Sergio Leone’s 1964 film created the American market for spaghetti westerns and made a star of serape-clad Clint Eastwood. Though it isn’t much of a picture in itself, it did introduce two new elements—comic violence and utter cynicism—to the western genre, both of which Leone lifted from Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, along with most of Kurosawa’s plot (which Kurosawa had lifted from Red Harvest). A bad movie that made a lot of good movies possible, including Leone’s own remarkable later work. With Gian Maria Volonte and Marianne Koch.