Showmen Sell It Hot #6

Showmen: For a Few Dollars More and The Valley of DecisionFOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (1965/1967) --- Nearly a year and a half elapsed between Italian release of For a Few Dollars More and its American open. Did this bespeak a lack of confidence? Turns out United Artists, as US distributor and financier on the second and third “Dollars” westerns, wanted to release all three over four-month intervals beginning in January 1967, like episodes of a TV program offered close enough together so patrons could recall each as they ate through the lot. For a Few Dollars was the middle one that improved upon the first, wickets-wise and artistically, while third and epic last (with Clint Eastwood) surpassed formers all-wise. Foreign grosses drove them, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly getting twice as much overseas ($12.3 million) as it realized stateside ($6.097). These pictures were not made so much for us as for other markets that responded more to a Yank vid actor suddenly an international…