While Eastwood’s casting is considered perfect by many, Leone originally considered James Coburn (The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven) for the role. “I really wanted James Coburn, but he was too expensive,” the Italian director told the BBC. At the time, Eastwood was the more affordable option, earning around $15,000 ($152,000/£116,000 in 2024) compared to Coburn’s around $25,000 ($254,000/£193,000 in 2024).
“I didn’t see any particular character in Rawhide, I just saw the physical figure,” Leone said. “What struck me most about Clint was the way he moved, so leisurely. To me, he seemed a lot like a cat.”
International Issues
The popularity of blockbusters, which had dominated Hollywood’s Golden Age, began to wane in the 1960s, and Leone, who was better known for directing low-budget Italian films, decided to try his hand at American Westerns.
The result was A Fistful of Dollars (first released in Italy). Per $1 bet“Yojimbo” was different from its predecessors in the genre. Based on Akira Kurosawa’s samurai tale “Yojimbo,” the film centers on Eastwood’s morally grey “Joe” (later stylized as “The Man with No Name”), who instigates a gang war for profit in the Mexican town of San Miguel. “A Gun and a Knife” drew cast and crew from across the United States and several European countries. Eastwood described the film as “an Italian-German-Spanish co-production, a remake of a Japanese film set in the plains of Spain.”
“I knew “arrivederci” and “buongiorno,” [Leone] “He knew ‘goodbye’ and ‘hello’ and that was it,” Eastwood told the BBC. “Then he learned a little English, I learned a little Italian, and in the meantime I learned a little Spanish and we got by.”
