It stars Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef as bounty hunters and Gian Maria Volonté as the primary villain.

They separately learn that a ruthless, cold-blooded bank robber, "El Indio", has been broken out of prison by his gang, who slaughtered all but one of his jailers.

Manco guns down the three bandits and sends a false telegraphic alarm to rouse the El Paso sheriff and his posse, who ride to Santa Cruz.

Once Niño has freed the prisoners, Indio reveals that he knew they were bounty hunters all along, and executes Cuchillo for supposedly betraying the gang.

Mortimer shoots Groggy as he runs for cover, but is disarmed by Indio, who plays the pocket watch while challenging the bounty hunter to regain his weapon and kill him when the music ends.

After the box-office success of A Fistful of Dollars in Italy, director Sergio Leone and his new producer, Alberto Grimaldi, wanted to begin production of a sequel.

Since Clint Eastwood was not ready to commit to a second film before he had seen the first, the filmmakers rushed an Italian-language print of Per un pugno di dollari to him - as a version in English did not yet exist.

When the star arranged for a debut screening at CBS Production Center, though the audience there may not have understood Italian, they found its style and action convincing.

[1] The production designer Carlo Simi built the town of "El Paso" in the Almería desert;[9] it still exists, as the tourist attraction Mini Hollywood.

[10] The town of Agua Caliente, where Indio and his gang flee after the bank robbery, was filmed in Los Albaricoques, a small "pueblo blanco" on the Níjar plain.

[12][full citation needed] The musical score was composed by Ennio Morricone, who had previously collaborated with director Leone on A Fistful of Dollars.

[13] The music is notable for its blend of diegetic and non-diegetic moments through a recurring motif that originates from the identical pocket watches belonging to El Indio and Colonel Mortimer.

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times said, "The fact that this film is constructed to endorse the exercise of murderers, to emphasize killer bravado and generate glee in frantic manifestations of death is, to my mind, a sharp indictment of it as so-called entertainment in this day.

"[27] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times described the film as "one great old Western cliché after another" and said that it "is composed of situations and not plots", but nonetheless found it "delicious".

The website's consensus reads, "With Clint Eastwood in the lead, Ennio Morricone on the score, and Sergio Leone's stylish direction, For a Few Dollars More earns its recognition as a genre classic.

"[30] Paolo Sardinas of MovieWeb said, "Eastwood gives it his all and turns in another iconic performance along with scene stealer Lee Van Cleef, who helps make For a Few Dollars More twice as good as its predecessor.