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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly<\/strong> (1966)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 United Artists\/Western\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 178 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, language, brief rear nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Sergio Leone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Agenore Incrocci (as \u201cAge\u201d), Furio Scarpelli (as \u201cScarpelli\u201d), Luciano Vincenzoni and Sergio Leone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ennio Morricone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Tonino Delli Colli\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 23, 1966 (Italy)\/December 29, 1967 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach, Aldo Guiffre, Luigi Pistilli, Rada Rassimov, John Bartha, Livio Lorenzon, Antonio Casale, Antonio Casas.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $25.1 million (US)<\/p>\r\n Rating<\/strong>: ****<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0The Good, the Bad and the Ugly<\/strong>, the third and final installment in Sergio Leone\u2019s Man with No Name trilogy, is an epic in every sense of the word. It\u2019s the Gone with the Wind of spaghetti westerns. It plays out against the backdrop of the American Civil War. The three main characters are taciturn bounty hunter Blondie (\u201cThe Good\u201d), ruthless mercenary Angel Eyes (\u201cThe Bad\u201d) and cagey Mexican bandit Tuco (\u201cThe Ugly\u201d). They\u2019re all after a hidden stash of stolen Confederate gold, $200,000 to be exact.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Blondie (Eastwood) and Tuco (Wallach, The Magnificent Seven) have a pretty good scam going. It works like this. Blondie \u201ccaptures\u201d Tuco and delivers him to the local sheriff to collect the bounty. He waits until the hangman\u2019s noose is around his partner\u2019s neck before freeing him and escaping into the desert where they split the money. Blondie grows tired of Tuco\u2019s constant complaining and abruptly ends the partnership, leaving the disgruntled bandit stranded in the desert.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Angel Eyes (Van Cleef) is a sadistic SOB who never leaves any job unfinished. A man he\u2019s sent to kill offers to pay him twice what he\u2019s getting for this job to kill the man that hired him. He kills his target, takes the money and kills his original client. He\u2019s searching for a Confederate officer going by the name of Bill Carson. He\u2019s the one that stole and hid the gold.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0The location of the gold is finally revealed when Blondie and Tuco encounter a dying Carson in the desert. At the time, a vengeful Tuco is marching Blondie to his death in the blazing hot desert. He\u2019s very near death when they meet Carson who reveals the name of the cemetery to Tuco and the exact location to Blondie. If they intend to retrieve the gold, the two men have no choice but to work together.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0With a running time just shy of three hours, you might think The Good, the Bad and the Ugly<\/strong> is too much of a good thing. It\u2019s actually not. Leone tells a compelling story painted on a huge sprawling canvas of breathtaking landscapes and large-scale Civil War battles. Ennio Morricone contributes yet another beautiful score including the iconic theme song, a two-pitch melody that sounds like a howling coyote. He uses different variations for each of the three main characters- a flute for Blondie, an ocarina for Angel Eyes and human voices for Tuco. I LOVE what Morricone does! He consistently creates unique and distinctive scores, often incorporating unusual instruments and sounds. Sometimes the music underscores the violence and brutality prevalent in Civil War-era America. There\u2019s one scene where a chorus of Confederate soldiers in a prison camp sing \u201cThe Story of a Soldier\u201d while Angel Eyes, disguised as a Union officer, has Tuco beaten and tortured until he reveals what he knows about the buried treasure. It\u2019s an amazing scene, one of several in a movie with no bad scenes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0It goes without saying that Eastwood is great in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly<\/strong>. I read somewhere that this third movie is meant to be a prequel to the first two. If that\u2019s true, it explains why he doesn\u2019t don his trademark poncho until the finale, a three-way Mexican standoff in a cemetery. It\u2019s prolonged to the point where you almost can\u2019t stand the suspense. As usual, it bears Leone\u2019s signature close-up shots of the characters\u2019 faces and eyes. Van Cleef, a total bastard here, makes an excellent villain with his squinty-eyed stare and trademark pipe clenched between his teeth. Wallach is an excellent addition to the cast. Tuco is a cunning yet oafish fast-talker that comes off as comical rather than despicable. Interestingly enough, he\u2019s the only character with a backstory revealed in a tense conversation with his brother (Pistilli, For a Few Dollars More). Well, it\u2019s tense for the brother, a priest at the mission where Tuco takes Blondie to recover from his ordeal in the desert. ANYWAY, you understand Tuco a little better after hearing his tale of woe.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0I LOVE all three of the Man with No Name films, but The Good, the Bad and the Ugly<\/strong> is a true masterpiece. It\u2019s HUGE! It has all of Leone\u2019s signature moves and more. It\u2019s violent, beautiful, thrilling and epic in scope. There\u2019s no better augmentation than Morricone\u2019s brilliant score. I like everything he does. I feel the same about Leone and (mostly) Eastwood. I just don\u2019t feel the love for The Bridges of Madison County. Thankfully, I can always rely on any of his westerns for enjoyment, Leone\u2019s spaghetti westerns in particular. All three are WINNERS! I always like to watch them in order of release even though you could conceivably watch one without seeing the others. It’s not like Star Wars where if you don’t watch them in order, you’re going to be lost. Me, I\u2019m a purist. It just makes sense to watch the Man with No Name films in the order in which they were released. It\u2019s a great way to spend the day, that\u2019s for damn sure.<\/p>\r\n The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 United Artists\/Western\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 178 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, language, brief rear nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Sergio Leone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Agenore Incrocci (as \u201cAge\u201d), Furio Scarpelli (as \u201cScarpelli\u201d), Luciano Vincenzoni and Sergio Leone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ennio Morricone\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Tonino Delli Colli\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 23, 1966 (Italy)\/December 29, 1967 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Clint […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-these-are-some-classic-flicks","category-westerns"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/The-Good-the-Bad-and-the-U.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":716,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions\/716"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/The-Good-the-Bad-and-the-Ugly-POSTER.jpg?resize=620%2C929&ssl=1\")
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