When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk !!!
Director: Sergio Leone
Writers: Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Leone
Music : Ennio Morricone
Stars: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly was the third western made by Italian director Sergio Leone. The film became the best-known and most popular spaghetti western (western movies made by Italians) in film cinema, and is a classic in the tradition of anti-hero, gritty westerns. Released in America in 1967 during the height of the Vietnam War, the film was a hit and has had a lasting influence on culture and film making.
Characters
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly follows the quest of three characters to find hidden Confederate gold. The main characters, played by Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach, form uneasy alliances and intense rivalries as they race against each other for the upper hand in finding the prize.
Clint Eastwood plays the 'man with no name', who is called 'Blondie' throughout the film and is the title 'good' character. A cigar-smoking figure with no given backstory and a tendency to speak in single sentences, Blondie appears in the desert to apprehend Tuco, a wanted bandit and the 'ugly' character, for a reward, only to then spring him from his noose so that he can gather the reward in another town. Blondie is a shrewd and calculating figure throughout the film and is judicious in his use of force. However, he has a soft side that is seen in a scene where he covers a dying soldier with his jacket and shares a cigar with the dying man.
Tuco, played by Eli Wallach as the 'ugly' character of the film, is a Mexican bandit who is wanted in at least 14 counties for a variety of unsavory behaviors. (In one scene, the 32 charges against him range from murder to misrepresenting himself as a Mexican general to illegal postal pick-up). Wallach plays Tuco as a walking contradiction since Tuco has no regard for killing and stealing, yet is quick to cross himself after a murder and to cry out if he is ever crossed. His sociopathic lust for gold determines who is friend or foe, and his sense of pride makes him a man who always remembers and relishes in punishing any slight against him. We learn from an encounter with Tuco's brother at a monastery that he left home at a young age from a place where his choices were bandit or the clergy for a career. Tuco maintains in his argument with his brother that Tuco's choice to be a bandit was the harder one.
'The bad' character in the film is played with cunning danger by Lee Van Cleef. Nicknamed 'Angel Eyes' at some point in his career as a hitman-for-hire, Van Cleef's character is a man whose only loyalty is to his pay. We meet Angel Eyes when he comes to fulfill his obligation to find out the name of a man who hid a cash box of gold. Angel Eyes shares dinner with his target before brutally killing him and his oldest son after accepting an offer to kill his original employer. As Angel Eyes explains, he always does the job he is paid for. After dispatching his employer following the revelation of the lost cash box, Angel Eyes sets out to find the gold and use any means at his disposal to obtain it. Angel Eyes is the most dangerous character, capable of using the mantle of authority for his own personal ends as when he appears as a Union officer and tortures Tuco to discover the cemetery where the gold is buried.
Summary
The movie revolves around the life of a mercenary by the name of Angel Eyes. He is hired by Baker to kill Bill Carson's, a thief who stole gold from the Confederates. When he is questioning Confederate soldier Stevens, Stevens manages to convince him to kill Baker and offers him $1000 for doing so. He takes the contract but kills Stevens. He then goes to Baker, takes his fee, then kills him, thereby completing Steven's contract as well.
Elsewhere, Tuco Ramirez, a bandit, is saved from bounty hunters by Blondie, who takes him to the Sheriff in order to receive the $2,000 bounty. When the Sheriff decides to hang Tuco, Blondie sets him free and the two escape. They then continue to make money this way in other towns. However, Tuco soon begins to grow tired and bored of their adventures, so Blondie leaves him in the desert. Angered, Tuco travels to find Blondie where he discovers Blondie in a Confederate town. He tries to get Blondie to hang himself but Blondie manages to escape. He tracks Blondie down again and makes him walk across the desert. Blondie, dehydrated, collapses. Tuco decides to shoot Blondie but a carriage arrives, with Bill Carson inside it. Carson makes a deal with Tuco for $200,000 in gold however Carson dies before he can reveal where the gold is. However, Blondie reveals that Carson told him the name on the grave where the gold was buried, when Tuco was getting water for Carson. Tuco keeps Blondie alive but the two are captured by Union soldiers. Angel Eyes is disguised as a Unionist and manages to retrieve the information of the cemetery from Tuco. However, Blondie does not succumb to questioning so Angel Eyes makes a deal with him to split the gold. Tuco manages to escape as well.
Blondie and Tuco reunite at the town of the gold, and decide to resume their old partnership. They both kill Angel Eyes' shoulder but realize that Angel Eyes managed to escape. They both attempt to blow up the bridge where Union troops are in order to get to the cemetery. Blondie reveals to Tuco the name of the grave where the gold is, as Arch Stanton. Tuco runs off to get the gold for himself and begins digging in the grave. Blondie too arrives and hold a gun to him. Angel Eyes then arrives and all three of them find that the grave is empty with just a skeleton. Blondie says that he gave the fake name of the grave.
All three then engage in a three way duel where Blondie kills Angel Eyes and reveals that the gold is buried next to Arch Stanton, the one named Unknown. Tuco realizes he has no bullets and Blondie forces him into a noose where he balances unsteadily on a grave. Blondie takes half the gold and then shoots the noose, therefore letting Tuco live to take his half.
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