So strikingly similar is Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars to Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo that Kurosawa sued Leone, eventually winning an out of court settlement. Here is but a taste of Leone’s rampant theft:
Yet both movies are good movies. Fistful is likely Leone’s first good movie. His prior two were sword and sandal schlock starring the likes of Steve Reeves and Rory Calhoun.
One can only imagine a contemporary response to Leone’s whitewashed pilfering. That new lowest form of journalism, people on Twitter are berating so-and-so for such-and-such, would dot the front pages of clickbait mills the world over.