Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo

Clint Eastwood

Lee Van Cleef

Eli Wallach

Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (in Spain, The good, the bad and the ugly; in Latin America, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) is a film of the spaghetti western subgenre released in 1966 and co-produced between Italy, Spain and Germany. It was directed by Sergio Leone and featured performances by Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach. The script was written by Leone himself with Agenori Incrocci, Furio Scarpelli and Luciano Vincenzoni. The photography is the work of Tonino Delli Colli, and the music was composed by Ennio Morricone.

It is the third and last film of the so-called Dollar Trilogy; it was preceded by For a Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari, 1964) and Death Had a Price / For a Few Dollars More (Per qualche dollaro in più, 1965). The plot revolves around two gunmen (the good guy and the ugly one) and a murderous, corrupt and unscrupulous US Union Army sergeant turned gunfighter (the bad guy) who fight to find a hidden treasure consisting of gold coins. during the Civil War (American Civil War).

Plot

The good guy (Clint Eastwood) as the Man with No Name, nicknamed "Blondie" (Blondie); the bad guy (Lee Van Cleef), alias "Sentencia" (Sentenza in the Italian version, Angel Eyes in the US, "Ojos de ángel" in the Spanish-American version); and the ugly one (Eli Wallach), alias "Tuco" and whose full name is Tuco Benedicto Pacífico Juan María Ramírez, are, respectively, a bounty hunter, a hired assassin who later becomes an unscrupulous Northern sergeant, and a thief. They are located in an environment of the old west during the American Secession War.

After a description and situation of the characters, as well as other events where the Ugly and the Good meet, the Ugly takes the Good to die in the desert for revenge, and thus they come across a stagecoach from the Army of the South in in which a dying soldier reveals the location of a treasure in gold coins (200,000 dollars buried in a grave) in exchange for water, but it turns out that he dies without either of them having the complete information: the Ugly was told by the The name of the cemetery, "Sad Hill" ('Sad Hill'), and he told the Good One the name of the grave where the treasure was buried. Thus —although they fought and each one with half of the secret— they re-associate and head to the cemetery with the hope of gold. Several complications occur along the way, including an encounter with the Bad Guy, from which they manage to escape, and finally a triangle duel in the cobbled central circle of the cemetery (unprecedented until then in the history of the genre) and culminating in frenzy and the delirious music of Ennio Morricone with the theme called “El trio”.

Main cast

Casting practices followed the system of filming high-budget spaghetti westerns. A foreign star from the United States was supposed to contribute to the possible success of the film. In this way, the leading cast was made up as follows:

• Clint Eastwood as Rubio (Man without name): the good, a quiet and confident bounty hunter who joins Tuco and Sentence temporarily to find buried gold. Rubio and Tuco have an ambivalent association; Tuco knows the name of the cemetery where the gold is hidden and Rubio knows the name of the grave where it is buried, which forces them to work together to find the treasure. Despite this greedy quest, Rubio's compassion for the dying soldiers in the chaotic butchery of war is evident, even consoles one about to die covering him with his coat and letting him smoke his cigar.
• Lee Van Cleef as Angel Eyes or Sentence: the bad, a mercenary ruthless and confident that he is pleased to kill and always ends a job for which he is paid, usually through tracking and murder.
• Eli Wallach as Tuco (known as the "Rata" according to Rubio): the ugly and the only one whose real name is known: Tuco Benedicto Pacific Juan María Ramírez. A Mexican bandit that speaks fast, comically silly but also cunning, cautious, resilient and ingenious, is sought by the authorities for a long list of crimes.

The Good One

The image of the protagonist, based on that of the main character in the film Shane (1953), emerged and took shape in the first film of the trilogy. Even before the start of work on the Dollar Trilogy, in 1963, Leone considered Henry Fonda to be the Man with No Name, but then he was too expensive an actor. In 1963, Clint Eastwood was a little-known television screen actor; he starred in his first serious project, the television series Rawhide, in the role of supervisor Rowdy Yates, where he saw Leone. Eastwood himself brought the props for the role—boots, belt, and colt— for the first auditions of For a Fistful of Dollars. Leone and his wardrobe partner, Carlo Simi, accessorized his appearance with a Mexican poncho, a stubble, and a black cigar in his mouth. Eastwood struck the film's creator at the time as too young and "clean" to your character. Ponchos and cigars were supposed to give him a more mature and tough look.

In January 1966, CBS stopped filming Rawhide, where Eastwood had starred for nearly seven years, due to low ratings; the actor immediately agreed to participate in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. After first learning about the script, Eastwood unexpectedly told the director that the script did not sit well with him. One of the reasons for the actor's discontent was the importance of his character, as Eastwood believed that Tuco was "stealing" him. gunslinger role Leone did not argue at first, telling screenwriter Vincenzoni that there was nothing to worry about, as there was the option of casting Charles Bronson. However, two days later, Eastwood called Leone and told her that after reflecting, he was ready to discuss the terms. Bronson's alternative did not work, as he had already agreed to star in The Dirty Dozen (1967). Leone personally traveled to California and ended negotiations with Eastwood in his favor. In the first film of the trilogy, the actor's fee was settled at $15,000, while in the second the figure rose to $50,000; in the third Eastwood requested $250,000, 10% of the fees in the United States, and a Ferrari brand car. Leone was not satisfied with the actor's high demands, but eventually agreed. Eastwood commented on the deal: «I am now the highest paid American actor in Italian cinema. Only Marcello Mastroianni charges more. For the first time, I get to choose where to go."

The bad guy

Lee Van Cleef appears as Colonel Douglas Mortimer in the second installment of the trilogy, Per qualche dollaro in più. "His look at him burns holes through the screen," Leone said of him.Before filming with the Italian director, Van Cleef was known as a supporting actor who starred in several television productions. Initially, Leone was attracted by the small role of him in the film High Noon (1952).From 1962 to 1965, Van Cleef did not act in films, but tried his hand as an artist. After a car accident, Van Cleef suffered a bad fracture in both legs and never recovered, leaving him unable to run and even trudge. Unlike in the previous film, Van Cleef now had a negative role in The good, the bad and the ugly, so the director had some doubts. Leone believed that the villain would not come out of him and therefore considered the option of Bronson, but in the end the role of the "bad guy" fell to Van Cleef.

The ugly one

Tuco was originally supposed to be played by Gian Maria Volonté, though Leone decided he needed an actor with more pronounced comedic talent. The director was drawn to Eli Wallach's attention for his performance in How the West Was Won (1962). Wallach had a Chaplin-like charm, Leone believed, and that was exactly what he needed. While in Los Angeles, Leone approached Wallach's agent and offered the actor a new role, who was in high demand after finishing filming How to Steal a Million (1966) in Paris. Wallach had problems with his family and did not want to leave his wife and fly to Europe again. Also, he had never seen Leone's work, and when he heard about Italian westerns, he quipped, "Is this something like a Hawaiian pizza?" He also did not like the upcoming role of the "villainous Latinos", although after seeing an excerpt from Per qualche dollaro in più , the actor immediately agreed and signed a contract.

Support actors

For the rest of the secondary roles, little-known and non-professional actors from different countries were involved. Italians predominated, but there were also representatives from Spain, Hungary and Canada. Many of them worked with Leone for a long time and starred in films prior to the trilogy, notably Mario Brega, Luigi Pistilli and Benito Stefanelli. Then, Mario Brega, who embodied the vivid image of Corporal Wallace, who defeated Tuco, played bandits in the two previous movies. No professional stuntman was involved in the film and part of those tasks were performed by supporting actors such as Stefanelli, Román Ariznavarreta, John Landis, Valentino Pelizzi and Fabio Testi.

Supporting Actors List

Production

Background

The origins of the Dollar Trilogy lie in the spaghetti western subgenre, a phenomenon that emerged in the mid-1950s. one of the most popular movie themes, along with the entire industry, was on the decline; if in 1958 fifty-four films of this genre were shot in the United States, in 1963 there were only eleven. Italian cinema, which was at its peak at that time after years after World War II, and its film production infrastructure local was rated as the second best in the world. In the 1950s and 1960s, the co-production of films of different genres became very popular. For example, Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Cleopatra (1963) and Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), among others, were filmed. This was a very lucrative business, capable of filling the capacity of Italian film studios. Several local directors and actors, working together with American specialists, trained in such joint projects. The Colossus of Rhodes (1961), co-produced between Italy, Spain and France, is Leone's first independent work as director.

Most of the films in the spaghetti western subgenre were filmed for the European market and did not reach American audiences.. If there was a budget, a Hollywood star from among those who agreed to act in Europe was invited to the film; this is how Leone began. In the film For a Fistful of Dollars (1964), inspired by Yojimbo (1961), by director Akira Kurosawa, and the play Il servitore di due padroni (written in 1746), by playwright Carlo Goldoni, appear for the first time figure of the Man without a name. At the same time, elements of the Italian style emerged, such as long takes, terseness, cynicism, and black humor. For a Fistful of Dollars, with a budget of $200,000, it grossed about 3 million dollars in Italy and became the highest grossing film in the country at that time. For its part, distinguished at the box office and second film of the Dollar Trilogy, Per qualche dollaro in più (1965) had to economize on everything; as a consequence of the scarcity of funds, the laconicism of the characters and the simplicity of the scenery were taken into account. The continued collaboration with United Artists gave Leone the opportunity to develop his ideas.

Preparation

Director Sergio Leone in 1975

In 1964, United Artists acquired the distribution rights to the first film in the trilogy and expressed its willingness to finance the second, as well as agreeing to the rights to the third. The film company's strategic plans even extended to the possibility of creating a replicated film of the nameless gunslinger, in the image and likeness of James Bond. In late 1965, Luciano Vincenzoni invited United Artists vice presidents Ilya Lopert, Arnold and David Picker. The success of Per qualche dollaro in più prompted the production of the third film in the saga. Studio executives, meeting with director Sergio Leone and writer-producer Alberto Grimaldi, confirmed their willingness to sign a contract for the next film.

Lopert wondered, "By the way, what are you talking about?" The Italian side had no ready-made ideas. Vincenzoni, improvising as he walked, told the story of three homeless men panning for gold during the Civil War. He was referring to the distant motives of the film The Great War (1959), directed by Mario Monicelli, whose script Vincenzoni had the opportunity to write."Hand in hand," replied Lopert unexpectedly and fast; Vincenzoni later marveled at the ease with which he sold the idea with just "three words." Poorly fluent in English, Leone was only involved in the negotiations to a limited extent. At the time, the director had neither clear plans nor a special desire to shoot the next film exactly like a Western. However, the sound financial terms proposed and the promised freedom of action attracted Leone, who accepted the deal. The director did not like the fact that he was contacted only when the discussion about the financial aspect of the future project began, since he always believed that he was the protagonist of the film and for this reason, from that moment on, relations with Vincenzoni began to deteriorate. deteriorate. The parties agreed that the film's budget would be approximately USD 1 million and that the film studio would receive 50% of the rental income in Italy. United Artists expressed their willingness to immediately pay $500,000 in advance of the total to begin filming. Rights to the rental in the United States were sold for $900,000.

Script

Leone and Vincenzoni traveled to the United States to create the script. At the preparatory stage, Vincenzoni read many books in the US Library of Congress and contacted the archives. Some of his inquiries puzzled the archivists; documents about those Civil War operations, in which the Confederates lost, were rarely referred to by anyone. Leone approached the library staff member to find a link to the Civil War gold mine battle from Texas. The librarian expressed doubt that they existed, but, to his own surprise, he found a link to a real skirmish between northerners and southerners. This find is one of the reasons that the events of the campaign in New Mexico served as the historical basis for the events of the script. Leone reviewed a large number of historical photographs and stated, "I wanted to debunk myths and stereotypes about war. [...] to show all its absurdity". The original Italian script, mainly written by Vincenzoni, was written in eleven days. Leone was not entirely satisfied with the work and suggested Vincenzoni to the co-writing duo of Furio Scarpelli and Agenore Incrocci. They were supposed to finalize the text and add more humor to the lines and dialogue, but Leone described his contribution as a "failure". In the final text, almost nothing was left of the duo's work, although they were listed in the credits. Leone then hired some ghostwriters for further grinding, with Sergio Donati contributing significantly. At the end of the job, the script was translated into English so that the American actors would understand the text.

Vincenzoni stated that he did not put any philosophy or subtext into the film and wrote the script "sloppy". Later, the writer spoke ill of his contribution to the Dollar Trilogy, considering that his work in collaboration with Pietro Germi was of much higher quality. Before the start of filming, the relationship between Vincenzoni and Leone became acrimonious, and the screenwriter was not involved in the work on the film, although he did visit the set on several occasions. The authorship of the script idea remained controversial; the main story about three criminals looking for gold occurred, while Sergio Leone in an interview did not say anything about Vincenzoni's contribution, only mentioning that he was inspired by the opportunity to make a film whose plot will take place in the context of the civil war Also, since the late 1960s, in his interviews, Leone spoke of a single idea that connected all the films in the trilogy.

Film crew

Leone's biographer Christopher Frayling described him as a "consummate professional" as well as a moderately educated person, though "not an intellectual at all", but "versed in the subtleties of cinema". those who worked with Leone noted him as tough and difficult to communicate with. He considered the director to be the main person in the production and did not tolerate any usurpation of his power; Leone was attentive to detail, to the authenticity of the production. With all this, even before the start of production, he knew exactly what he wanted and had the entire film "in his head". Leone did not like it. improvisation, his style has minimal changes compared to the initial script. All the famous phrases of the characters were immediately written into the script and thus included in the film. The actor Eli Wallach declared about the Italian: «he was a filmmaker who lived, slept and ate with this art. He was very tough, but he had a magical gift". In his team for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Leone took most of the companions he had in the previous films of the trilogy, such as the composer Ennio Morricone, the artist Carlo Simi and the publisher Eugenio Alabiso. To work on the film, Leone invited a new man as a cameraman - Tonino Delhi Colli. The renowned specialist worked together with the main masters of European cinema, such as Luis García Berlanga and Pier Paolo Pasolini, among others.

Scenery and filming

Film scenery in Fort Bravo/Texas Hollywood, Almeria

The filming of the film in the field and in the studio took place from May to July 1966 in Italy and Spain and lasted approximately thirteen weeks. They began in the pavilions of the Cinecittà studio with the scene of the first execution of Tuco. Afterward, the film crew moved out into the wild; the first half of the film took place in the south of Spain, in the province of Almería, which played the role of the deserts of New Mexico. A small town was built there, which became a great backdrop for many scenes. The railway station, from where Tuco leaves with the sergeant, was filmed in the La Calahorra area (Almería-Guadix line), while the second part was filmed in the north. Most of the most important locations of the film are located in the vicinity of Burgos. The mission takes place in the monastery of San Pedro de Arlanza, while the Betterville prisoner of war camp was built near the city of Carazo. Sad Hill Cemetery is built near the municipality of Contreras, and the battle between northerners and southerners over the Langstone Bridge was filmed on the Arlanza River near the town of Covarrubias. All these four places are located in the north of Spain, within a few tens of kilometers of each other. The Franciscan monastery where Tuco meets his brother is a small castle from the xix called Cortijo del Fraile, near Albaricoques.

Sad Hill Cemetery in Santo Domingo de Silos (Burgos)

Preparing the set and props required a lot of legwork. With a sufficient budget, the director carefully considered the development of the battle scenes. The Spanish Army museum provided an extensive collection of weapons for the filming. Some 1,500 Spanish soldiers, who acted as extras, helped build the bridge, concentration camp, and cemetery for the final scene. Leone wanted Sad Hill Cemetery to look like a Roman circus; the trio had to converge in the center in a spacious circular arena, absolutely necessary for the finale, as conceived in the script. Carlo Simi found the site for the cemetery near Burgos and 250 soldiers built the cemetery with 8,000 graves, according to preliminary sketches. The small river Arlanza, near Burgos, was used to represent the Rio Grande. When filming began, it turned out that the river was completely shallow, and the soldiers had to build a dam to raise the water level a bit. The 180-meter Langstone Bridge, which appears in the battle scene, was also erected by the Spanish army, also responsible for the pyrotechnics. Due to staff error due to a language barrier, the bridge exploded when the cameras were not turned on; the Spanish army officer in charge of supervising the build and blast operations was found guilty. The bridge took three days to rebuild, and balsa wood was used to speed up the process. During the second construction of the bridge, Leone had the idea to film Rubio and Tuco's flight from the bridge and the explosion itself with a single shot. editing glue. It turned out that for them the actors must be dangerously close to the explosion, although after several trials, the assistants found a more distant position. In fact, the actors were filmed in the context of the explosion, roughly as the director intended, and were even slightly shaken by the shock wave.

By the end of filming, Eastwood was tired of Leone's perfectionist features. The director insisted, often forcefully, on shooting scenes from many different angles, paying attention to minute details, which often exhausted the actors. Leone, who was obese, caused amusement through his excesses, and Eastwood found a way to deal with the stress of being led by him by making jokes about him and nicknamed him "Yosemite Sam" for his short temper. After completing the film, Eastwood never worked with Leone again, turning down the role of Harmonica in C'era una volta il West (1968), for which Leone had personally traveled to Los Angeles to deliver the script. The role ultimately fell to Charles Bronson. Years later, Leone got "revenge" on Eastwood during the filming of Once Upon a Time in America (1984) when he described Eastwood's acting skills as blocky. marble less than Robert De Niro's acting ability: “Eastwood sleepwalks through explosions and bursts of bullets, and is always the same: a block of marble. Robert is first and foremost an actor, Clint is first and foremost a star. Robert suffers, Clint yawns.” Eastwood later gave a friend the poncho he wore in all three films, which he hung in a Mexican restaurant in Carmel, California.

Leone's directing style was based on attention to detail and meticulous framing. He was demanding with the work of the camera operators and followed the visual solution of the film, which often replaced the dialogues of the characters. The director's demand exhausted the group, especially Eastwood, who mentioned that the location shooting schedule had been way behind schedule and, by American standards, should have taken much less than three months. Tonino Valerii recalled that, due to his behavior, it was already clear that Eastwood would become a director in the future. Leone was jealous of such liberties on the part of the actors and did not want to share power on set. Although Eastwood was a vegetarian and a non-smoker, the director insisted on his own, and Clint sometimes had to keep his cigar lit on set..Van Cleef, on the contrary, suffered a lot due to his addiction to alcohol, but, according to eyewitnesses, this did not interfere with his work; on the set, the actor behaved professionally and never discussed the instructions of the director, strictly following them.

Although the film's budget was significant by European standards, there were sometimes incomprehensible economics for Hollywood and actors were limited in their choice of costumes. Eastwood recalled that he only had one cowboy hat and that if he got lost, there was no telling where a replacement might be found. Therefore, he was very attentive to his belongings and at the end of the shoot he took his clothes.The filming took place in the difficult climatic conditions of the Spanish summer; the trailers were not air conditioned and the amenities were minimal. The work schedule was simple: from sunrise to sunset, six days a week. Wallach recalled that filming was not going well, both from an organizational and security point of view, as few stuntmen were involved and almost all scenes were involved. dangerous were portrayed by the actors themselves. In preparation for the execution scene, in which Tuco is sitting in the saddle with a noose around his neck, Wallach asked the director to tie up the horse. After the shot, the rope was broken with a small portion of explosives, the horse loaded the actor with his hands tied and stopped in the desert, having galloped at least a mile. Another dangerous episode involved the scene in which Tuco lies next to the train track and the body of the guard, trying to get rid of the handcuffs. The passage of the railway almost decapitated the actor; Wallach flatly refused to repeat the scene, so only one take was filmed.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is the first widescreen feature film Leone directed. The film negative was shot with spherical optics in a panoramic layered techniscope format on a standard 35mm film with an aspect ratio of 2.33:1. Techniscope technology is comparatively cheaper than that used to shoot some peplum films such as The Colossus of Rhodes, filmed with the cinemascope system. For the filming, one of the first professional portable cameras was used, the Arriflex 35IICT/B, from the German company Arri.

Movie title and character names

Posters present at Sad Hill Cemetery. The second shows the name of the film.

In the original version of the script, the main characters of the film were supposed to be two heroes, which was reflected in the working title «I due magnifici straccioni» (tdl. «The Two Magnificent Beggars»), but later Tuco's role was expanded to that of the protagonist and the name of the film was changed to Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (The bueno, el feo y el malo in Spanish and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in English). United Artists first planned to give the film a new name at the US box office, for what were considered variants such as "River of Dollars" (tdl. "River of Dollars") and "A Man with No Name" (tdl. "The Man with No Name"), but after discussion they left the Italian translation. Also, in preparation for the release of the US version, translators at United Artists decided that that it would be more euphonious to swap word places, and as a result, the name became familiar: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. However, in the 1966 English-language preview, with the one in which the film was released, the names were confused due to a translation error: the bad guy is Tuco and the ugly one is Judgment.

The title initially struck the film's early critics as odd; Renata Adler of the New York Times suggested changing it to "The Burn, the Gouge and the Mangle" (tdl. "The burn, the grudge and the destruction"), while that Los Angeles Times critic Charles Champlin sarcastically proposed "The Bad The Dull and The Endless" (tdl. "The bad, the boring and endless"). The film's title contains yet another departure from the classic western with a clear division between good and bad. In several characters, the usual moral categories of good and bad are contrasted unexpectedly with "evil". », which breaks the symmetry. The literary technique of substantivization is also used, since adjectives are in the role of nouns. None of the main characters in the film can be called "good" in the usual sense that implies a positive character, since they are all criminals and murderers, although they do have some inherent positive traits. According to the first Italian-language script, Clint Eastwood's character would have been called Joe, but was later nameless; Tuco calls him Rubio. In English literature, he is often referred to as "Gunslinger" or Man with No Name. Initially, the villain was to be named Banjo, according to one of the scripts, although during filming he was renamed Judgment, at the same time that in the English dubbing it became Angel Eyes (in Spanish: Ojos de Ángel). In some Latin American countries the title was translated as The good, the bad and the ugly, The good, the bad and the ugly or The good, the ugly, the bad, unlike the original for Spain, co-producing country, The good, the ugly and the bad guy.

Editing and dubbing

Editing for the feature film began in the summer, during filming, and lasted until Christmas 1966. The creators were in a hurry to finish the work so they could have a vacation. Sergio Donati recalled how nervous Leone was, yet on set the director was relaxed, energetic and inventive; in regards to the issue, the condition of him changed. After another change, Leone complained, "I'll never finish this movie." He was very afraid of failure, since it was the most expensive film of his career so far, so Leone demanded full concentration from the film crew. The last week before the premiere, the film's creators slept in the editing room. Donati himself recalled with disgust how he devoted six months of his life to editing the film, even though his name didn't even make it into the end credits.

The final cut changed the plot significantly, as more attention was paid to the character of Tuco. Before the end, Leone removed about twenty more minutes, such as the love scene with Rubio's participation. A logical discrepancy was noted in the events at the beginning, where Judgment speaks with an invalid, since it did not correspond in meaning to the subsequent events. The management of United Artists wanted a film of no more than two hours, and the director at the final cut lasted for a duration of about three hours; Leone tried to insist on his account: the previous films in the trilogy were not cut, but they had to compromise. The length of the film in the Italian domestic version is 175 minutes, while there are conflicting data regarding the length of the original feature shown in Italian cinemas in 1966. Some sources report 177 minutes and others 182 minutes. in US reel it was reduced to 161 minutes; long scenes without aftershocks were significantly shortened. Tuco's journey was especially disrupted when he chased a dying Rubio through the desert.

Paco Valladares, who doubled Eastwood as Rubio in 2007

Italian films of that era were dubbed after filming, while in the United States, the actors' lines were usually recorded during filming. In turn, for American cinema, dubbing of films into foreign languages was rarely done, although it was done for the spaghetti western genre, and the process had some problems. The film was dubbed into English in New York between October and November 1967, under the direction of Mickey Knox, who lived in Italy for many years and was fluent in the language. Within six weeks, Knox had to retranslate the text from Italian to English, as that the original translation had numerous errors. For its distribution in Spain by Regia Films, a dubbing was made in 1968 at the Arcofón-Vallehermoso studio in Madrid, under the direction of Salvador Arias and with the participation of Paco Valladares (Rubio), Félix Acaso (Tuco) and José María Cordero (Sentencia) to interpret the trio of protagonists. The company Servicio Internacional de Sonido, colloquially known as "Oruga" and based in Mexico, made its version for Latin America with Rogelio González Ga rza as director and the voices of Agustín López Zavala (Rubio), Guillermo Romano (Tuco) and Maynardo Zavala (Sentencia).

Leone generally did not pay much attention to dubbing and preparing a foreign language version. However, Eli Wallach reported that he was involved in the English dubbing. For the American actors, this type of work was be a new experience; most of them finished in just seven days. Eastwood was unable to join the dubbing team because he was busy with another project and arrived two weeks after most of the work had been completed. In the dubbing process, Eastwood began speaking his text from the first draft of the script, as he refused to use the newly revised text. The vice president of United Artists, Christopher Mankiewicz, had to intervene, who forced him to do so. In addition, Leone closed in on paying the dubbing crew, and Knox complained that he and the actors were simply cheated, for which he called Sergio "the baddest person in the world." After that, relations between Leone and Eastwood eventually deteriorated and they no longer cooperated.

Soundtrack

Ennio Morricone at the 2012 Cannes International Film Festival

Before participating in the Dollar Trilogy, Ennio Morricone was only known to a narrow circle of specialists as an original avant-garde composer, following the teachings of the Viennese school. In addition to movies, Morricone was known for his work in atonal music and arrangements. With Leone, Ennio began a collaboration with For a Fistful of Dollars. In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the film's soundtrack was written long before shooting began. Morricone had plenty of time to work out ideas, to create deep philosophical material about war and peace, as well as drama within a complex triangle of protagonists. Leone always took the score very seriously: not just the music, but in general variety of background accompaniments. According to the director, up to 40% of a film's success depended on the music, dubbing and final mixing in the studio. The director did not like the traditional symphonic accompaniment in the style of Dimitri Tiomkin, well, in his opinion, spoiled a lot of good Westerns. The director did not let the composer read the script, explaining only in words what exactly he had in mind. He also asked Morricone to create a special mood for certain scenes, especially the accompaniment at the end, which was supposed to sound "like the laughter of the dead from the graves."

Morricone rethought the ideas and techniques of film scoring, using his inherent eclectic style and original instrumental palette to create the sonic representation of the characters. According to journalist Mark Edwards, the theme song's melody sounds exotic, but it is difficult to attribute it to a specific cultural setting. The melodic solution of the film's soundtrack is not avant-garde, but contains the usual tonal pattern and diatonic harmony. "If I start in D minor, I'll end in D minor. Harmony must be simple and accessible to everyone", said the composer. Some of the techniques of serialism were also used; Short musical phrases are often heard on the tracks, a kind of "microseries" for the logical transition between phrases, however, he departs from twelve-tone, which allows us to talk about the use of pseudo-serialism in his works. The use of the pentatonic scale in several songs emphasizes the originality of Morricone's approach, using some of the techniques of pop music. The film's soundtrack contains a wide variety of instrumentals and their combination, which is not typical of music. film. The composer mixed acoustic instruments - the flute, trumpet and acoustic guitar -, electronic instruments - the electric guitar and the organ - and voices.

The main key of the film, as in the entire trilogy, is the D minor; with him the first tracks were made. The film has four main themes: "Il Buono, Il Cattivo, Il Brutto (Titoli)", "Il Tramonto", "Il Forte" and "Il Deserto". Tonally, they oppose each other; "Il Deserto" is played in A major, but contradicts the theme "Il Buono, Il Cattivo, Il Brutto (Titoli)", played in D major, whose dominant is A major. Thus, the harmonic opposition is achieved and the combination of themes and the subsequent resolution to the main key in d minor. Performed as an ostinato, with a crescendo gradual, the music gives depth and integrity to the long finale—around five minutes—holding the listener's full attention. The final theme—"Il Triello"—becomes a generalization of the three films by the saga; here you can hear the "triumph of the Mexican mariachi" from For a Fistful of Dollars, as well as the chime of the clock from Per qualche dollaro in più.

An ocarine, an instrument used to represent Sentence.

The leitmotiv of all the themes in the film is the composition «Il Buono, Il Cattivo, Il Brutto (Titoli)», which has become Morricone's hallmark, as well as into one of the most recognizable melodies on the movie screen. It is based on a phrase of only two notes: la and re in the pentatonic scale. Playing with the basic musical idea, using it as an exposition and revealing it in the main part of the plot bring Morricone's musical solution in the film closer to sonata form. The film's eponymous melody is also a sound portrait of each of the characters; for Rubio it is a soprano flute, for Sentencia it is an ocarina, and the male voices, stylized as the howl of a coyote, are for Tuco. The paradoxical combination of instruments illustrates the forced and somewhat absurd cooperation of the antagonistic heroes. The use of the same musical theme for the three main characters speaks to the similarity of their morality. An example is the scene where Judgment suddenly appears in the cemetery and throws a shovel at Tuco; the initiative is in his hands: she holds two opponents at gunpoint. However, his music and his instrument do not enter, the main theme is played here with another instrument—the electric organ—in the lower register. Then the viewer subconsciously guesses that Rubio is no longer in control of the situation. Similarly, in the hotel scene where Rubio and Tuco form a temporary alliance, the deal is confirmed by the soundtrack, as their themes come together. For On the other hand, the trumpet corresponds to the general image of the soldiers of the American civil war, while the female soprano voice is a symbol of gold and sounds in the song "L'Estasi Dell'oro". The English horn is used as a portrait of some minor characters; it also sounds during the torture journey through the desert.

Morricone in 2015 during a concert at the Festhalle

Following the logic of the heroes and Tuco's phrase "When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk", conversations are a sign of the hero's weakness. In the pauses and in the significant silence of the characters, the music replaces the dialogue and "speaks for itself". The director uses long pauses with complete silence that also enhance the melody when it arrives. The sounds of natural origin, like the creak of wheels or the rustle of boots in the sand, they are so inscribed in the film's outline that they only emphasize the mounting tension. The melodies and their arrangements in the film often sound like a vivid counterpoint to the dialogues and plot events. The music also carries an element of black humor inherent in the film. The sentimental "La Storia di un Soldato", muffling Tuco's brutally beaten screams, sounds like an ironic contrast to the events taking place on screen.

Within popular culture, "L'Estasi Dell'oro" has been used by artists such as the band Metallica, who used the song to open their live shows and have even covered the track. Other groups such as the Ramones have included the song on their albums and live performances. It has also been sampled within the hiphop genre by rappers such as Immortal Technique and Jay-Z. In the same way, the Los Angeles Football Club came to use it to open home games. For its part, the album became a success in 1968, after its release, on the music charts for more than a year; It reached number four on the Billboard 200 chart and ten on the R&B Albums chart. The title track was also a hit for bandleader Hugo Montenegro, whose rendition peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968.

Premiere and reception

The film was released on December 15, 1966 in Italy, and on December 29 of the following year in the United States. The film was titled in Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, in other Latin American countries The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and in Spain The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The film grossed $6.1 million. Initially, the film was criticized for its violence, later to which the director replied: “The deaths in my films are exaggerated because I want to satire other westerns. [...] The West was made by violent men and without complications, it is that strength and simplicity that I wanted to reflect in my films." Over the years, Leone's efforts to revive the genre were recognized: Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo has been described as the best representative of the European western, and was considered by Quentin Tarantino as "the best directed film of all time". ».

The film has 97% "fresh" on the Rotten Tomatoes website, based on a total of 66 reviews. Critics Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel of Time magazine named it one of the 100 Greatest Films of All Time. For its part, the newspaper The New York Times included it in the list of the 1000 best films ever made. In 2008, the magazine Empire carried out a survey among readers and film critics to select the 500 greatest films of all time, and Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo was ranked 25th. best voted by Internet Movie Database (IMDb) users.

Deleted Scenes

The following scenes were originally cut by the distributors of the UK and US released versions of the film, but were restored after the Special Edition DVD release in 2004.

• During the search for Bill Carson, "Sentence" is played with an advanced confederate position besieged after a massive artillery shell. Once there, after seeing the miserable conditions in which the survivors are, he bribes a confederate officer (Victor Israel) in search of clues about Bill Carson.
• The sequence with Tuco and Rubio crossing the desert is longer: Tuco mentally tortures a severely dehydrated Blonde eating and drinking in front of him.
• Tuco, transporting a dehydrated Rubio, finds a confederate camp whose occupants tell him that the monastery of Brother Ramirez is near.
• Tuco and Rubio discuss their plans in a carmato as they leave the monastery of Brother Ramirez.
• There is a scene in which Rubio and "Sentence" are resting next to a stream, when a man appears and Rubio shoots him. "Sentence" commands the rest of his men to leave (all were hidden). When five men leave, Rubio counts them (including "Sentence"), and concludes that six is the perfect number. "Sentence" asks him why, mentioning that he had heard that three were the perfect number. Rubio answers that six is the perfect number because he has six bullets in his revolver.
• The sequence with Tuco, Rubio and the captain of the Union has expanded: the captain asks them questions about his past, which they are unwilling to answer.

A scene deleted by Leone after the premiere of Rome was also reinserted:

• After being betrayed by Rubio, surviving the desert on his way to civilization and assembling a revolver with pieces of different revolvers, Tuco meets with members of his band in a distant cave, where he conspires with them to hunt and kill Rubio.

Additional footage has been uncovered of the sequence in which Tuco is tortured by 'Angel Eyes' henchman. The original negative of this material was deemed too damaged to be used, but the archival material appears as an extra on the 2004 DVD bonus features.

Lost footage from the missing Socorro sequence, in which Tuco continues his search for Rubio in a Texas town while Rubio is in a hotel room with a Mexican woman (Silvana Bacci), was pieced together from photos and unfinished fragments of the footage. french trailer. In addition, in the documentary "The Reconstruction of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", there appears briefly what appears to be material from the cannon shots at Tuco before the ecstasy sequence of gold. None of these scenes or sequences appear in the 2004 reissue, however they are found in the supplementary features.

Awards and nominations

Golden Laurel Awards