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THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (1966)
A two hundred thousand dollar shipment of Confederate gold is ambushed by Yankees in the southwest making it open season for huge news for every grifter, bad guy, and bounty hunter in the area. Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach are Good, Bad, and Ugly (respectively).
Each has a key portion of the puzzle leading to the location of the gold. Unfortunately, none of them ever learned to share.
Join co-hosts Elysabeth Gwendolyn Belle and Robert Meyer Burnett as they enjoy a fine grape and continue their ride through some great Westerns during the second half of January. Now, this is “drinking and driving” in style.
Check out the re-mastered version of the original trailer, below …
Interesting facts about the movie (IMDb)
There is no dialogue for the first ten and a half minutes of this movie. In their introductory scenes where they are identified on-screen as “The Good” (Clint Eastwood ), “The Bad” (Lee Van Cleef), and “The Ugly” (Eli Wallach), each shoot three people.
Although Eastwood’s character is labelled “the good” in this movie, he kills eleven people during the course of the movie, which is more than Tuco (Eli Wallach) and Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef) combined. Tuco, “the ugly”, kills six people while Angel Eyes, “the bad”, has the lowest body count with three.
Due to the striking height difference between Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach (over nine inches), it was sometimes difficult to include them in the same frame.
This is a “prequel” to A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965), as it is set during the American Civil War while the other two movies are set afterward. Towards the end of this movie, Blondie (Clint Eastwood) acquires his trademark poncho. Clint Eastwood wore the same poncho through all three “Man with No Name” movies without replacement or cleaning.
As an Italian-made movie, the sound would not have been recorded live. This means that the actors and actresses would have spoken whatever they wanted, and the dialogue would have been dubbed in post-production. This was the traditional way of making movies in Italy and was because of the poor soundproofing in Italian studios. All of the actors and actresses in this movie spoke in their native languages, and were dubbed into other languages in post-production (Italian, German, Spanish, English, et cetera).
The battle scenes were shot in the Spanish desert with 1,500 Spanish soldiers as extras. According to Eli Wallach, when it came time to blow up the bridge, Sergio Leone asked the Spanish Army Captain in charge to trigger the fuse, as a sign of gratitude for the Army’s collaboration. They agreed to blow up the bridge when Leone gave the signal over the walkie-talkie.
Unfortunately, another crew member spoke on the same channel, saying words meaning “it’s okay, proceed” to a second crew member. The Captain overheard the signal and blew up the bridge. Unfortunately, no cameras were running at the time.
Leone was so upset that he fired the crewman, who promptly fled from the set in his car. The Captain was so sorry for what happened that he proposed to Leone that the Army would rebuild the bridge to blow it up again, with one condition: that the fired crewman be re-hired. Leone agreed, the crewman was forgiven, the bridge was rebuilt, and the scene was successfully shot.
When the bridge was blown up the second time, with Tuco (Wallach) and Blondie (Eastwood) hunkered down behind sandbags waiting for the explosion, Clint Eastwood’s career came within two feet of ending prematurely. A fist-sized piece of rock shrapnel from the explosion slams into the sandbag right next to Eastwood’s head (watch it in slow motion to see the rock flying in).
Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack album stayed on the charts for over a year, his most commercially successful movie score. This film was the third of six times that Sergio Leone worked with Ennio Morricone. Aside from the Dollars trilogy, they also worked together on Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), Duck You Sucker (1971), and Once Upon a Time in America (1984).
The movie remains the highest rated movie on IMDb to not receive a single Oscar nomination.
Howdy Rob & Ace,
I am writing you about a film I have never seen, ¨The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.¨ This film which takes place during the Civil War in the Southwest and yet filmed in Rome, Spain & Mexico. Some people think the character Joe played by the legendary Clint Eastwood is really a younger version of his character that he played in the beautiful and brilliant film ¨Unforgiven” only using an alias in his elder years.
The 1st 20 minutes of this film are brutal, we see a man and his young son killed and then afterwards a man killed in his bed with a pillow over his face and shot in the face through said pillow. Now for 1966 such violence was unheard of, it is almost Tarentino-esque by today’s standards.
We meet Eastwood´s Joe who takes Tuco who is played by Eli Wallach in for the reward only to find that they are in cahoots with each other to make money off of said reward. When Joe decides that they have gone as far as they can go Tuco becomes pissed and tries to have Joe murdered only to end up teaming up again to beat a sadistic and messed up criminal played by very creepy and slimy Lee Van Clef and the Union Army. Then the film becomes a sort of a hunt to find $20,000 buried in the desert by a solider.
This film which is a spaghetti western is like a mix of a little bit of everything. The scope and majestic views of the desert is part of what makes this film a classic, not to mention the score by the late Ennio Morricone. An iconic score to go with an iconic film. Clocking in a rough 3 hours and 58 minutes that’s right … just a tad under 4 hours … or do we round it off and just say 4 hours? I guess that is just small potatoes.
Now, Clint Eastwood has come a long way with his first on screen appearance in the 1955 film “Revenge of the Creature” as a scientist named Jennings as well as an appearance in the 1955 film ¨Tarantula¨ which if you haven’t seen it , it is a great 1950´s monster movie at its best. Don’t forget at one point Eastwood even shown up on “Mr. Ed” playing himself.
All in all this western was perfect for WINE-ing about Westerns. They don’t make these scaling epics anymore and it is sad because at one point every stunt person wanted to make a western just to ride a horse and shoot a gun and be part of something epic. Some westerns come and go but this one will always remain a classic and one of high standards. There are 2 other films in this so called Dollars trilogy and they are “Fistful of Dollars” ( in which a scene was shown in “Back to the Future II” and then re-created in that western classic “Back to the Future III”) and For a Few Dollars More .
Movies like these are rare and no matter how many they make nowadays they will never hold up to a classic. I can’t wait to see what the next film in this Western themed film watch.
Until next time,
Tom Jr Jackson
I really enjoyed your review of The Good The Bad and The Ugly.
Just wanted to make sure you know about the Sad Hill Cemetery set restoration from a few years ago. Fans from across the world got together to restore and rebuild the set used in the film, right down to Arch Stantons‘ grave.
https://youtu.be/BrEQPe7l6zU
Call me Dman1701
Hey Rob and Elizabeth.
“The Wild Bunch” made a strong impression on me. I first came across it on TV after midnight on January 31st 2011. I loved that it shirked many Western cliches. The characters aren’t one dimensional, no obligatory romance, and no classic high noon type showdowns. The dynamic between Deke and Pike was unique.
On the one hand Deke used to be a part of this vicious gang, but I can’t help but feel bad for him being stuck with such egg sucking chicken stealing gutter trash. I found myself rooting for Deke getting revenge and ridding himself of these morons, but also wanting him to rejoin his old friends. I assumed that the inevitable final showdown would be a war of words between Pike and Deke. Boy was I wrong.
The honor among thieves was also a pleasant layer of depth added to the gang whom in most other Westerns would just be one dimensional bad guys. But not here, in fact I never really associated them with villains because Deke, his “deputies” and the railroad representative aren’t exactly good guys either. That felt believable to me. Especially considering that Deke had no qualms about staging a violent ambush amongst so many civilians, which immediately gave me those mixed feelings about him, yet reeled me in since the protagonist was now all the more interesting.
So really, there’s no morally wholesome character in the film. Yet I feel for them all anyway. That’s great directing. The performances were superb. Though admittedly I fell asleep after 95 minutes cause it was so late at night, right after Deke gave his grandiose speech to his moronic comrades, assuring them that they haven’t lost Pike’s trail. It’s one of my favorite speeches in cinema. I woke up 45 minutes later as the credits were rolling, very frustrated. I quickly checked the TV Guide only to find it wouldn’t be replayed. Just my luck.
Then I jumped online and discovered that a Blu-ray copy was available about 20 miles away at a Target.
At 9am that morning I walked 3 miles to the bus stop and rode down the hill, on the edge of my seat desperate to see the climax of this movie. Then I walked another mile to the store from the bus stop, and while there, picked up “For A Few Dollars More”—the rather underrated superb second installment of the Dollars Trilogy—“L.A. Confidential” and John Ford’s “Magnificent Seven.” I’d never seen any of these films. They were all blind buys. But I rushed the mile back to the bus stop to wait an hour for the bus, ride home, and race 3 miles back to my house.
I continued from where I left off. I didn’t think they’d top the savagery of the opening sequence, but wow was I wrong again. The climax was brutal. As dumb as I thought Angel was being for pressing the matter with his wife, I was on the edge of my seat when Pike and his comrades took the long walk to the showdown. I got a weird feeling. It felt like the final showdown type trope, yet our main protagonist Deke Thornton wasn’t there yet. I half expected him to show up. But once the shooting started, I was dumbstruck.
Excessive vicious violence against everyone in the courtyard. I loved it. Yet when Deke finally showed up, I felt bad. He never got to make amends. And what works so well is that we’ve all been there, where we have a fight with our best friends and you’re really angry, but at the same time you want to move past it, but don’t know how.
And the ending felt so off key to your typical Western that it felt all the more real. I guess it’s the depth and complexity to these characters, surprising plot twists, and nice stretches of sequences devoted purely to character development that resonates with me. It’s not in a hurry to get to the next set piece.
I felt very similar about “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” whose best scenes to me are in the character development, long takes on gorgeous vistas, an excellent score, and quiet dialogue such as Tuco reuniting with his brother and Tuco and Blondie talking with the drunk Union captain. You don’t get that often in most Westerns which is why I can count these two as the very best. I wish there were more of this genre that are this well directed and as believable.
Though I must seek out “My Darling Clementine” after your Wine-ning episode. I know, I know, I need to get on that. And dare I say that Lee Van Cleef’s character of Colonel Mortimer in “For A Few Dollars More” was more complex and interesting than his more infamous Angel Eyes. The latter is still great of course.
In closing, the timing of this is perfect, ten years almost to the day seeing this film. And your Winening episode of “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” was recorded the same day that its producer Alberto Grimaldi passed away. Rest in Peace. I’ll drink to him.
And have a great evening Rob and Elizabeth.
– Catherine C.