2010 - April 17. - the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo.
Year: 1966
Directed by: Sergio Leone
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach.
Music by: Ennio Morricone

This movie is number 3 in the Man with No Name/Dollars trilogy.

trailer:

I'm BACK!! Sorry I missed a few, gang.

Watched this for the first time since its first American release over 30 years ago. I liked it then and I like it now. I noticed a couple of things that I don't think I would have seen the first time.

Maybe someone who sees it in a language other than English can answer this for me. It looks like Eastwood, Van Cleef, and Wallach do all their dialog together in English, and Italian in the scenes with other actors. Can anyone tell me if this was the case? From the way their mouths are moving, it looks like those 3 are definitely speaking Italian to the most of the supporting cast and extras. I'm just wondering why they didn't just shoot the whole film in Italian, since it looks like they can speak it.

One of the things I noticed is that Leone could have been using this as a primer for ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. I like THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY much much better than the other one, but Leone seems to be experimenting with some of the techniques he used in ONCE UPON... , like some of the long slow distant pans. In ONCE UPON... it just slows things down and turns it boring to me. But here, he uses it more selectively and it works well.

And I realize that Tuco is supposed to be real scum, but I can't help but sympathize with him a little. It seems that if anything bad is going to happen, it's going to happen to him. He's the one who is always getting double-crossed and betrayed. It's also very interesting to me that a little Brooklyn born Jewish guy is perhaps most remembered for playing a Mexican bandito, both in Leone's films and in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. I guess it just shows how talented Eli Wallach really is.

I missed alot of movie club movies, but i could not miss out on this one!
This is my favorite movie, watched it first when i was 10 years old, my father told me that it was good and he was right.
I watched it on the big screen last year, an experience that i will never forget.
This is the best in the Dollars trilogy IMO, the cast, the close-up shots and the music, my god the music. this movie would not be the movie it's become if it had not been for Morricone's brilliant score.
Clint and Lee are brilliant in this one, but i think Eli steals the show, he's the most lovable scumbag in movie history, the way he sneaks in a quick prayer after shooting someone is just genius.
And the ending is just really epic, i must have seen this movie over 10 times, but the ending is still very exciting to me, the quick eye and gun close ups really builds up the tension.

And there's alot of fun stuff that happened behind the scenes aswell, like the almost decapitation of Eli, and the near poisoning of Eli .
The bridge that had to be rebuild because they blew it up without the camera's rolling. all fun to read about. (not so fun for Eli though).

It's sad that alot of people i know, who are of the same age cannot appreciate movies like this, they just find all westerns and older movies boring so there's a few people (besides here of course) that i can talk with about this movie, they don't really give the movie a chance, they all call it too slow and boring.

pjowens75 wrote:It looks like Eastwood, Van Cleef, and Wallach do all their dialog together in English, and Italian in the scenes with other actors. Can anyone tell me if this was the case?

Everyone in the movie speaks their own language, this is taken from the IMDB's GBU trivia page:

The three principal actors are the only ones who speak actual English in the film: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach, with the exceptions of Al Mulock (the one-armed man) and John Bartha (the sheriff). Everyone else in the film is really speaking their native language, mostly Italian and Spanish, and was later dubbed into English.

Hope that answers your question.
Typing this got me in the mood for some Morricone, gotta love that soundtrack!