Vintage

 I wish our town could hang a guy like Tuco.  I would love to see if Blondie was that good of a shot.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is a film that has become part of the western bullet-riddled fabric. It is like a sharp and piercing arrow in the chest area of a blood-stained poncho but, to be perfectly sure,  there are no Commancheros murdering Mexicans, Texans and Tex-Mex kin in this flick.  It wasn’t even filmed in America for that matter, but it is arguably the best American western ever made.  How can that be you ask?  It wasn’t even made in America?  Is that some kind of blasphemy on the Duke? How old are you?  Do you know who the Duke is?

This movie is pivotal in the Western genre mostly because Sergio Leone, the writer and director, knew it was time for new sheriff in town.  He saw a new sort of drama to play out on the canvass called the idea of the American wild west frontier.

I would even gather anyone, Chinese for that matter, is welcome to do what they want with this canvass because it is no more real, no more tethered to a real America then a Star Wars universe would be tethered to it.  Filming a western is sort of like reinventing King Arthur. You don’t have to do it in England for Christ’s sake.  Do it how you want to do it and make it fresh. 

Leone did exactly that to the idea of the American wild west and came up with a straight flush of a film.  Only, he made it ugly, which is another reason I love this shoot-em-up.  But, I should quickly add, lest I get a six-shooter plugging me full of lead, he made it ugly in legendarily good way.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly takes place in a desolate ghost town during the American Civil War.  Clint Eastwood is in his budding prime as the “Man with No Name” or “Blondie” as he was called by Tuco (Eli Wallach), whom, as the "The Ugly", but may very well have been the true star of the film.    

At the outset Tuco narrowly shoots his way past three bounty hunters.  He kills two but only succeeds in wounding the third.  This seems to set up a series of constant near death experiences for Tuco, which almost get to be humorous.   “The Good” is tracking him in the hopes of freeing him for more reward money at time when a rope is literally looped around the neck of Tuco.  It should be mentioned that Tuco is not a willing partner in this pyramid scheme.  After all, he could swing from the gallows if Blondie, “The Good”  were off his mark.  Then again, Tuco is no saint.  He is after all, “The Ugly.”

Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef) is "The Bad.” 

Angel Eyes is busy tracking down a former soldier called Stevens (Antonio Casas). His aim is to find out the whereabouts of a missing man named Jackson who he has learned is now going under the name "Bill Carson."  Apparently, there is a cache of stolen Confederate gold the man, Bill Carson, is privy to knowing the exact location of.  

Early in the film, Angel Eyes blasts Stevens and his eldest son after he questions him but not before Stevens pays Angel Eyes to kill Angel Eyes' employer, another former soldier named Baker; Angel Eyes later collects his fee for Stevens' killing from his employer and then shoots him too.  He is thorough if anything.   But he should be.  He is after all “The Bad.”

From this point the film unfolds into a interwoven plot of Blondie, Tuco and Angel Eyes trying to outsmart each other, befriend each other, kill each other , all in the name of greed.  It is very entertaining.  However, let us not overlook the importance of this film cinematically.  

We are witnessing the changing of the western guard.  Whereas we had the ballads of John Wayne we now have the emergence of the pale rider (another good flick to come much later).  Only it is Clint Eastwood and the western world in which he rides is one close to being post-apocalyptic.   Did John Wayne lose the West? Or was this new fresh vision so startling and alternative that it drove the change to the gritty kind of film, which seemed to characterize many of the vigilante-centered films of the 70s, including Dirty Harry?  

To be quite honest, this movie is really not super great because of Clint Eastwood.  This movie is legend because of what Leone saw and did with this material.   Eastwood, perfect in every way, was still the vision of Leone.  He was the guy that looked the part and required no stretch of acting ability beyond looking like the guy he had in mind for this film.  

The Good, The Bad and Ugly is a different kind of western that had not been done to that date (although it should be noted there were two previous Leone films in this series - A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More - each starring Eastwood. It was just this one was the best and brought the style to the forefront).  It is much more grittier, sweaty and, well, ugly.  John Wayne western’s tended to be very ballad like, noble and morality-based tales that bordered on downright musicals.  Not The GB and U. It is strewn with people that are already shot up and half dead.  In fact, nearly everyone in the film is ugly.  Even Eastwood as “The Good” was very much a conniver, schemer and a man motivated by greed only.   One might say Leon knows America all too well.

Blondie didn’t say much at all.  But, you can quickly see the sort of fellow he is when he apprehends a man to turn him in to the law only to break him out and collect more reward money.  And Tuco is a piece of work whom we come to like.  That Leon can achieve this is remarkable considering Tuco at one point in the film is charged by a town citizen on his hanging day as having “Raped a virgin of the white race” alongside a litany of other crimes for which the man was to hang.  Even so, despite Tuco’s transgressions, it is hard to not to like Tuco as the film goes on.  He is so greasy and slippery you just come to enjoy how he keeps living.  He is blinded by greed, but then so are all the people in this exaggerated world.  

Clint Eastwood as “The Good” was fabulous. 

His place in Americana was assured with this film in Italy.   His dead on stare.  His quiet confidence.  His tall and steady demeanor.  He didn’t invent the western archetype, but he emblazoned it into cinematic history with a character portrayal that translated seamlessly to Dirty Harry and perhaps changed movies in a way that Star Wars changed the idea of the big Hollywood blockbuster and which perhaps Avatar will change again.   But again, to give Eastwood all the credit here is not fair to Sergio Leone.  Leone is the real artist here.  Eastwood, by all accounts, was along for the ride.  He was tall, interesting looking, handsome, fierce looking and looked good when he was quiet.  Leone saw he was perfect for his vision.  

Eastwood would eventually rise to be much more than merely a cool-looking cowboy and would prove to be an artist much like Leone.  It would take some time.  In fact, I finally bought into Eastwood as a artist with his own unique vision only after I sat through The Unforgiven, another one of the best cowboy films ever made.  

Back to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Some of my favorite scenes include the desert when Blondie and Tuco are scheming and exploring ways to murder each other all to make money.  It nearly gets comical.

There is the time when Blondie and Tuco are captured and put into a Union prisoner camp.  Tuco now impersonating Bill Carson, gets the crap beat out of him  to force him to give up the name of the cemetery where Bill  Carson’s fortune  is hidden.  Blondie knows the grave marker and it is this sole reason that when his adversaries do have him at their mercy, they can’t simply put a bullet in his head.  After all, if he dies, the location of the gold goes with him.   

Another scene I loved: Blondie, having recovered from near death, overhears Tuco explain to his brother, a priest, why he chose the life he did.  In some ways, Blondie does connect with him if not a for a minute.  This scene is not necessarily needed but it really adds some dept to the Tuco character.  
I also like when Tuco and Blondie are back traveling together at one point, Blondie offers him a stogie and says, “After a meal there is nothing like a good cigar…”

You know what, there is really no female role in this movie of any significance.  The shame of it is that if they made it today, they would have to put a token women in there somehow and she would be asked to cry and worry and not do  much else than that.  I give a lot of credit to Sergio Leon because this unnecessary gimmick is not part of his film.  Therein it is the most rare of alpha male type films.  They simply said, we don’t have to show the lady.  All these men, are the type that have as many as they want and therefore to show them would be stating the obvious.  

I also loved Tuco ingeniously escaping from a train, chained to a fat Union sadistic soldier.  This was carried out in a very inventive and resourceful manner.  Tuco was the true scumbag but he was smart and conniving in his own way as much as “Angel Eyes” was brutal and cold. Blondie was wily and nonchalant, no more right or wrong than the others.  Well, he was the nicest of the three but they were all motivated by greed in the backdrop of a war in which they all had no opinion on whatsoever.  In fact, Angel Eyes seemed to mock the whole concept of a righteous Civil War when he was smiling at the commandant about allegations they tortured, robbed and murdered the confederate soldiers.

The GB and U is a post-apocalyptic western world that surely marked the end of the John Wayne yellow-ribbon waving ballyhoos and  chivalric quests.  I don’t say that the coming of the Leone western and vigilante films was an improvement, it was simply that these Leon films marked the turning point when the movies went from The Good, To the Bad and mostly to the downright Ugly.