Directed by Sergio Leone. Italy, color (technicolor), 161 minutes.

Guide prepared by Beth Emerson, SUNY Fredonia

Cast: Clint Eastwood (The Man With No Name)
Lee Van Cleef (Angel Eyes Sentenza)
Aldo Giuffre
Luigi Pistilli (Padre Ramirez)
Rada Rassimov
Enzo Petito
Claudio Scarchilli
John Bartho
Livio Lorenzon (Baker)
Antonio Casale
Sandro Scarchilli
Benito Stefanelli
Angelo Novi
Antonio Casas
Aldo Sambrell
Al Mulock
Sergio Mendizabal
Molino Rocho
Lorenzo Robledo
Mario Brega (Wallace)
Eli Wallach (Tuco)

Crew:
Written by: Sergio Donati (uncredited)
Agenore Incrocci
Sergio Leoni (also story)
Furio Scarpelli
Luciano Vincenzoni (also story)
Cinematography: Tonino Delli Colli
Music: Ennio Morricone
Costume Design: Carlo Simi
Special Effects: Eros Bacciucchi
Make-up Artist: Rino Carboni
Sound: Vittorio DeSisti
Elio Pacell
Assistant Director: Fabrizio Gianni
Giancarlo Santi
Film Editors: Nino Baragli, Eugenio Alabiso
Produced by Alberto Grimaldi, Carlo Bartloini (assistant), Federico Tofi (assistant)
for United Artists/ PEA

Plot Summary

The plot summary for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is fairly simple. It's a basic western story of greed and what people are willing to do to get money. Three men know where some gold is hidden. Tuco knows what cemetery it's in, Blondie knows which grave, and Angel Eyes knows about it. Due to greed, Tuco and Blondie stick together, until Angel Eyes captures them. They escape from Angel Eyes in a classic gunbattle, and after some other setbacks, end up in the graveyard. Tuco thought he knew which grave the treasure was hidden in, but Blondie had lied to him when he asked where it was. So Tuco dashes off to the graveyard, Blondie close behind. Then Angel Eyes shows up and makes the other two dig in the wrong grave. Blondie manages to get the upper hand, and kills Angel Eyes (who had caught up to them). They get the gold, but Blondie again gets the upper hand and leaves Tuco with his share of the gold, but no means to carry it out of the graveyard.

Reviews

Renata Adler, a New York Times film critic, did not think very highly of the film. In January of 1968 (two years after the film was made) it finally came to New York. She believed the film's title should have been "The Burn, the Gouge, and the Mangle", because all of the characters were repulsive to her.

For some reason, she also insisted on calling Clint Eastwood's character "Joe" even though he is given the name "Blondie" by Tuco.

Unfortunately, she completely misunderstood the film. Perhaps she was expecting something clean and neat, like the typical Hollywood westerns at that time. The reader certainly gets the feeling that she had never seen the other two films, A Fistful of Dollars and A Few Dollars More. She would not have liked them, perhaps, but it would have been no surprise that the film was going to be violent. All she comments on is the violence of the film and the ugliness of the people. She failed to see that the director was making a point with the violence, that he was saying that life is violent. "There is scarcely a moment's respite from the pain" she says in aggravation, not thinking about the environment of the film, or the fact that there is a war going on in the background. She also comments on one of Leone's trademarks in his films: food. People always eat well in his films. Adler naturally takes a negative view: "...the movie takes place in arid country, there are an awful lot of salads and vegetables". Maybe this is a good point, but did that really matter to the rest of the film?

Of the acting and technical aspects, she has very little to say. Adler does not mention Clint Eastwood at all, and was not impressed with Eli Wallach or Lee Van Cleef. She claimed that Van Cleef's acting consisted of "displaying the stubble of his beard and narrowing his eyes," which is ironic, because Eastwood is famous for that now. Wallach's acting, as she saw it, was done through "hideous gastro-intestinal noises to convey shades of emotion." Personally I saw a bit more character than that. Especially when he talks to his brother, the priest. He managed to convince me that there was something underneath all the obnoxious attitude.

This film seems to be better enjoyed by modern viewers, because we have less sensitivity to the violence (and maybe even see it as a tame film by our standards). Renata Adler obviously did not enjoy the film simply because of its allusions to the way humans really are.

Background for the Film

There is a small amount of interesting trivia for this film. The original title was to be "The Magnificent Rogues," no reason has been given, however, for why the title was changed.

The budget was considerably larger for this film: 1.2 million. For A Fistful of Dollars, the budget was the same as the amount of treasure in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. It is almost as if Leone was hoping to make at least that much money back for the film.

Charles Bronson was originally supposed to play Tuco, but he was already committed to The Dirty Dozen. When Bronson was cast in one of Leone's later pictures, Leone wanted him to shoot Wallach, Eastwood, and Van Cleef in the opening scene, just for fun. Eastwood refused, apparently not seeing the humor in the idea.

Eastwood came up with the nickname for Sentenza on the set. Since everyone else liked it, it stayed in the picture. He also did all of his own stunts, with a few exceptions. Eastwood likes to do everything because it makes his characters more realistic for the viewers, he believes. He had brought his own stuntman with him to do some of the horse riding scenes for this film.

In this particular film, twelve people are killed by Eastwood directly. This is a small number compared to his Dirty Harry films. In most of Eastwood's films someone dies, usually by him directly.

At the beginning of Eastwood's film "the Unforgiven" he dedicates it to Leone- perhaps this is the same character near the end of his life?

There is only one real obvious mistake made in the film, but it is a rather large anachronism--cartridges were not used in revolvers. Tuco uses a gun that did not exist in the time that the movie takes place in. Fortunately for the film, not too many people know this as it is a very technical point, so the movie is not ruined because of it.

Critical Analysis

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is actually a really awful film. The plot is slow and ponderous, the Italian actors are not very good (the dubbed voices are especially bad), and there is a lot of senseless violence. But this is why everyone loves this film. It has become a "cult classic," the kind of film where everyone sings along with the awful music and mimics the lines.

The film's music score is weird, to say the least. The howling sound that is either a coyote howl or someone getting their fingers smashed in a door has become the cliché for a western gunbattle. Recently I saw it used in a commercial for motor oil. If someone had listened to the score without having seen the movie, they probably would not like it. I remember laughing at it when I first saw the film. Ennio Morricone's music manages to grow on the viewer, however, because by the time the film is over you cannot get it out of your head.

Clint Eastwood's character, "Blondie" as Tuco calls him, is the first of many "man with no name" types that he has played in his series of spaghetti western style films. He is labeled "The Good" in the film, but the best his character could have been called is "The Better Than the Other Two." He is still a criminal, he still shoots people, but he is not shown shooting innocents or robbing anyone. He is greedy, but in a nice way- he still leaves Tuco with his share at the end. He even plays with a kitten before one of the major gunbattles. For some reason the viewer wants to see Blondie win over the other two, perhaps because he seems more intelligent.

Lee Van Cleef, or "Angel Eyes" is called "The Bad," and that is just what he is. He is a hired killer ("Once I'm paid, I always see the job through") and an all around mean guy. He really does not have anything to do with the plot, other than someone to get in the way of Blondie's quest for more money. This actor also made a living off of playing essentially the same character after this film.

Eli Wallach, "Tuco" gets the epithet "The Ugly." His is the most appropriate title. He is ugly in personality as well as visually. Ironically he is shown taking a bath and shaving in this film, but he never looks clean. He is the humor in the film, since he is the most obnoxious character. In this film he is the weasel that also gets in the way of Blondie, constantly showing up when it is most inconvenient. If it were not for Tuco's revenge in the dessert, Blondie would never have learned about the gold in the first place.

The close-ups in the film that are particularly memorable. They are so memorable that the close-up shot in any Western film after this one makes the viewer think of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The profuse amount of close-ups on faces (especially eyes) to show what the character is thinking- we can get inside his head through their expressions. The ten minutes of close-ups at the end of the film absolutely must be seen in Letterbox for the full effect, otherwise half of the picture gets lost. Sergio Leone creates huge amounts of tension in that scene, just by quick cutting to each characters faces, eyes, and suddenly pulling back to show all three characters. The music also helps with the tension, building up to the yelping singers at the end when Tuco was swearing at Blondie.

The Civil War is the backdrop of the film, getting in the way on occasion. Blondie makes several sage-like comments on the senselessness of the war, and the waste of human life it brings. He helps the officer who wants to see a bridge blown up, but really it only happens because of the money on the other side. Leone shows his opinion on the war by making both sides look the same when they are in the dessert.

Overall, this is a fun movie to watch. Personally I think the Spaghetti Westerns are better and more realistic than the goofy John Wayne films that were made at the same time. The costuming is better, the writing is better, and in some cases the acting is better. It's more fun to watch Clint Eastwood be a "badass" rather than John Wayne being a jerk.

Bibliography

1. Adler, Renata. "The Burn, the Gouge, and the Mangle" The New York Times, January 25, 1968.

Contemporary film review #1.

2. Dunagan, Clyde Kelly. "Clint Eastwood" in Actors and Actresses, ed. James Vinson. Chicago: St. James Press, 1986, pp. 209-211.

This was a useful source. It had not only a filmography, but also a basic biography and a commentary on their works.

3. Kaminsky, Stuart M. "Sergio Leone" in Directors and Filmmakers, ed. Christopher Lyon. Chicago: St. James Press, 1984, pp. 326-327.

This was from the same series as the Eastwood article.

4. International Movie Database: http://us.imdb.com/M/title-substring?tit...he+bad%2c+and+the+ugly%2c+the&type=fuzzy

The film database I used to get the basics for the movie. Probably the most useful of all of the sources so far. The only problem with it was that every time I came back to it, someone would add something else to it.

5. Clint Eastwood Page: http://www.man-with-no-name.com

This source was a good Clint Eastwood site. I used the cast list from here, as it was shorter, and made more sense.

6. Sergio Leone Homepage: http://film.tierranet.com

I was surprised to find an actual homepage for Leone. I did not think he was popular enough to warrant an entire homepage! I found the Van Cleef page through a link here.

7. Lee Van Cleef Homepage: http://members.aol.com/ilcattivo2/

Van Cleef's homepage was well done, and I found some of the trivia about the movie from here.