The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The 1966 Italian Spaghetti Western, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach may be considered a cinematic classic today and was definitely instrumental in shaping the genre and personality of a western in the modern viewpoint, but it was not well received when it came out. Though it was a financial success and pushed people like Eastwood to stardom, the public’s general disapproval of Spaghetti Westerns at the time made people see it as a leftover from a by-gone era, only gaining popularity with the passage of time and many now seeing it as the quintessential Spaghetti Western. In the American Southwest in the backdrop of the Civil War, a drifter referred to as ‘’Blondie’’ (played by Clint Eastwood) works alongside a Mexican bandit named Tuco Ramirez (played distractingly by Eli Wallach) to collect the bounty placed on his head by delivering him to various towns, taking the reward and subsequently freeing him before he is executed. After the two fall into conflict with each other and try to murder one another, both are told of a stash of $200,000 in gold hidden by an ex-Confederate soldier in a cemetery in a certain grave. The solider dies before giving Tuco the exact grave, with Blondie holding onto the detail as a bargaining tool to keep himself alive, forcing the two to stick together until they’ve found the cemetery. They are also being followed by a mercenary named ‘’Angel Eyes’’ (played by Lee Van Cleef) who is also searching for the gold and is willing to take down anyone in his way to get his prize. Traveling through the mayhem of the Confederates versus the Yankees as well as the general havoc of the Western lifestyle, these three outlaws on different levels of the morality spectrum will confront each other on said cemetery, with only one being able to walk away with the prize. The film in many ways feels like the perfect storm of what does and doesn’t work in a Western, containing outstanding pros and middling cons that resulted in a picture that is very solid, but nothing much else.

Being an Italian-led production (as most to all Spaghetti Westerns are) as well as a co-production between Spain, West Germany, and the U. S, the movie demonstrates the specific flavor that would’ve been able to draw people in when these movies were all the ranges, but also highlights elements that are pretty mundane and maybe emphasize why the genre did eventually die out. You can feel the passion behind the camera when watching this film, as director Sergio Leone clearly has an appreciation for film-making and shows it off quite well with how this film is delivered, presenting a movie that manages to be enjoyable and even a little quirky while still remaining grounded, showcases characters that are a little shallow but are led and acted well enough to be engaging, deliver visuals and music that are nothing short of outstanding with how they prop up and assist the film in almost every regard, and take a decently-laid out story and make it work in its pretty lengthy running time, especially as its not entirely needed. There are several moments that could be severely edited down or just flat out cut altogether (a scene shot on a battlefield goes on for way too long and adds pretty much nothing to the film), but most of the film carries this slow pace fairly well and uses its slowness to build upon itself rather than just feeling like wasted time. The initial idea for this story written by Leone and screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni is actually pretty good, as the premise of three separate outlaws being tied together by a desire to find a mysterious treasure that each person knows an individual hint towards but not the entire puzzle, works really well in a Western environment, provides a sense of conflict and mystery that is playful enough to create a sense of intrigue without being too gruesome and bleak, and develops a fantastic sense of build-up and pay-off that is executed perfectly come the film’s climax (the final scene in the cemetery is one that will live in film history forever). With that said, an evident factor about most westerns is that for the most part, they are very straight-to-the-point and not very deep in terms of their content. They aren’t complex or contain a lot of subtlety (the overall message for this film is entirely pointless as well as painfully overt) and they can rely on a lot of cliches to push themselves forward, more so being run by their stylish visuals, gritty characters and atmosphere and their raw emotion-driven frameworks and mentality, and this film is no different with a presentation that is pretty word-for-word that description and the screenplay by Leone, Vincenzoni and screenwriter pair, Agenore Incrocci and Furio Scarpelli (otherwise known as Age & Scarpelli) is good enough, but doesn’t provide anything that different or unique for the genre from a writing standpoint.

A western is known for having pretty archetypal characters that don’t express a lot of emotion or character, yet they can still work within the environment and allow the supporting cast to provide a sense of personality to the flick, but this film does it a little differently. It lacks a supporting cast and is solely reliant on its leads to direct the film with no other character or actor really leaving much of an impression, with the only exclusions being Aldo Giuffrè and Antonio Molino Rojo as confederate captains and Luigi Pistilli as Tuco’s brother, who still play one-note caricatures but handle themselves in a way that feels professional enough to stand out. Most of the other background roles barely even say anything and even when dialogue is presented, its horrible dubbed and synchronized with the audio, so a majority of the lines can feel a little distant and not always the most engaging (Leone’s limited knowledge of the English language and preference for visuals rather than dialogue did play a factor into this). Although the cast is pretty minute, the leads are thankfully good enough to carry the film on their own and the actors do well to make what are otherwise pretty generic roles work well enough. The strange imbalance in the screentime shared between these three leads results in some standing out more than others, which can be a little bizarre considering that it should be ‘’three leads’’ and not just ‘’one’’ because the character of Tuco is clearly favored more than the others by the director. He does feel like the true lead of the film due to getting the most screentime and even backstory (however minimal it is) but he’s also a character that’s a little hard to really get into. The acting is pretty good, and he is the most fleshed out of the three, but his crimes are pretty bad, the comedy for him is nothing that great and Eli Wallache doesn’t in the least feel Mexican so that hurdle is just impossible to jump over (he could’ve just been white, and nothing would’ve changed about the film). On the flip side, Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef barely even feel like characters in this film and rather just actors playing themselves, but they are also fine at what they do. Lee Van Cleef has this great piercing stare that can be deceptively cheery from an elderly standpoint (which makes it more fun when he actually becomes dangerous) and Eastwood can play this role in his sleep, so he doesn’t struggle at all.

While the film from a character and storytelling perspective is flawed but with some nice bright spots, easily the best element of this film is its visuals and musical components, as they do so much heavy lifting for this film that it arguably would not have worked without them. Leone is often known for his sweeping long shots of environments and his equally well-known close-up face shots, and this film uses those elements to a masterful level, with cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli crafting a film that has visuals so perfectly framed and shown-off that they really are a work of art in themselves. How the shots pan and move, what they set focus on, how they can be so engaging despite limited movement and how they can provide so much atmosphere and presence from a simple image alone is incredibly impressive and feels like one of the most expertly crafted ones for a Western (at least one of the best hands down). This can also be said for the musical score, which such iconic pieces and motifs created by famed and prolific Italian composer Ennio Morricone that are beautifully cinematic, heart-pounding, atmospheric and perfectly used and even re-used in several moments in the film that do such favors to several scenes. The extensive length of several moments in this film feel so drawn out and needlessly lengthy in parts (the editors of this film, Nino Baragil and Eugenio Alabiso, probably didn’t need to take out that much footage when putting it together) but not only is the movie smart enough to use this pace and length to extend stressful moments, but the shots and the music feel like  a character in their own right and breath a lot of personality into moments that arguably would’ve been pretty dull and boring without them. Its masterfully grand, they have simple yet instantly memorable melodies, the instrumentation and featured choir is incredibly gripping and the specific sound that has come from this score has been so iconic that it has inspired countless other score and scenes for cinema in general. There is solid production behind this film and has an idea of scale, at least in regard to some of its set pieces with how many people are on-screen for a battle, but the visuals and music really elevate the film to a more epic quality than if they were removed.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly has become a staple of the Western genre, has become famous for its influence on pop culture in general and was one of the movies that people gave a second chance years later and saw it as something far more than what came before it, proving it not only has legs to stand on, but powerful legs that did a good job showing themselves off. It doesn’t really have much depth or insightful words to spout (if any words at all to be fair), but what it delivers in atmosphere, intensity and visual spectacle is definitely what makes this film as strong as it is. With that said, its not like this film is anything groundbreaking outside of these elements, as while the writing, story and characters are done well, that’s mainly in the context of the genre which is not known for those qualities, so its good in spite of its obvious drawbacks that many people just might not be into. Regardless, this is still a film with a lot worth checking out for what it brought to pop culture and for what it did just as a movie, check it out for yourself and see how this film delivered its weight in gold.