Trivia / For a Few Dollars More

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Lee Van Cleef was happy to get the offer to appear in the film and expected it would be a supporting role with just a handful of scenes. When he finally received the script, he was, by all accounts, stunned to find out that he was being offered not only the film's co-lead, but the Supporting Protagonist. Van Cleef immediately said yes to the offer, accepting payment of a mere $17,000 (around $160,000 in 2022's money) for the role, although, to be fair, Clint Eastwood only received $50,000, or around $470,000 in 2022's money for his role.
• Billing Displacement: While it's somewhat subjective, as Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef have similar amounts of screen time, it could be argued that Van Cleef, in other circumstances, would be billed above Eastwood. Van Cleef's character has a personal connection to El Indio in a HUGE way, opposed to Manco who is purely involved for the money. Also, it's Col. Mortimer that has the final showdown with El Indio. Manco only assists in keeping it fair. We're also introduced to Col. Mortimer in the film first.
• Career Resurrection: Lee Van Cleef hadn't worked in films since How the West Was Won, although he had worked fairly steadily in television. By this stage, he'd fallen on hard times due to his heavy drinking. The film effectively marked a resurgence in his career. ^note  It is believed it also made him quit heavy drinking, although this was never confirmed. Van Cleef had taken up painting in the interim as a way of making money.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Japan: Sunset Gunman
  • Greece: duel at el paso
• Deleted Scene: Several scenes were allegedly shot, but it is debatable if they were shown in any version of the film. Stills exist of all the sequences. They include:
  • Manco looking at the reward poster for Red Cavanaugh, and later taking the poster of El Indio off a wall.
  • When Indio has broken out of jail, he baptizes his gun.
  • Manco beds the hotel manager's wife, Mary, in El Paso.
  • Manco shoots three of Indio's men by a river, transposed into a desert setting instead.
  • In Agua Caliente, Indio and his gang relax with some women from the village.
  • In 1967, the censor removed Indio's rape of Mortimer's sister and her suicide, but it has been restored for DVD and Blu-ray. Many of the action scenes were also trimmed for television versions, particularly Indio's escape from prison^note The version most often shown on American cable in the '90s and '00s cut directly from Indio murdering his cellmate to his wanted poster being nailed in place, removing the lengthy shootout with the guards and his Laughing Mad moment where he decides to leave a guard alive and the shootout in Agua Caliente.
  • Early American and British VHS releases and TV broadcasts, as well as the Italian and German versions, feature an extended version of the scene where El Indio tortures Mortimer and Manco, including some new dialogue:
  El Indio: STOP IT! Niño, see that they're tied securely. Slim, keep an eye on them.
  Groggy: Why let them live?
  El Indio: All things at the right time.
  Groggy: What do you mean?
• Hey, It's That Place!: When Colonel Mortimer gets off the train in the beginning, look to the left. La Calahorra Castle can be seen in the distance.
• Hostility on the Set: During filming, Sergio Leone felt that Gian Maria Volontè was sometimes too theatrical as Indio and would often use many takes as a way of trying to tire the actor out. Volonte became so angry with Leone's methods that he eventually stormed off the set. Unable to get a ride across the desert he returned to resume filming but swore he would never make another western again, which he felt was a tired genre. In fact Volonte would make several Westerns after this, notably A Bullet for the General and Face to Face, which incorporated political themes agreeable to Volonte.
• Looping Lines: As all of the film's footage was shot silent, Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef dubbed their dialogue at New York City's Titra Studios, who handled the English dubbing for all three Dollars movies.
• Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: Although he did not know any English, Gian Maria Volontè did perform his own voice for the English language version. However, he did need a translator to tell him everything word-for-word, and a lot of his dialogue was ultimately redubbed by Bernard Grant, who had previously dubbed his voice in A Fistful of Dollars.
• Playing Against Type: This, any several other spaghettis such as Sabata, is one of the few times, besides, say, Escape from New York, that you'll ever see Lee Van Cleef play a heroic character of any type.
• Real-Life Relative: Sergio Leone's daughter Francesca plays Tomaso's child, who is executed on Indio's orders.
• Throw It In!: In the shot where El Indio finally succumbs to his wounds, there's a large cloud of gnats visibly swarming around him. A complete coincidence, but one that works perfectly for the aura of unpleasant death surrounding his character.
• Underage Casting: Col. Mortimer is said to be almost fifty, yet Lee Van Cleef was forty at the time.
• What Could Have Been: Sergio Leone wanted either Henry Fonda or Lee Marvin for Col. Douglas Mortimer. Fonda was ruled out as being too expensive and Marvin turned it down in favour of Cat Ballou. Charles Bronson turned it down feeling it was the same as the first film. Leone also considered Robert Ryan, one of his favourite actors since The Naked Spur, James Coburn and Jack Palance. However, viewing the finished product, it seems that Lee Van Cleef was born for the role.
• Willing Suspension of Disbelief: The first bounty taken out in the film, Guy Calloway, looks nothing like the sketch on his wanted poster that Mortimer takes and uses to draw out Calloway.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Lee Van Cleef played the Bounty Hunter Colonel Douglas Mortimer, who worked as the protagonist's ally. Van Cleef later plays the villain Angel Eyes in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
  • El Indio's actor, Gian Volonte, also played Ramon, the villain in A Fistful of Dollars. It can be somewhat jarring if you watch the two movies back to back. It could have been worse: Volonte was originally supposed to play Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as well, but Leone later decided he wanted an actor with a natural comical talent, and Volonte wanted to star in A Bullet for the General.
  • Also Luigi Pistilli, who played Groggy in this film, played Tuco's brother Pablo in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
  • Mario Brega as Nino, who played Chico in A Fistful of Dollars and would go onto play Corporal Wallace in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
  • The actor who played Guy Calloway in the film would later play Blondie/Manco's ill-fated scam partner Shorty Larson in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
  • The bartender in Tucumcari would later play a similar bartender in a deleted scene of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

---