Man with No Name


The Man with No Name is the antihero character portrayed by Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy" of Spaghetti Western films: A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He is recognizable by his iconic poncho, brown hat, tan cowboy boots, fondness for cigarillos, and the fact that he rarely talks.
While the character is universally known as "the man with no name", he was called "Joe", and listed in the credits as such, in the first film, and given nicknames by other characters in the other two.
When Clint Eastwood was honored with the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996, Jim Carrey gave the introductory speech and said: "'The Man with No Name' had no name, so we could fill in our own." In 2008, Empire chose the Man with No Name as the 43rd greatest movie character of all time.

Concept and creation

A Fistful of Dollars was directly adapted from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo. It was the subject of a lawsuit by Yojimbos producers which was eventually settled out of court. Yojimbos protagonist, an unconventional rōnin 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.
Like Eastwood's western setting character, Mifune plays a rōnin with no name. When pressed, he gives the pseudonym Sanjuro Kuwabatake, a reference to his age and something he sees through a window. 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.
The "Man with No Name" sobriquet was actually applied after the films were made, and was a marketing device used by distributor United Artists to promote the three films together in the United States film market.

Actual names or monikers

The popularity of the characters brought about a series of spin-off books, dubbed the "Dollars" series due to the common theme in their titles:
A Coffin Full of Dollars provides some background history; when he was young, The Man with No Name was a ranch hand who was continually persecuted by an older hand named Carvell. The trouble eventually led to a shootout between the two with Carvell being outdrawn and killed; however, an examination of Carvell's body revealed a scar which identified him as Monk Carver, a wanted man with a $1,000 bounty. After comparing the received bounty with his $10-a-month ranch pay, the young cowhand chose to change his life and become a bounty hunter.
In July 2007, American comic book company Dynamite Entertainment announced that they were going to begin publishing a comic book featuring The Man With No Name. Set after the events of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the comic is written by Christos Gage. Dynamite refers to him as "Blondie", the nickname Tuco uses for him in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The first issue was released in March 2008, entitled, The Man with No Name: The Good, The Bad, and The Uglier. Luke Lieberman and Matt Wolpert took over the writing for issues #7-11. Initially, Chuck Dixon was scheduled to take over the writing chores with issue #12, but Dynamite ended the series and opted to use Dixon's storyline for a new series titled The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The new series is not an adaptation of the movie, despite its title. After releasing eight issues, Dynamite abandoned the series.