The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Italian: Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo) is a 1966 Italian epic spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach in the title roles. The screenplay was written by Age & Scarpelli, Luciano Vincenzoni and Leone, based on a story by Vincenzoni and Leone. Director of photography Tonino Delli Colli was responsible for the film’s sweeping widescreen cinematography and Ennio Morricone composed the famous film score. It is the third and final film in the Dollars trilogy following A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965). The plot centers around three gunslingers competing to find a fortune in buried Confederate gold amid the violent chaos of gunfights, hangings, Civil War battles, and prison camps.
Opening on December 15, 1966 in Italy and in the U.S. on December 23, 1967, the film grossed $6.1 million, but was criticized for its depiction of violence. Leone explains that “the killings in my films are exaggerated because I wanted to make a tongue-in-cheek satire on run-of-the-mill westerns… The west was made by violent, uncomplicated men, and it is this strength and simplicity that I try to recapture in my pictures.” To this day, Leone’s effort to reinvigorate the timeworn Western is widely acknowledged: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly has been described as European cinema’s best representative of the Western genre film, and Quentin Tarantino has called it “the best-directed film of all time.”
Release
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was not released in the U.S. until December 1967. The original, Italian version was 2 hours, 57 minutes long, but the U.S. version was 2 hours, 41 minutes, cut 16 minutes shorter. Since the scenes were deleted before the entire film was dubbed to English, that quarter-hour’s-worth of story footage rarely was shown in U.S. cinemas, nevertheless, MGM’s 1998 U.S. DVD release includes them, in the original Italian, sans English subtitles.
Given that the Italian Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo literally translates to the English: The Good, the Ugly, the Bad, reversing the last two adjectives, advertisements for the original Italian release show Tuco before Angel Eyes, and, when translated to English, erroneously label Angel Eyes as “The Ugly” and Tuco as “The Bad”.
The film was initially banned in Norway and did not have its premiere there until 15 years later, on October 8, 1982
- Clint Eastwood as Blondie: The Good, a.k.a. the Man with No Name, a subdued, cocksure bounty hunter who competes with Tuco and Angel Eyes to find the buried gold in the middle of the two warring factions of the American Civil War. Blondie and Tuco have an ambivalent partnership. Tuco knows the name of the cemetery where the gold is hidden, but Blondie knows the name of the grave where it’s buried, forcing them to work together to find the treasure. In spite of this greedy quest, Blondie’s pity for the dying soldiers in the chaotic carnage of the War is evident. “I’ve never seen so many men wasted so badly,” he laments. Rawhide had ended its run in 1965 and at that point neither of Clint Eastwood’s Italian films had been released in the United States. When Leone offered him a role in his next movie it was the only big film offer he had but the actor still needed to be convinced to do it. Leone and his wife traveled to California to persuade Eastwood. Two days later, he agreed to make the movie and would be paid $250,000 plus 10% of the profits from the North American markets – a deal that Leone was not happy with.
- Lee Van Cleef as Angel Eyes: The Bad, a ruthless, unfeeling and sociopathic mercenary named “Angel Eyes” (Sentenza in the Italian version) who kills anyone in his path. When Blondie and Tuco are captured while posing as Confederate soldiers, Angel Eyes is the Union sergeant who interrogates them and tortures Tuco, eventually learning the name of the cemetery where the gold is buried, but not the tombstone. Angel Eyes forms a fleeting partnership with Blondie, but Tuco and Blondie turn on Angel Eyes when they get their chance. Originally, Leone wanted Charles Bronson to play Angel Eyes but he had already committed to The Dirty Dozen (1967). Leone thought about working with Lee Van Cleef again: “I said to myself that Van Cleef had first played a romantic character in For a Few Dollars More. The idea of getting him to play a character who was the opposite of that began to appeal to me.”
- Eli Wallach as Tuco: The Ugly, Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez, a comical, oafish, fast talking bandit who is wanted by the authorities. Tuco manages to discover the name of the cemetery where the gold is buried, but he doesn’t know the name of the grave – only Blondie does. This state of affairs forces Tuco to become reluctant partners with Blondie. The director originally considered Gian Maria Volonté for the role of Tuco, but felt that the role required someone with “natural comic talent”. In the end, Leone chose actor Eli Wallach based on his role in How the West Was Won (1962), in particular, his performance in “The Railroads” scene. In L.A., Leone met with Wallach, who was skeptical about playing this type of character again, but after Leone screened the opening credit sequence from For a Few Dollars More, Wallach said: “When do you want me?” The two men got along famously, sharing the same bizarre sense of humor. Leone allowed Wallach to make changes to his character in terms of his outfit and recurring gestures. Both Eastwood and Van Cleef realized that the character of Tuco was close to Leone’s heart, and director and Wallach became good friends. Van Cleef observed, “Tuco is the only one of the trio the audience gets to know all about. We meet his brother and find out where he came from and why he became a bandit. But Clint’s character and mine remain mysteries.”
- However, in the Theatrical Trailer, Angel Eyes is referred to as The Ugly and Tuco, The Bad. This is due to a translation error; the original Italian title translates literally to “The Good, the Ugly, the Bad”.
