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“ | I don't think it's nice, you laughin'. You see, my mule don't like people laughing. He gets the crazy idea you're laughin' at him. Now if you apologize, like I know you're going to, I might convince him that you really didn't mean it. | „ |
~ The Man's most famous quote. |
The Man With No Name is the main protagonist of the Dollars Trilogy, serving as the main protagonist of A Fistful of Dollars, and the deuteragonist of For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
He is an enigmatic bounty hunter and rogue outlaw who goes by multiple names, such as Joe, Manco, and Blondie. He is identifiable and known by his iconic olive green poncho, his stern facial expression, his flashy revolver, his hobby of smoking cigarillos, his true identity being unknown, and the fact that he almost never speaks. He often attempts to gain large amounts of money, but is also principled and honorable, and does the right thing from time to time.
The man was once a ranch hand in Illinois who was mistreated and underpaid by his employer. He was rivalling another ranch hand named Carvell, which escalated to the two having a duel. The man won and identified Carvell as Monk Carver, a notorious outlaw on the run who had racked up a $1,000 bounty. He turned the corpse in and received the reward. After seeing its superiority to his measly ranch wage, the man abandoned his farm duties and became a bounty hunter. (A Coffin Full of Dollars)
Later, after about a year of experience bounty hunting, he partnered with a man called "Foot Sick" Feebly, who had a sexual fetish for women's shoes. The man walked in on Feebly, living up to his nickname, and subsequently abandoned him. (The Devil's Dollar Sign)
In 1862, in the Southwestern United States during the American Civil War, a mercenary known as "Angel Eyes" finds the home of former Confederate soldier Stevens, whom Angel Eyes is contracted to kill. He interrogates Stevens about Jackson, a fugitive who stole a cache of Confederate gold. Learning Jackson's new alias "Bill Carson", Angel Eyes kills Stevens and then his employer Baker so he can find the gold himself.
Meanwhile, a Mexican bandit named Tuco Ramirez is rescued from bounty hunters by a nameless drifter to whom Tuco refers as "Blondie", who delivers him to the local sheriff to collect his $2,000 bounty. As Tuco is about to be hanged, Blondie severs Tuco's noose by shooting it, setting him free. The two escape on horseback and split the bounty. They repeat the process in other towns until Blondie grows weary of Tuco's complaints and strands him in the desert.
Bent on revenge, and after a failed attempt with friends of his, Tuco catches up with Blondie and force-marches him tens of miles across the desert. When Blondie collapses from dehydration, a runaway horse-drawn hospital ambulance arrives with several dead Confederate soldiers and a near-death Bill Carson, who promises Tuco $200,000 in Confederate gold, buried in a grave in Sad Hill Cemetery, in exchange for help. When Tuco returns with water, he sees Carson talking to Blondie, slumped next to him.
When Tuco gets to them, Carson has died. Blondie reveals that Carson recovered and told him the name on the grave before dying. Tuco poses as a Confederate soldier and takes Blondie to a nearby frontier mission to be nursed back to health. After a few days at the mission, Tuco reunites with his brother, Pablo, who left his family when Tuco was young to become a priest. Their meeting does not go well; they become hostile and engage in a physical confrontation. Tuco and Blondie subsequently leave the monastery.
The duo decide to search for the gold together, but they are apprehended by Union forces shortly after leaving the mission - Tuco yells out Confederate-supportive statements at a group of Union soldiers, as they are covered in dust, obscuring the blue color of their uniforms. The two are brought to a prison camp, which Angel Eyes has infiltrated as a Union sergeant in his search for Bill Carson, getting his attention when Tuco poses as Bill Carson.
Angel Eyes has the large Corporal Wallace beat Tuco until he reveals the name of the cemetery, and is sent away on a train - handcuffed to Wallace - to be killed. Knowing that Blondie would not reveal the location after being tortured, Angel Eyes recruits him into his search. Tuco escapes his fate by pushing Wallace off the train and repeatedly smashing his head on a rock. Tuco soon finds himself in an evacuated town, where Blondie, Angel Eyes, and his gang have also arrived.
Blondie finds Tuco, and the pair team up and kill Angel Eyes' men, though Angel Eyes escapes. They travel to Sad Hill before ending up on the Union side of a military siege over a strategic bridge. Blondie decides to destroy the bridge to disperse the two armies to allow access to the cemetery. As they wire the bridge with explosives, Tuco suggests they share information. Tuco reveals the name of the cemetery, while Blondie says that "Arch Stanton" is the name on the grave. After the bridge is destroyed, the armies disperse.
Tuco steals a horse and rides to Sad Hill to claim the gold for himself. Tuco finds Arch Stanton's grave and begins digging, where Blondie encourages him at gunpoint to continue. Angel Eyes arrives and holds Blondie at gunpoint. Blondie states that he lied about the name on Stanton's grave and writes the real name of the grave on a rock, before challenging Tuco and Angel Eyes to a three-way duel.
The trio stare each other down, and everyone eventually draws; Blondie kills Angel Eyes, while Tuco discovers that his own gun was unloaded by Blondie the night before. Blondie reveals that the gold is actually in the grave beside Arch Stanton's, marked "Unknown". Tuco is elated to find eight bags of gold, but Blondie holds him at gunpoint and orders him into the noose he'd made beneath a nearby tree as Tuco dug up the gold.
Blondie binds Tuco's hands and forces him to stand balanced precariously atop an unsteady grave marker while he takes his half of the gold and rides away. As Tuco screams for mercy, Blondie returns into sight. He severs the rope with a rifle shot, leaving Tuco alive to furiously curse him while he disappears over the horizon.
Blondie arrives at the small town of San Miguel, on the border. Silvanito, the town's innkeeper, tells Blondie about a feud between two smuggler families vying for control of the town: the Rojo brothers (Don Miguel, Esteban, and Ramón), and the Baxters (Sheriff John Baxter, his matriarchal wife Consuelo, and their son Antonio). In order to make money, Blondie decides to play these families against each other. He demonstrates his speed and accuracy with his gun, to both sides, by shooting with ease the four men who insulted him and his mule as he entered town.
Blondie seizes an opportunity when he sees the Rojos massacre a detachment of Mexican soldiers who were escorting a chest of gold (which they had planned to exchange for a shipment of new rifles). He takes two of the dead bodies to a nearby cemetery and sells information to each of two groups, saying that two Mexican soldiers survived the attack. Each faction races to the cemetery, the Baxters to get the supposed survivors to testify against the Rojos and the Rojos to silence them. They then engage in a gunfight, with Ramón appearing to kill the supposed survivors and Esteban capturing Antonio Baxter.
Blondie approaches Marisol, a woman whose family has been caught in the crossfire between the feuding families, to go with Ramón, and for her husband Julio to take their young son Jesús home. He learns from Silvanito that Ramón framed Julio as a cheat during a card game and took Marisol prisoner, forcing her to live with him. That night, while the Rojos are celebrating, Blondie rides out and frees Marisol, shooting the guards and wrecking the house in which she is being held to create the appearance of an attack by the Baxters. He gives money to Marisol, urging her and her family to leave the town.
When the Rojos learn that Blondie has freed Marisol, they capture and torture him. Nevertheless, he escapes them. Believing that Blondie is being protected by the Baxters, the Rojos set fire to the Baxter home, killing them all as they flee the burning building. After pretending that he will spare their lives, Ramón kills the pleading John and Antonio Baxter. Consuelo, appearing and finding her family dead, curses the Rojos for killing unarmed men, before being shot dead by Esteban.
With help from local coffin-maker Piripero, Blondie escapes town by hiding in a coffin. He convalesces inside a nearby mine, but Piripero tells him that Silvanito has been captured and is being tortured by the Rojos for information on Blondie's whereabouts, so he returns to town to confront them. Piripero manage to steal Blondie's gun and dynamite by dunking many of the Rojos. Using the stolen dynamite, Joe uses the dynamite to kill many of the Rojos before confronting the remaining members Ramon, Miguel, Esteban, Rubio, and the two other minions. With a steel chest-plate hidden under his poncho, Blondie taunts Ramón to "aim for the heart" as Ramón repeatedly shoots Blondie in the chest, confused as to why Blondie is still alive, until Ramón's ammunition depletes.
Blondie then shoots Don Miguel, Rubio, and the other Rojo men standing nearby. He then uses his revolver's last bullet to free Silvanito, who had been hanging from a rope by his hands. After challenging Ramón to reload his Winchester rifle faster than he can reload his own six-shooter, Blondie shoots and kills Ramón. Esteban Rojo aims for Blondie's back from a nearby building, but is shot dead by Silvanito. Blondie bids Silvanito and Piripero farewell and rides away from town.
In New Mexico, Blondie is now the bounty hunter that many call "Manco". He and another bounty hunter, former army colonel Douglas Mortimer, separately learn that a ruthless, cold-blooded bank robber known as "El Indio" has been broken out of prison by his gang, and all but one of his jailers slaughtered. Whilst El Indio is murdering the wife and 18-month-old son of the man who had him captured, he is shown to carry a musical pocketwatch taken from a woman who had shot herself, as he was raping her, after he had murdered her husband. The incident has haunted Indio, and he smokes an addictive drug to cloud his memory (likely cannabis or opium).
Indio plans to rob the bank of El Paso, Texas, which has a disguised safe containing "almost a million dollars". Manco arrives in the town and becomes aware of Mortimer, who had arrived earlier. He sees Mortimer deliberately insult the hunchback Wild, who is reconnoitering the bank. Manco confronts Mortimer and, after the two have studied each other, each ascertaining that the other will not back down, they decide to work together. Mortimer persuades Manco to join El Indio's gang and "get him between two fires". Manco achieves this by freeing a friend of Indio's from prison in spite of Indio's suspicions.
Indio sends Manco and three others to rob the bank in nearby Santa Cruz, Texas. Manco guns down the three bandits and sends a false telegraphic alarm to rouse the El Paso sheriff and his posse, who ride to Santa Cruz. The gang blast the wall at the rear of the El Paso bank and steal the safe, but are unable to open it. Groggy is angry when Manco is the only one to return from Santa Cruz, but Indio accepts Manco's version of events thanks to Mortimer having given Manco a convincing wound.
The gang ride to the small border town of Agua Caliente, where Mortimer, who had anticipated their destination, is waiting. Wild recognizes Mortimer, forcing a showdown that results in the hunchback's death, whereafter Mortimer offers his services to Indio to crack open the safe without using explosives. After Mortimer successfully opens the safe using acid, Indio locks the money in a strongbox and says the loot will be divided after a month. Manco and Mortimer break into the strongbox and hide the money, only to be caught immediately afterwards and beaten up. Mortimer has secured the strongbox lock, however, and Indio believes that the money is still there.
Later that night, Indio instructs his lieutenant, Niño, to use Cuchillo's knife to kill the man guarding Manco and Mortimer. Once Niño has freed the prisoners, Indio reveals that he knew they were bounty hunters from the start, executes Cuchillo for supposedly betraying the gang, and orders the rest of his men after Manco and Mortimer, hoping they will all kill each other and he and Niño can split the money just between themselves. However, Groggy realizes the scheme, so he kills Niño and forces Indio to open the strongbox, which is found to be empty.
Eventually, after he and Manco kill the bandits, Mortimer calls out Indio while revealing his full name. Mortimer shoots Groggy as he runs for cover, but is disarmed by Indio, who plays the pocketwatch while challenging the bounty hunter to regain his weapon and kill him when the music ends. But as the music ends, the same tune begins from an identical pocketwatch which Manco had pilfered from Mortimer. Manco gives his own gun belt and pistol to Mortimer, saying "Now we start."
When the music ends, Mortimer shoots first, killing Indio. Mortimer retrieves the watch from Indio's hand and Manco remarks on Mortimer's resemblance to the woman in the photographs. Mortimer reveals that he is her brother (father in the Spanish dub) and, with his revenge complete, declines his share of the bounty and leaves. Manco tosses the bodies of Indio and his men into a wagon, finally adding Groggy's body after killing him, and rides off to collect the bounties on them all, briefly pausing to recover the stolen money from its hiding place.
The "Man With No Name" embodies the archetypical characteristics of the American movie cowboy - toughness, physical prowess, independence, and skill with a gun - but departed from the original archetype due to his moral ambiguity.
Unlike the traditional movie cowboy, exemplified by actors John Wayne, Alan Ladd and Randolph Scott, Blondie will fight dirty and shoot first, if required by his own self-defined sense of justice. Despite being the hero in his films, he also proves to be a dangerous and a dollar-greedy man.
Nevertheless, he still shows his good sides by playing fair during duels, saving lives of some innocent civilians, and sparing Tuco's life and still sharing him part of the money they'd found. Although he tends to look for ways to benefit himself, he has, in a few cases, aided others if he feels an obligation to assist from time to time.
This is seen when he frees Marisol's captive family from the Rojos in A Fistful of Dollars, gives his own pistol to Douglas Mortimer to allow him to get his revenge on El Indio in For a Few Dollars More, and comforts the dying soldier he encounters after the bridge explosion in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
He is an outsider, a mercenary, a bounty hunter, or even an outlaw. He is soft-spoken and laconic. He is also an anti-hero, and he has a soft spot for people in deep trouble. While rescuing Marisol in A Fistful of Dollars, he responds to query about his motives with a curt "I knew somebody like you, once... and there was no one to help."
This, along with the comment "I never found home that great" and stating that he hails from Illinois (in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), sums up the only personal history the viewer ever receives about the character.
Blondie is shown to be a skilled bounty hunter. His gunslinging skills surpasses many of his enemies but rivals a few. While he prefers pistols, he is also handy with rifles. While having good aiming skills, he does miss a few times, almost getting Tuco killed. He uses several firearms in the films:
- Pistols: A Colt Single Action Army is his primary weapon of choice in the first two films, and a Colt 1851 Navy Revolver in the third film. Both pistols feature a rattlesnake on the handgrips.
- Longarms: He is also skilled with rifles. He often used a Winchester rifle. Similar to a Henry M1860, it had rapid-fire capabilities with its smooth action lever and high ammo capacity. It also had a long side-folding scope along the left side of the rifle’s frame for better aim. Blondie obtains this rifle after saving Tuco from a trio of bounty hunters (one of them used it to shoot Tuco's horse) and uses it to free Tuco during their con. He lost this rifle after Tuco found him, forcing him to let his new partner Shorty die. Later Blondie used what looks like a Spencer M1860 to cut Tuco's noose at the grave cemetery. In For a Few Dollars More, he used another similar looking rifle to let Mortimer fairly duel El Indio.
- Note: The film crew of Good Bad Ugly slightly modified a Winchester M1866 to make it resemble a Henry M1860 with the wooden forend being removed. The rifle in Dollars More is mistaken as a Volcanic Repeater. Volcanic rifles have a larger buttstock and a half-moon shape buttplate while the one Manco use had a smaller buttstock and a straight buttplate.
- He has appeared in several book spin-offs of the films.
- After the popularity of the three films, there were several novels produced, including the novelization of the Dollars Trilogy, and five original novels (A Coffin Full of Dollars; A Dollar to Die For; The Devil's Dollar; The Million-Dollar Bloodhunt; Blood For a Dirty Dollar). A Dollar to Die For was written by Brian Fox, and the other four by Joe Millard. A Fistful of Dollars film novelization was written by Frank Chandler.
- Blondie got his own two comics by Dynamite Entertainment. The 2008 comic The Man with No Name picks up after the films. A year later, the comic The Good Bad and the Ugly made its start. The new series is not an adaptation of the movie, despite its title.
- Empire ranked him as the 33rd greatest movie character ever.
- Although several actors appeared in two or all three Dollars films, Blondie is the only character in more than one film.
- It is unknown if the first film takes place before or after the second film - it is only known that the third film takes place first.
- The first film likely takes place after the second due to the small holes in The Man With No Name's hat which he got from Mortimer in their night duel.
- However in some scenes a closer look at his poncho in the second film, the poncho has a tight grouping of bullet holes from where Ramon Rojo shot him with the boiler plate concealed.
- Sergio Leone did not originally intend to make the Dollars Trilogy connected canonically, but due to them being marketed as a trilogy, they are made to be. The only thing that could contradict the continuity would be the same actors playing different characters throughout the films.
- However, there are some canonical links between the films; in the third film, Blondie adopts his poncho outfit that he wears in the first two films, thus also proving that it takes place first.
- There was supposed to be a fourth film set in 1882, which would've followed Tuco pursuing Blondie's grandson for the Confederate gold, with Blondie narrating the film. Sergio Leone vetoed the project, as he did not wish for the series to be continued nor did he want to return to direct. He also pointed out that it wouldn't have made sense for Blondie to have an adult grandson in the span of just two decades.
- He has been referenced in various works.
- Vincent Canby described Fred Williamson's character in the film The Black Bounty Killer as "an immensely self-assured parody" of Blondie.
- Star Wars character Boba Fett was based on Blondie. According to Boba Fett's actor, Jeremy Bulloch, from his mannerisms to his green-on-white armor that has the same color scheme as the Man's poncho. Early concept art even had Fett sporting a poncho.
- In the film Back to the Future Part III, Marty McFly time-travels to 1885 under the alias "Clint Eastwood", even wearing a similar poncho and hat.
- Roland Deschain, protagonist of the Dark Tower books, is heavily inspired by Blondie. In Dark Tower VI, the character King makes the comparison by calling Roland a "fantasy version of Clint Eastwood".
- Jotaro Kujo, the protagonist of "Stardust Crusaders" (part three of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure manga), was inspired by Blondie. Author Hirohiko Araki met Eastwood in 2012 as part of the series' 25th anniversary celebration and presented him with an original framed Jotaro Kujo illustration, and Eastwood recreated one of the character's signature poses in return.
- Solid Snake, the protagonist of the Metal Gear Solid games, was visually based on Blondie.
- Flint Lockwood, the protagonist of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, is named after Flintlock and Clint Eastwood.
- Silas Greaves, the protagonist of the game Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, looked very similar to Blondie, and also had the nickname "Good" in the last duel at the cemetery.
- Flint Shrubwood, the bounty hunter hired by Duke Igthorn in the "For a Few Sovereigns More" episode of Adventures of the Gummi Bears, is a parody of Blondie and Clint Eastwood.
- The "Billy The Baby" episode of Time Squad features Blondie as a ruthless sheriff chasing the Time Squad, who is teaching Billy the Kid to be a proper bandit.
- He appeared as a cameo in the film Rango, but was voiced by Timothy Olyphant and is credited as the 'Spirit of the West'.
- The film Willy's Wonderland features Blondie as a drifter, played by Nicolas Cage, who is coerced into a dangerous situation requiring heroic and violent action.
- An Audio-Animatronics version of Blondie appeared in The Great Movie Ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios from 1989 to 2017.
- Death (voiced by Wagner Moura) from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish wears a poncho (a popular trait found in characters of Spaghetti Westerns) and has his lower arms wrapped in leather bands, which could be a reference to Blondie's leather gun shooting wrist cuffs. He also twirls his two sickles like a cowboy twirling two revolvers.
- The Man With No Name on the Villains Wiki
- The Man With No Name on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki
- The Man With No Name on the Inconsistently Heinous Wiki
- The Man With No Name on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki
- The Man With No Name on the Guile Heroes Wiki
- The Man With No Name on the Dollars Trilogy Wiki