Item from The Dollars Trilogy by Sergio Leone / United Artists
Two identical pocket watches — one carried by El Indio, one by Colonel Mortimer — that tell the same story from opposite sides.
El Indio's watch contains a photograph of the woman he drove to suicide. He plays its music before he kills, as if the ritual can explain or exhaust the guilt. It doesn't. He winds it before every duel, lets it play, and draws when the tune ends — a ceremony that has become compulsion. Mortimer's watch contains a photograph of his sister — the same woman. He has carried it since the war, looking at it in private, measuring the distance between where he is and where he needs to be. When Manco gives Mortimer an identical watch at the end to distract El Indio, the moment that was ritual becomes farce and then tragedy. El Indio is undone not by speed but by symmetry — by facing the same watch in the hands of the person he wronged.
A gold pocket watch, hinged, engraved in the style of the period. Opens to reveal a photograph. Plays a tune when wound — Ennio Morricone's composition for it is the most recognizable piece of music associated with For a Few Dollars More. Two watches, identical, except for what each man feels when he opens his.
Also known as: The Pocket Watch, The Watch, The Musical Watch