Screen Rant
By Colin McCormick, Luke Parker
August 30, 2023
Seeing how the Dollars Trilogy is connected brings up a few inconsistencies which makes sense as the three movies were not initially viewed as a trilogy. Most prominently, while United Artists' campaign strategy revolved around branding Clint Eastwood's character as ‘The Man with No Name’, he has a different nickname in each: in “A Fistful of Dollars”, he is referred to as Joe; in “For A Few Dollars More”, he's called Manco; and in “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, his name is Blondie. To be fair, all three of these names, especially the latter, are assigned to the character by other figures in Leone's Wild West.
Another issue is that actors appear in different roles in
the Dollars Trilogy. For instance, Lee Van Cleef, who played Colonel Mortimor
in “For a Few Dollars More”, also played ‘Angel Eyes’ (aka "The Bad")
in “The Good, the Bad and The Ugly”. Though Mortimer survived the events of the
previous production, his devilish character would be nonsensical in the latter,
especially if “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” took place prior to “For a Few
Dollars More”. Also, Italian actor Gian Maria Volontè played the central
antagonist in both “A Fistful of Dollars” and “For a Few Dollars More”.
Ultimately though, since the actors are playing distinct characters in the
different movies, the recasting doesn't undermine the Dollars Trilogy in a major
way.
I'd rather call the "Man With No Name" Blondie because that's the name I can easily remember him by. Interesting fact. Peter Lee Lawrence, AKA Karl Hyrenbach, appeared in an uncredited role as Colonel Mortimer's brother-in-law in "For A Few Dollars More". He would later go on to have a very successful Spaghetti Western career in his own right before dying of brain cancer in 1974 at age 30. RIP Johnny Kidd.
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