EW's GRADE
B-

Details Writer: Christopher Frayling; Genres: Biography, Movies; Publisher: Faber & Faber

The flamboyant career of the Italian film director who made the spaghetti Western (A Fistful of Dollars, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly) respectable and turned Clint Eastwood into a superstar is painstakingly detailed in Christopher Frayling's excessively reverent biography Sergio Leone: Something to Do With Death. From Leone's starstruck youth apprenticing for Vittorio De Sica and Fred Zinnemann — as well as on several Steve Reeves muscleman flicks — to his glory days as the darling of film critics in the 1960s, his regrettable refusal to direct The Godfather, and his death from heart failure at age 60 (while watching I Want to Live! on TV), this exhaustive production tally never focuses on the man long enough to make you care. B-

Originally posted Sep 01, 2000 Published in issue #557 Sep 01, 2000 Order article reprints

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