The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Bury $200,000 in confederate gold at the end of a ‘treasure map’ littered with dead bodies. Turn a bounty hunter, a Mexican bandit and a mercenary soldier of fortune loose on a quest to recover the gold and you have a Spaghetti Western recipe for murder, mayhem and crisscrossed double crosses. Call it The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
The trio, Blondie (Clint Eastwood as The Man with No Name), Tuco (Eli Wallach) as the Mexican bandit and Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef) as the soldier of fortune, pick up threads of a trail to the gold buried in a grave in a cemetery, but which one? Angel Eyes is hired to kill a man mixed up in the gold heist. That man in turn hires Angel Eyes to kill the man who hired him, giving him the man’s new alias before Angel Eyes kills him. Got that? Meanwhile Blondie captures Tuco and turns him in for the bounty. Bounty collected, Blondie breaks Tuco out of jail. They split the take and make off for the next bounty claim.
After a brush with fleeing confederate soldiers Tuco captures a man dying of thirst who promises to lead Tuco to the cemetery where the gold is buried. Tuco goes for water leaving Blondie with the dying man. When Tuco returns the man is dead, having told Blondie the name on the grave. Tuco and Blondie are now partners. The partners, posing as confederate soldiers are captured by Union forces and sent to prison camp where Angel Eyes is posing as a Union sergeant. Under torture, Tuco confesses the gold location to Angel Eyes.
Blondie and Tuco escape and the race to the gold is on. Along the way, they are blocked by Union forces guarding a bridge. They blow up the bridge to get by. In the show down at the cemetery, Blondie kills Angel Eyes. He captures Tuco, sets him on his horse with a noose around his neck. He fires a pistol shot to start Tuco swinging and rides off with the gold.
In a couple of interesting incidents to shooting the film, the bridge had to be reconstructed and blown up a second time when the first explosion destroyed all three cameras filming the scene. In the last scene Wallach’s horse bolted at the shot, the noose came free as planned. The horse galloped for a mile with Wallach aboard, hands tied behind his back.
Next Week: Cat Ballou
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Ride easy,
Paul
The trio, Blondie (Clint Eastwood as The Man with No Name), Tuco (Eli Wallach) as the Mexican bandit and Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef) as the soldier of fortune, pick up threads of a trail to the gold buried in a grave in a cemetery, but which one? Angel Eyes is hired to kill a man mixed up in the gold heist. That man in turn hires Angel Eyes to kill the man who hired him, giving him the man’s new alias before Angel Eyes kills him. Got that? Meanwhile Blondie captures Tuco and turns him in for the bounty. Bounty collected, Blondie breaks Tuco out of jail. They split the take and make off for the next bounty claim.
After a brush with fleeing confederate soldiers Tuco captures a man dying of thirst who promises to lead Tuco to the cemetery where the gold is buried. Tuco goes for water leaving Blondie with the dying man. When Tuco returns the man is dead, having told Blondie the name on the grave. Tuco and Blondie are now partners. The partners, posing as confederate soldiers are captured by Union forces and sent to prison camp where Angel Eyes is posing as a Union sergeant. Under torture, Tuco confesses the gold location to Angel Eyes.
Blondie and Tuco escape and the race to the gold is on. Along the way, they are blocked by Union forces guarding a bridge. They blow up the bridge to get by. In the show down at the cemetery, Blondie kills Angel Eyes. He captures Tuco, sets him on his horse with a noose around his neck. He fires a pistol shot to start Tuco swinging and rides off with the gold.
In a couple of interesting incidents to shooting the film, the bridge had to be reconstructed and blown up a second time when the first explosion destroyed all three cameras filming the scene. In the last scene Wallach’s horse bolted at the shot, the noose came free as planned. The horse galloped for a mile with Wallach aboard, hands tied behind his back.
Next Week: Cat Ballou
Return to Facebook to comment
Ride easy,
Paul
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