Every gun makes its own tune.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

(1966)

Leone's best film, overblown and operatic in only good ways. The addition of Eli Wallach to the cast is a trump card. He pulls the most screen time and all the best lines (including "One bastard goes in, another comes out" below; shame about the aspect ratio on the clip).

The confidence on display here is almost overpowering (no dialogue for the first 10 minutes), with Morricone and Leone keeping pace with each other majestically; the climax in the cemetery (not a real one, although you wouldn't guess), from Tuco running by the headstones to the three-way shoot-out, is glorious.

Van Cleef is reinvented as a cold-blooded killer ("Angel Eyes"), introduced gunning down father and son after eating some stew (he does very good movie eating, does Van Cleef) so the previous film's rapport and buddy relationship falls to Eastwood's Blondie and Wallach's Tuco (one of the best moments has them dressed as Confederates happening upon a cavalry patrol of Yankees, another sees Blondie pass Tuco a note, ""Idiots". It's for you").

Leone's aiming for a bit more thematic depth, with ruminations on the pointlessness of war (Blondie, despite being the cool killer elsewhere, is lent surprising compassion for the troops). The additional scenes in the extended version are fairly inessential, which would be no odds in itself but the mismatched voices of Eastwood and Wallach are especially evident given how much they had aged by the time they dubbed the scenes (Van Cleef's voice double doesn't sound too bad, though).

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Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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