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Westerns… In particular… Those of the master… Leone… Broke every rule in the western play book… And in so doing… Far surpassed… Anything that had previously… Qualified… As a western… It wasn’t immediately apparent… That these were renegade films… And it was… By dent… Of their success alone… That they survived… To create… A new sub genre… Of the art form… Fistful of Dollars… A re-working of the Japanese Samurai classic… Yojimbo… Employs the motif of a mercenary… Hiring himself out… To two warring factions… Simultaneously… And ultimately… Destroying both of them.
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Finance for the rebuilding of Germany… After the first world war… Came from America… First the motorways… Then the industry… And finally the arms… All financed by American money… But when it became apparent… That The European Adventure… Was doomed to failure… The Americans entered the war… And brought it to an end… Leaving both Germany… And Britain… And most of the rest of Europe… Decimated… And bankrupt… And in hock to the tune of millions… To America… If finance were a Katana… We might be able to say… That Kirosawa’s film… Was in fact… A western… All along.
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Not content… With exploring… And explaining the dynamics… Of the last world war… In his next film… For a Few Dollars More… Leone… Set about doing the same… For The Cold War… In it… Two bounty hunters… Originally adversaries… Join forces… To score the bounty… On a group of outlaws… One of them infiltrates the bandits… Working from the inside… The other follows at a distance… On the outside… Waiting for an opportunity for them both… To ‘clean up’… In modern parlance… This is the basis of all espionage and… Was an even bigger hit… For Leone… But did anyone notice the expose?
France & Vincent 