Movie Review: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

9/10

Yes, it's a 9/10 movie. "G.B.U.", as I shall call it because I am lazy, is a great film. Really really great.

That has to come with two caveats. Firstly, it's not my favourite Leone western (that's "Once Upon A Time In The West") and secondly it's not even my favourite of the Dollars trilogy (that's "For A Few Dollars More").

In the first case, it is simply outshone by what is one of my top ten movies of all time at last check. "G.B.U." and "...West" are very different beasts, for sure, but they deal with a similar theme, that of the decaying of the American dream, a theme he runs with right through "Once Upon a Time in America".

The quest for financial gain that was almost a side effect of honour for Van Cleef's vengeful Colonel Mortimer, and a fun challenge for Clint's Man with no name is now nothing more than pure greed.

For pub quiz fans: The "man with no name" is, in fact, named in every film, in Fistful it's Joe, in Few Dollars more it's Manco, and here it's Blondie.

Our first protagonist, The Ugly, or Tuco Ramirez (etc etc) AKA "The Rat", is introduced in classic Leone fashion with a meeting in a dusty no-horse town between a man and two others, who look pretty mean, and have some serious gunnage with them. Just when you think they're about to draw on each other they move on Tuco (who is first seen in one of the great movie entrances jumping out of a window) - it's a brilliantly tense and well filmed scene, from which any single film still would look great on your wall - the punchline is timed excellently and really sets up the fact that, unlike "Few Dollars More", this is going to be a little more light in tone.

Incidentally, like the later "Once Upon a Time in the West", this film contains no dialogue for the first 10 minutes.

The Bad is really bad, and it's Lee Van Cleef again (which is really confusing if you connected with his character well in Few Dollars More) out on a cold blooded contract kill - his character's name, "Angel Eyes" is just about the most misleading nickname anyone has been given... ever. He's a ruthless, money driven man, but with an immovable code of honour - "when I'm paid, I always see the job through". And what a pay packet is waiting for the lucky person who finds it. $200,000 dollars in coinage is hidden somewhere, stolen from the civil war chest of General Lee. It's this that is the main plot. Three guys on a treasure hunt. Not your typical Western - where are the injuns and cows? NOWHERE. Thank goodness.

The civil war hovers in the background like highly destructive set dressing throughout, and is incredibly depicted more as an obstacle than a central device. The protagonists hunt down their prize, all the while running into wounded soldiers, drunken Captains and idiotic troop massacres ("I've never seen so many men wasted so badly", says Blondie) but never really taking part.

So that leaves us with the "Good". Er... he's not really that good though. Oh, the character that is, Clint's been playing variations on this character all his life and we all know he's good at that. Here he's introduced taking someone in for a bounty and then helping him escape, scamming the authorities who then put up his reward to be collected in EXACTLY the same manner next time.

What amuses me is that in this film, the only thing that marks Clint's Blondie out as particularly good is that he wears a light hat for some of the early part of the film - the bad wears a black one, obviously. This is one of those little backhanded references to Hollywood's treatment of the situations that Leone exposes as nothing more than fanciful make believe.

So there you have it, a career bandit, a cold blooded killer and a con-artist who can shoot three men in a second. That's your Good, Bad and Ugly. Quite a change from John Wayne cleaning up the bad injuns and black hearted (and hatted) villains, that's for sure.

The performance that really marks this film apart from Leone's others is that of Eli Wallach as Tuco. His antics are a constant source of light hearted entertainment, be it taking a bath in a bombed out building at the height of the tension, his quick banter ("if you have to shoot... shoot! Don't talk") and most of all his chemistry with Eastwood's Blondie. The film really hits its highest peaks during the scenes when these two are together and luckily this consists of most of the movie - they bicker, they fight and my oh my do they distrust each other - this just makes their information based chaining together crucially tense and constantly crackling with energy.

Poor old Angel Eyes, by contrast, gets very little in the way of back story and is pretty much exactly the sort of pantomime villain the film mocks with its black hat approach. With all this running time at their disposal, couldn;t we have some better idea how he joins up with the Yankees? Or at least what he plans to use the money for? This, along with the sometimes appalling dubbing work (a real annoyance in all three "Dollars" movies) is what keeps it from being as classic in my mind as "Once Upon A Time in the West".

It's still an incredible movie, and pretty much required watching for anyone with even a passing interest in Westerns - it's the longest of the loose trilogy as well, because of the focus on more than one strand and the civil war's interference, though I have never had a problem with this as some others do. It's even.... dare I say it? ...quite funny.

The quite wonderful Gian Maria Volontè, so superb as El Indo and Ramon Rojo in the first two Dollars movies was apparently considered for Tuco's role and while the film would have been tantalisingly different in that form, I think they made the right choice going with the dark humour of Eli Wallach's performance. This decision also avoided having exactly the same major cast as "Few Dollars More" in this film, as opposed to just two thirds of them, which would have just been silly. If you've seen this one only, PLEASE take the time to see the first two - they are superb too, and they are all different enough to warrant your time. And if you haven't seen "Once Upon A Time In The West" then you realy are missing out on one of the true all time classic (and early "revisionist") westerns.

Overall, it's excellent, but not quite a 10.

Til next time folks.

A