. He called himself "The Tigger with No Name", while his sidekick,
Pooh, called himself "The Pooh with A Name (if only [he] could remember what it was)".
One episode of
Animaniacs featured Chicken Boo disguising himself as "The man with no personality."
One-Eyed Garth in the series of novels, specifically "Arena", bears a strong resemblance to the character, in that he doesn't reveal his name until the end of the book (and then it's someone else who reveals it) and he's a mysterious purpose. Furthermore, the plot of the book loosely follows that of A Fistful of Dollars, with One Eye playing warring organizations against each other and profiting off all of them.
In the cartoon series
Time Squad, an episode featured the team time traveling to cause Billy the Kid to become an outlaw. The team was successful enough that a Man With No Name, bearing a great resemblance to Eastwood, was sent after them. The bounty hunter pursued them throughout the episode, even after they'd returned to the future.
A graphic novel named Dead West features a protagonist who bears a great resemblance to Eastwood, including the serape. The unnamed protagonist, a bounty hunter, chases a bandit to the town of Lazarus, where the dead have risen as Zombies. The bounty hunter eventually burns half the town and kills the leader of the zombies, though his mark manages to escape.
In the Japanese
eroge (adult computer game ) Satsuriko no Jango by NitroPlus, one of the protagonists is a female gunslinger named Donne Anonime, meaning "a woman with no name". The game itself is based on those spaghetti westerns where the man with no name was popularized.
In
Back to the Future Part III, Marty defeats Buford by imitating the final showdown in A Fistful of Dollars (which he'd seen in Biff's penthouse suite in Part II).
The appearance and personality of the main character of
Oddworld Inhabitants' Western video game is very similar to that of the Man with No Name. In addition, his name is never revealed, with characters simply calling him "stranger".
In the
Futurama episode "
Where the Buggalo Roam", Zapp Brannigan says "I am the man with no name... Zapp Brannigan".
The
Marvel Comics character
Wraith is based on the Man with No Name.
in transformers animated, there's an episode called fistful of energon. also, a character named lockdown wears a costume similar to clint eastwood's character in this movie.
Filmography as “The Man with No Name”
A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
For a Few Dollars More (1965)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Filmography as "The Stranger"
High Plains Drifter (1973)
Pale Rider (1985)Further Information
Get more info on 'Man With No Name'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://man_with_no_name.totallyexplained.com">Man with No Name Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
