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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1967)

December. 29,1967
|
8.8
|
R
| Western

While the Civil War rages on between the Union and the Confederacy, three men – a quiet loner, a ruthless hitman, and a Mexican bandit – comb the American Southwest in search of a strongbox containing $200,000 in stolen gold.

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ZeenaSandhu
1967/12/29

An all time favorite that can be watched many times. The dialogues are iconic. I love the music.

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Ash
1967/12/30

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is the first real Spaghetti Western that I ever saw. I hadn't even heard of the Spaghetti Western genre, I just watched the movie because I was a fan of Clint Eastwood at the time. After watching this magnificent masterpiece for the first time when I was a little kid, I was officially introduced to what would become one of my favorite genres, Spaghetti Westerns.Now an amateur Spaghetti Western fan might ask, "why is this the best Spaghetti Western? Why not Django, or The Great Silence or even Once Upon A Time In The West?" Well I'll tell you why, all of those other films are fantastic films, but this one actually has a great plot, unlike some of the other Spaghetti Westerns that could come across as mindless and boring. This film follows a group of three fantastic main characters, none of whom you really trust, as they all compete to find a fortune in Confederate gold that is hidden.Leone also excels the most in this film in terms of the phenomenal cinematography, the top-notch gun duels between the main characters, and the epic scope of the film. Everything time I watch this film, I see more and more of the extravagant scenery and I feel as if the whole landscape of the film is getting larger and larger.In the end, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly succeeds in every area, and more so than any other Spaghetti Wester. Maybe it succeeds even more than any movie ever made. It is certainly my favorite movie, and I hope that it continues to age is well as it has since its release dat in 1966.The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: 98% -two points taken off for it being a bit slow at certain points, and for it being too long.

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aramis-112-804880
1967/12/31

"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" is a bloated spectacle. Spectacles were the big thing (pun intended) in the mid-sixties. Leone (or his cinematographer) had an eye for landscape; but Leone never had spectacle-director David Lean's craftsmanship, nor his concern for character. Following "For a Few Dollars More" (imho the finest entry in the "dollars trilogy") Leone had more money than he should have been allowed. Clint Eastwood pocketed much of it. Coming off "Rawhide" and working cheap for Leone in "A Fistful of Dollars" Eastwood proved he could hold the big screen even better than the small one. Eastwood knows how to walk, to stand, to posture himself to attract the eye. Always an underrated actor, he made the trilogy, not Leone (despite the director's later wry comment that Eastwood had two expressions, one with a hat . . .).Eastwood is "the good" in an extremely relative way. Leone's west is a world where towns might be planets in science fiction, they're so separate. And none of them seem to have any law; despite the occasional badge, their laws, such as they are, seem to be based on circumstance rather than morality."The bad" is second-string actor Lee van Cleef, coming into his glory. He played an avuncular character in "For a Few Dollars More" (not the same character). Leone tried to get his hooks on several better or better-known actors (as he had with Eastwood's role in "Fistful") and got stuck with van Cleef again. Well, that worked out just fine. Bronson might have been excellent, but playing second fiddle to Eastwood might not have been his style.NY stage actor and movie star Eli Wallach (legendary from this role) is Tuco, a bandit with no moral compass. Wallach's comedy "How to Steal a Million" (starring Audrey Hepburn and an unlikely Peter O'Toole) came out also in 1966 and it's interesting to compare his two characters, one a jet-setting businessman and the other an unimaginably dirty western drifter). Oh, and in the scene where he's trying to find the grave, Wallach runs like a girl.The plot: the good (Eastwood) the bad (van Cleef) and the ugly (Wallach) chase after buried gold, with changing alliances to suit their needs. But to get the gold, the three have to fight their way through a war (loosely based on Sibley's New Mexico campaign in early 1862, fitting for the date on Arch Stanton's grave marker).I thought this was a great movie the first few times I saw it--on television, shown on two nights, broken by commercials. Seeing it again for the first time in years, restored and uncut, I changed my opinion.The story takes about an hour to start. The good, the bad and the ugly are introduced in unconscionably long sequences. Nearly every scene could have been trimmed with no loss to the story.But Leone is not interested in story. As he proved in his even more bloated epics "Once Upon a Time in the West" (where he dawdles through a credit sequence that is a mini-movie in its own right and longer than most "short features") and the pretentious but tedious "Once Upon a Time in America",Leone is interested in showing off what he can do with money. He spends as if he's a congressperson and his movies are government programs: the more he gets, the more ways he can find to waste it.The first hour: meet the characters. Some of it's fun, especially Tuco's chase of "Blondie"; but it's bloated, full off Leone's trademark too-close closeups and far-off vistas (can he do nothing in between?) The second hour: the plot gets rolling and Blondie, Tuco and "Angel Eyes" begin their episodic interactions. The first third of the third hour could be liberally cut with no devastating results to the story or the movie. And they even restored some scenes in a new version! Can there be too much of a good thing? You bet there can. Tuco's scene talking to a dead chicken might clear up a few points previously left vague, but it adds nothing to the film.Spoilers ahead: The last half-hour, where all the ragged ends begin being sewn together, is brilliant. I own the Leone westerns to see just the good bits over and over, and the climax here almost makes one feel squirming through the first two and a half hours was worth every yawn. From the time Blondie fires his cannon until the final frame, especially the search through the cemetery and the classic showdown between the three, when they have finally left the war behind and only they exist in the world to live or die, is beautifully shot and acted.The Good: 1) Ennio Morricone's legendary score. The movie's theme is rightfully iconic, and I love his "Ecstasy of Gold" (I'm a sucker for bells). His score also has foreshadowing of his delicate work in "The Mission" in the 1980s. 2) Clint Eastwood. While Eastwood's flicks as director are strangely humorless, Eastwood's wry humor and charm shine through this movie's bloat. He's an underrated film actor who deservedly shot to stardom in these films. 3) Lee van Cleef. While no one's first choice for a costar, van Cleef seems to realize this is his moment and he makes the most of it, becoming one of the most slyly despicable baddies in westerns. 4) Eli Wallach. While I'm tempted to move him to "the bad" for stealing almost every shot he's in, his performance is good . . . if tiring when the movie his watched on several outings. Wallach did not know how to dial Tuco back; neither did Leone who, I guess, decided, for once, to get value for money. Nevertheless, Eastwood can express more with a flick of his cigar than Wallach for all his overacting. 5) Spain. Franco, the one fascist dictator not targeted in WW2, ran an oppressive regime, but one where filmmakers found they could get anything they wanted for a well-placed bribe. The long shots of the land do resemble the never-never land of the old west, but they have their own stark beauty. Just as one can't go wrong with Tuscany, it's difficult to make this part of Spain look bad on film (Lean even used it in "Lawrence of Arabia").The Ugly: Leone. His closeups of ugly actors, his meaningless tracking shots, the very overwhelming bloat of the whole movie when seen in one go. If any movie benefited from being chopped up by commercial television this one did. Had I not known, from repeated previous tv viewings, just how good the climax was, I might never have finished it.Overall, a good story well acted, but with no sense of restraint. By all accounts Leone was a glutton. He simply never knew when to stop eating. He also never knew when to cut a movie. He could easily trim an hour out of this long-winded, overblown, occasionally messy flick and it would never be missed.

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thedarkknight-99999
1968/01/01

This epic features a coherent story, complex characters, iconic performances, mesmerizing landscapes, one of the greatest movie endings ever, and a timeless score by Ennio Morricone. It's easily one of the best (if not the best) westerns of all time, If you haven't watched it yet, I envy you, because that means you haven't enjoyed the most entertaining 3 hours in your life yet. (9/10)

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