Man with No Name

The man with no name (Italian: Uomo senza nome) is the protagonist portrayed by Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy" of Spaghetti Western films: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966).

In 2008, Empire chose "The Man With No Name" as the 33rd greatest movie character of all time.

Concept and creation

A Fistful of Dollars was directly adapted from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961). It was the subject of a successful lawsuit by Yojimbo's producers. The film's protagonist, an unconventional ronin (a Samurai with no master) 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 extraordinary proficiency with a particular weapon (in Mifune's case, a katana; for Eastwood, a revolver).

Like Eastwood's western setting character, Mifune plays a ronin with no name. When pressed, he gives the pseudonym Sanjuro Kuwabatake (meaning "Thirty-year-old Mulberry-field"), a reference to his age and something he sees through a window (although regarding the age he jokes 'Closer to forty actually'). The convention of hiding the character's arms from view 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 did not 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.