One not so good, one not so bad, and yes, one ugly!

The Good is Blondie, played by Clint Eastwood, the Bad is Angel Eyes by Lee van Cleef and the Ugly is Tuco by Eli Wallach. And just like that, with three characters described almost completely by a single word, Sergio Leone created in 1966 one of the most important films not only of the western genre, but of all cinema.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is the third and final film (I'll add the other 2 as well) of the so-called Dollars Trilogy, following A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More, with Clint Eastwood returning to the role that is now completely associated with him. The story is set during the American Civil War and follows three men searching for a hidden treasure, with Blondie and Tuco forced to work together, while Angel Eyes moves in parallel with the sole goal of reaching the gold first. The film essentially completed what became known as the "Man with No Name" trilogy, although, as Roger Ebert has also pointed out, this name was more of a marketing creation rather than a true continuation of the same character, since Eastwood is called Joe in the first film, Manco in the second, and Blondie in the third.

And since we are talking about the three main characters, there is one small detail of interest. Angel Eyes was known as Sentenza in the Italian version of the film, while the name Angel Eyes is attributed to Clint Eastwood, who used it for Lee Van Cleef's character, associating it with his appearance and his marksmanship ability.

A film that made Sergio Leone great

Leone now had much greater freedom compared to the two previous films, and this is evident everywhere. The budget reached approximately $1.2 million, a significantly larger amount than that of the previous films in the trilogy, while filming took place primarily in Spain, with the Spanish landscapes transformed in Leone's hands into his own, almost mythical version of the American West.

And this is perhaps the first thing that strikes me every time I return to the film. You aren't just watching a western. You are watching Sergio Leone. The vast expanses, the extreme close-ups on faces, the endless silences, characters who can stare at each other for several seconds without needing to say a thing, and the sense that every scene has been designed like a painting create a world that doesn't try to be realistic. It tries to be cinematic, and it succeeds to a degree that very few directors have managed.

This is evident even in the way Leone treats space. Roger Ebert, the great American film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, who won the Pulitzer Prize for film criticism in 1975, later observed that Leone was not particularly interested in the practical geography of a scene. What the camera sees is what the viewer is also allowed to know, and thus the director can continually create surprises within the frame.

And somewhere around here, I completely understand why this film has stood the test of time so well.

Ultimately, it was also a box-office blockbuster

For a film that we now take for granted as a classic, it is easy to forget that at the time it was not immediately treated as a masterpiece. Commercially, however, there was no doubt that Leone had struck gold even before finding the gold of the story. With a budget of approximately $1.2 million, the film grossed roughly $25.1 million in the US and Canada, while box office records vary depending on markets and re-releases. In Italy alone, approximately 11.3 million tickets were recorded.

So we are talking about a huge commercial success for its time, especially considering that this happened during a period when many American Westerns were facing serious box office troubles. Leone's spaghetti westerns had achieved something that back then seemed almost paradoxical: taking a genre that was considered deeply American and remaking it from scratch in Italy and Spain.

And somewhere around here, the fact that the critics of the era were nowhere near as enthusiastic as the audience becomes even more interesting.

Critics back then didn't see what we see today

Today, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is almost universally considered one of the greatest Westerns of all time. When it was released, however, there were critics who truly couldn't understand what they were watching. Renata Adler of The New York Times was particularly harsh, while Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Timeshe even went so far as to make a pun on the title, essentially describing it as "The Bad, the Dull, and the Interminable". The attacks were mainly directed at the violence, the excess, the runtime, and of course the fact that it was a "spaghetti western".

It seems incredible to me, but that is how it was treated back then by quite a few "experts".

And perhaps the best example is Roger Ebert. In his original 1968 review, he gave the film three stars and, although he acknowledged that it had exceptional scenes and that the films of the trilogy were huge hits, he felt that The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was about thirty minutes longer than it needed to be.

Years later, however, Ebert himself did something few critics are willing to do: he admitted he had been wrong. Looking back at his old review, he wrote that he had essentially described a four-star film but gave it three, probably because in his mind a "spaghetti western" could not be art. Later on, he officially included it in his Great Movies series.

And to me, that says a lot.

The three negatives that I can accept

I will not try to present the film as if it were perfect on every level, because there is no need to. The first thing I completely understand might put some people off is the runtime. The version we know today is around 161 minutes long, while there have also been different cuts with different editing. Personally, however, I had no problem whatsoever with its length. On the contrary, I believe that a large part of its charm lies precisely in the fact that Leone is not afraid to let a scene unfold at its own pace.

The second is that Leone truly does not care particularly whether everything is practical or absolutely possible. The space around the characters, the geography of the scenes and many of the exaggerations exist to serve his own cinematic language. Here too, however, personally, I cannot agree with the severity of certain critics. You do not watch The Good, the Bad and the Ugly expecting a realistic representation of the Wild West. You watch it as Sergio Leone. And that changes everything.

The third is of course the violence. The film is violent, but to me its violence felt more cartoonish and exaggerated rather than truly shocking. Even today I find it hard to understand why this was considered such a big problem. The film doesn't try to tell you "that's exactly how life was in the Wild West". It takes the violence, magnifies it and makes it part of its own mythology.

And then Ennio Morricone plays

And here, really, we are talking about a monolith.

Ennio Morricone didn't just write a soundtrack for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He wrote a piece of his very own cinematic identity. There are films in which music accompanies the image, and there are films where music and image seem to have been created together. Here we clearly belong to the second category.

And The Ecstasy of Gold is perhaps the most characteristic example. The music doesn't just wait for something to happen in order to accompany it. It creates the tension on its own, builds the suspense, and turns the hunt for Tuco into something almost mythical. Morricone had a unique way of making a soundtrack feel as though it had always existed within the film itself.

For more details on Morricone, read the profile I've posted here on playview.eu. In any case, it is a fact that if there is one film that proves how important a composer can become to the identity of a cinematic work, this is definitely one of the top examples.

And since we are talking about Leone, the filming couldn't possibly be normal

One of the most improbable incidents involves the famous bridge demolition. The bridge was accidentally blown up before the cameras started rolling, when a member of the Spanish army misunderstood a message heard over a walkie-talkie and gave the order to proceed with the explosion. As a result, Leone missed the shot he wanted, but eventually, the Spanish army rebuilt the bridge so they could shoot the scene properly. And, as if that weren't enough, the agreement included the reinstatement of the crew member who had been fired after the incident.

Eli Wallach also had a much more dangerous incident, as he nearly poisoned himself when he accidentally drank acid that had been placed in a soda bottle. The acid was used to destroy the bags of coins so they would open more easily in the gold scene.

And there is a piece of trivia that, to me, is so Sergio Leonemore than anything else in the film: the skeleton that Tuco sees inside one of the coffins at Sad Hill Cemetery was a real human skeleton. According to the film's trivia, it belonged to a Spanish actress who had specified in her will that she wanted to continue "acting" even after her death.

What does "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" really mean?

Spoilers from here on down.

Tuco knows that the gold is buried in Sad Hill Cemetery, while Blondie knows the name on the grave, Arch Stanton. They need each other, and it is this relationship that ultimately leads all three to the cemetery.

There Leone gives us one of the most iconic scenes in cinema history. The three men stand facing one another, the camera pans across their faces, their eyes, their guns, and the huge cemetery surrounding them, while Morricone's music ramps up the tension to the point where almost no dialogue is needed anymore. Angel Eyes believes he has all the information he needs, but Blondie has kept the final piece of the puzzle for himself. When the moment of the duel arrives, Angel Eyes finds himself facing the two of them and in the end Blondie kills him.

The big twist is that the gold is not in the grave Tuco is expecting. Blondie had kept the real name a secret and reveals that the treasure is in the adjacent grave. Once again, Blondie had managed to stay one step ahead of everyone.

And then comes the ending which, for me, explains the entire title of the film better than anything else. Blondie takes half the gold and leaves Tuco hanging. But he doesn't let him die. From a distance, he shoots the rope, sets him free, and gives him his share before riding away, leaving him screaming and cursing.

For me, this is also where the true secret of the movie lies.

Blondie isn't really "the Good," at least not in the classic sense of a good person. He is simply the least bad of the three. Tuco is a rogue, a criminal, and selfish, but at the same time, he has a sense of humor, emotion, and a human side that Angel Eyes almost entirely lacks. Angel Eyes is the true cold predator, a man who kills without a second thought when it serves him. And between them stands Blondie, a man who cares primarily about himself, but possesses enough conscience not to become like Angel Eyes.

So, in reality, we are not talking about a good man, a bad man, and a man who happened to be ugly.

We are talking about three different versions of the same harsh world.

And perhaps that is why the title remains so perfect even today. Because the more you look at the three characters, the more you realize that the boundaries between good and evil are not as clear-cut as you think.

And somewhere in there, with Morricone's music already stuck in your head, Eastwood riding away and Tuco continuing to curse from behind, you understand why this film didn't just become a classic western.

It became a cinematic myth.