Hm. As I wait in fear to see what they do with No Country for Old Men, I got into an online argument with some Coen brothers fans about their plagiarism of Dashiell Hammett, which ruined Miller's Crossing for me (the film NEEDED to acknowledge a debt to Hammett). Someone replied that Kurosawa never acknowledged his debt to Hammett -- "does that make Yojimbo a lesser film?" ...which prompted a bit of online reading: Yojimbo's plot is quite possibly "inspired" by the plot of Hammett's Red Harvest (which I've never read). Since Yojimbo famously was later ripped off as A Fistful of Dollars, and then remade as Last Man Standing, and since film writers (I forget who) have referred to it as the "ur-text" of the whole man-with-no-name spaghetti western, it fascinates me to discover that in fact the lineage extends even further back; I had no idea, and being a Hammett admirer, I'm actually quite delighted. I think I need to read Red Harvest...
Whether it will lessen Yojimbo for me or not remains to be seen, tho' unless there are samurai in it, I can't imagine it will seem as blatant or egregious a theft as Miller's Crossing does...
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