Last, but chronologically first, of the Dollars trilogy, with the
eponymous trio – Clint Eastwood, Lee van Cleef and Eli Wallach – on the
trail of buried gold during the US Civil War. A bigger budget is
reflected in the running time and the number of soldiers on show, but
that sense of scale allows Leone to expand the human range of the earlier
films. Eastwood's tight-lipped cynicism evinces a romanticism lost
through pain and war, van Cleef represents the cold evil of expediency,
while Wallach is a humorous but artfully shaded rascal.
