Fans of Clint Eastwood’s legendary character may want to check out their local used bookstore to find these long out of print books. Written in the early '70’s, these books adapted two of the movies and then continued the adventures of the “Man With No Name”. I found them to be fun, entertaining and quick reads, All of them were written by Joe Millard . Here are the titles:
1 .For A Few Dollars More
2. The Good, The Bad, The Ugly (this is not a mistake, the book is NOT called…"and The Ugly)
3 .Blood For A Dirty Dollar
4. A Coffin Full Of Dollars
5 .A Dollar To Die For
6. The Devil’s Dollar Sign
To the best of my knowledge these are all of the books in the series. Enjoy!
From what I can remember (probably haven’t read them for 20 years), the Chandler is the worse read but the closest in dialogue (although Don Miguel is called Don Benito). As you say, very entertaining.
I used to have all of those novels when i was a kid. Don’t have them any more but loved them. If you haven’t found it already, look for The Million Dollar Bloodhunt…it’s really funny.
The thing is, now I have 3 I’ll probably not rest until I get them all. (Just so long as I can get them cheap. I am a tightwad after all) So Million Dollar Bloodhunt will definitely be sought out. I’ll let you know when I find it.
Not sure, but a long time ago! I read them from about 12 years of age, and that was too long ago to think about! Even then, though i bought most of them new from WHS, the last few were from Oxfams or jumble sales.
GBU and FAFDM novelisations are from 1968 but reprinted in 1977, 78, and 1980.
Blood For a Dirty Dollar was first published in 1973 and reprinted in 74, 78,79 asnd 81.
My copies are all from 80 and 81.
I’ve had a little skip around the net and found that the same authors (or at least pseudonyms) did novelisations of quite a few western movies of the time including Macho Callahan, The Wild Bunch, The Hunting Party and Sabata amongst others.
Yes, I think they must be. Inside cover states copyright details of the films (Sergio Leone and Fulvio Morsella in the case of FAFDM) and image by permission of United Artists etc.
I still have the complete set of these, in pretty good condition. Now and then I think about selling them, but something stops me. I know I’ll never read them again, as much as I enjoyed them when I first read them as a boy; maybe they’ll prove just as enjoyable to my own son when he’s of reading age - if he hasn’t been completely brain-warped by what passes for escapism today.
I read these in school (a very long time ago), before I ever saw the films themselves.
Frank Chandler was a pseudonym of the British writer Terry Harknett, and this was his first western. As “George G Gilman” he went on to write the epic pulp western series “Edge”, more vivid than his Fistful of Dollars novelisation, and considerably more graphic. As “William Terry”, he also wrote the novelisation of the Anglo-Spanish western A Town Called Bastard, which actually outdoes the film in terms of violence and sadism, and captures the grotesqueness of a good spaghetti western more than anything else I’ve read. If you want the literary equivalent of a film like Blindman, then this is the book for you!
Joe Millard’s versions of For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad & The Ugly are straightforward and enjoyable - particularly the latter, which was based on the original Italian script and included scenes which weren’t in the original English version. I couldn’t stand his unofficial sequels, though - they thoroughly unravel the Man with No Name’s mystique, the action is tame and the stories are just silly.
The only ‘sequel’ worth reading is A Dollar to Die For by Brian Fox, which reunites the Man with No Name and Tuco in a cat and mouse chase through post-Maximillian Mexico. It’s certainly the closest in spirit to the SW genre, and probably the best written of all of them.
