The Magnificent Stranger: Rare Unidis design concepts

The Magnificent Stranger: Rare Unidis design concepts 

The Magnificent Stranger, dependent upon what you read, is an oddity, a convoluted piece directed by Herschel Daugherty. The story had Rawhide’s Rowdy Yates attempts to prevent a robbery of a fort. 

The production credit under which this film was released in the Federal Republic of Germany "A production of Jolly Film, Rome” was intentionally misleading. Jolly was one of the three companies that had produced Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars. Before and after this film was shot, Eastwood played one of the leads in the American television Western series - a cowboy named Rowdy Yates. Not content with the millions they earned with A Fistful of Dollars, Jolly bought two episodes of the television series and edited them together to make a feature film, and gave the product the title Il Magnifico Straniero – the original working title for A Fistful of Dollars. In the film, Eastwood’s character is of course, often referred to as "The stranger". The film was put together purely as an exploitation exercise and to cash in on the success of A Fistful of Dollars. Clint later successfully sued to prevent the distribution of this film.

The Magnificent Stranger was compiled from the two episodes "The Backshooter" and "Incident of the Running Man". A few posters and Photobusta sets did appear, but these rare designs are original mock ups from UNIDIS, the Italian film and distribution company.   

Below: One of the rare posters from Unidis that did find a way through (and into my collection), the Italian Locandina – which are commonly around 13" x 28"