The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Sergio Leone

Pre-production

After the success of For a Few Dollars More, executives at United Artists approached the film's screenwriter, Luciano Vincenzoni, to sign a contract for the rights to the film and the next one. Producer Alberto Grimaldi, Sergio Leone and he had no plans, but with their blessing, Vincenzoni pitched an idea about "a film about three rogues who are looking for some treasure at the time of the American Civil War".[25] The studio agreed but wanted to know the cost for this next film. At the same time, Grimaldi was trying to broker his own deal, but Vincenzoni's idea was more lucrative. The two men struck an agreement with UA for a million-dollar budget, with the studio advancing $500,000 upfront and 50% of the box-office takings outside of Italy. The total budget was eventually $1.2 million.[10]

Leone built upon the screenwriter's original concept to "show the absurdity of war ... the Civil War, which the characters encounter. In my frame of reference, it is useless, stupid: it does not involve a 'good cause'."[26] An avid history buff, Leone said, "I had read somewhere that 120,000 people died in Southern camps such as Andersonville. I was not ignorant of the fact that there were camps in the North. You always get to hear about the shameful behavior of the losers, never the winners."[27] The Batterville Camp where Blondie and Tuco are imprisoned was based on steel engravings of Andersonville. Many shots in the film were influenced by archival photographs taken by Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner.[28] As the film took place during the Civil War, it served as a prequel for the other two films in the trilogy, which took place after the war.[29]

While Leone developed Vincenzoni's idea into a script, the screenwriter recommended the comedy-writing team of Agenore Incrucci and Furio Scarpelli to work on it with Leone and Sergio Donati. According to Leone, "I couldn't use a single thing they'd written. It was the grossest deception of my life."[30] Donati agreed, saying, "There was next to nothing of them in the final script. They only wrote the first part. Just one line."[30] Vincenzoni claims that he wrote the screenplay in eleven days, but he soon left the project after his relationship with Leone soured. The three main characters all contain autobiographical elements of Leone. In an interview he said, "[Sentenza] has no spirit, he's a professional in the banalest sense of the term. Like a robot. This isn't the case with the other two. On the methodical and careful side of my character, I'd be nearer il Biondo (Blondie), but my most profound sympathy always goes towards the Tuco side ... He can be touching with all that tenderness and all that wounded humanity."[31] Film director Alex Cox suggests that the cemetery-buried gold hunted by the protagonists may have been inspired by rumors surrounding the anti-Communist Gladio terrorists, who hid many of their 138 weapons caches in cemeteries.[32]

Eastwood received a percentage-based salary, unlike in the first two films, from which he received a straight fee. When Lee Van Cleef was again cast for another Dollars film, he joked, "the only reason they brought me back was that they forgot to kill me off in For a Few Dollars More".[29]

The film's working title was I due magnifici straccioni (The Two Magnificent Tramps). It was changed just before shooting began when Vincenzoni thought up Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (The Good, the Ugly, the Bad), which Leone loved. In the United States, United Artists considered using the original Italian translation, River of Dollars, or The Man With No Name, but decided on The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.[18]

Filming

Production began at the Cinecittà studio in Rome again in mid-May 1966, including the opening scene between Eastwood and Wallach when Blondie captures Tuco for the first time and sends him to jail.[33] The production then moved on to Spain's plateau region near Burgos in the north, which doubled for the Southwestern United States, and again shot the western scenes in Almería in the south of Spain.[34] This time, the production required more elaborate sets, including a town under cannon fire, an extensive prison camp, and an American Civil War battlefield; and for the climax, several hundred Spanish soldiers were employed to build a cemetery with several thousand gravestones and wooden crosses to resemble an ancient Roman circus.[34] The scene where the bridge was blown up had to be filmed twice because all three cameras were destroyed in the first take by the explosion.[35] Eastwood remembers, "They would care if you were doing a story about Spaniards and Spain. Then they'd scrutinize you very tough, but the fact that you're doing a Western that's supposed to be laid in Southwest America or Mexico, they couldn't care less what your story or subject is."[36] Top Italian cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli was brought in to shoot the film and was prompted by Leone to pay more attention to light than in the previous two films; Ennio Morricone composed the score once again. Leone was instrumental in asking Morricone to compose a track for the final Mexican stand-off scene in the cemetery, asking him to compose what felt like "the corpses were laughing from inside their tombs", and asked Delli Colli to create a hypnotic whirling effect interspersed with dramatic extreme close-ups, to give the audience the impression of a visual ballet.[34] Filming concluded in July 1966.[13]

Eastwood was not initially pleased with the script and was concerned he might be upstaged by Wallach. "In the first film, I was alone," he told Leone. "In the second, we were two. Here we are three. If it goes on this way, in the next one I will be starring with the American cavalry."[37] As Eastwood played hard-to-get in accepting the role (inflating his earnings up to $250,000, another Ferrari[38] and 10% of the profits in the United States when eventually released there), he was again encountering publicist disputes between Ruth Marsh, who urged him to accept the third film of the trilogy, and the William Morris Agency and Irving Leonard, who were unhappy with Marsh's influence on the actor.[37] Eastwood banished Marsh from having any further influence in his career, and he was forced to sack her as his business manager via a letter sent by Frank Wells.[37] For some time after, Eastwood's publicity was handled by Jerry Pam of Gutman and Pam.[33] Throughout filming, Eastwood regularly socialized with actor Franco Nero, who was filming Texas, Adios at the time.[39]

Wallach and Eastwood flew to Madrid together, and between shooting scenes, Eastwood would relax and practice his golf swing.[40] Wallach was almost poisoned during filming when he accidentally drank from a bottle of acid that a film technician had set next to his soda bottle. Wallach mentioned this in his autobiography[41] and complained that while Leone was a brilliant director, he was very lax about ensuring the safety of his actors during dangerous scenes.[42] For instance, in one scene, where he was to be hanged after a pistol was fired, the horse underneath him was supposed to bolt. While the rope around Wallach's neck was severed, the horse was frightened a little too well. It galloped for about a mile with Wallach still mounted and his hands bound behind his back.[43] The third time Wallach's life was threatened was during the scene where Mario Brega and he—who are chained together—jump out of a moving train. The jumping part went as planned, but Wallach's life was endangered when his character attempts to sever the chain binding him to the (now dead) soldier. Tuco places the body on the railroad tracks, waiting for the train to roll over the chain and sever it. Wallach, and presumably the entire film crew, were not aware of the heavy iron steps that jutted one foot out of every box car. If Wallach had stood up from his prone position at the wrong time, one of the jutting steps could have decapitated him.[44]

The bridge in the film was constructed twice by sappers of the Spanish army and rigged for on-camera explosive demolition. On the first occasion, an Italian camera operator signaled that he was ready to shoot, which was misconstrued by an army captain as the similar-sounding Spanish word meaning "start". Nobody was injured in the resulting explosion. The army rebuilt the bridge while other shots were filmed. As the bridge was not a prop, but a rather heavy and sturdy functional structure, powerful explosives were required to destroy it.[45] Leone said that this scene was, in part, inspired by Buster Keaton's silent film The General.[10]

As an international cast was employed, actors performed in their native languages. Eastwood, Van Cleef, and Wallach spoke English and were dubbed into Italian for their debut release in Rome. For the American version, the lead acting voices were used, but supporting cast members were dubbed into English.[46] The result is noticeable in the bad synchronization of voices to lip movements on screen; none of the dialogue is completely in sync because Leone rarely shot his scenes with synchronized sound.[47] Various reasons have been cited for this: Leone often liked to play Morricone's music over a scene and possibly shout things at the actors to get them in the mood. Leone cared more for visuals than dialogue (his English was limited at best). Given the technical limitations of the time, recording the sound cleanly would have been difficult in most of the extremely wide shots Leone frequently used. Also, it was standard practice in Italian films at this time to shoot silently and post-dub. Whatever the actual reason, all dialogue in the film was recorded in postproduction.[48]

By the end of filming, Eastwood had finally had enough of Leone's perfectionist directorial traits. Leone insisted, often forcefully, on shooting scenes from many different angles, paying attention to the most minute of details, which often exhausted the actors.[40] Leone, who was obese, prompted amusement through his excesses, and Eastwood found a way to deal with the stresses of being directed by him by making jokes about him and nicknamed him "Yosemite Sam" for his bad temper.[40] After the film was completed, Eastwood never worked with Leone again, later turning down the role of Harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), for which Leone had personally flown to Los Angeles to give him the script. The role eventually went to Charles Bronson.[49] Years later, Leone exacted his revenge upon Eastwood during the filming of Once Upon a Time in America when he described Eastwood's abilities as an actor as being like a block of marble or wax and inferior to the acting abilities of Robert De Niro, saying, "Eastwood moves like a sleepwalker between explosions and hails of bullets, and he is always the same—a block of marble. Bobby, first of all, is an actor, and Clint first of all is a star. Bobby suffers and Clint yawns."[50] Eastwood later gave a friend the poncho he wore in the three films, where it was hung in a Mexican restaurant in Carmel, California.[51]

Cinematography

In its depiction of violence, Leone used his signature long drawn and close-up style of filming, which he did by mixing extreme face shots and sweeping long shots. By doing so, Leone managed to stage epic sequences punctuated by extreme eyes and face shots, or hands slowly reaching for a holstered gun.[52] This builds up the tension and suspense by allowing the viewers to savor the performances and character reactions, creating a feeling of excitement, as well as giving Leone the freedom to film beautiful landscapes.[52] Leone also incorporated music to heighten the tension and pressure before and during the film's many gunfights.[10]

In filming the pivotal gunfights, Leone largely removes dialogue to focus more on the actions of the characters, which was important during the film's iconic Mexican stand-off. This style can also be seen in one of the film's protagonists, Blondie (The Man with No Name), who is described by critics as more defined by his actions than his words.[53] All three characters can be seen as anti-heroes, killing for their personal gain. Leone also employed trick shooting, such as Blondie shooting the hat off a person's head and severing a hangman's noose with a well-placed shot, in many of the film's noted shootouts.[54]

Music

The score is composed by frequent Leone collaborator Ennio Morricone. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly broke previous conventions on how the two had previously collaborated. Instead of scoring the film in the post-production stage, they decided to work on the themes together before shooting had started, this was so that the music helped inspire the film instead of the film inspiring the music. Leone even played the music on set and coordinated camera movements to match the music.[55] The unique vocals of Edda Dell'Orso can be heard permeating throughout the composition "The Ecstasy of Gold". The distinct sound of guitarist Bruno Battisti D'Amorio can be heard in the compositions 'The Sundown' and 'Padre Ramirez'. Trumpet players Michele Lacerenza and Francesco Catania can be heard on 'The Trio'.[56] The only song to have a lyric is 'The Story of a Soldier, the words of which were written by Tommie Connor.[57] Morricone's unmistakable original compositions, containing gunfire, whistling (by Alessandro Alessandroni),[58] and yodeling permeate the film. The main theme, resembling the howling of a coyote (which blends in with an actual coyote howl in the first shot after the opening credits), is a two-pitch melody that is a frequent motif, and is used for the three main characters. A different instrument was used for each: flute for Blondie, ocarina for Angel Eyes, and human voices for Tuco.[59][60][61][62] The score complements the film's American Civil War setting, containing the mournful ballad, "The Story of a Soldier", which is sung by prisoners as Tuco is being tortured by Angel Eyes.[11] The film's climax, a three-way Mexican stand-off, begins with the melody of "The Ecstasy of Gold" and is followed by "The Trio" (which contains a musical allusion to Morricone's previous work on For a Few Dollars More).

"The Ecstasy of Gold" is the title of a song used within The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Composed by Morricone, it is one of his most established works within the film's score. The song has long been used within popular culture. The song features the vocals of Edda Dell'Orso,[63] an Italian female vocalist. Alongside vocals, the song features musical instruments such as the piano, drums, and full orchestra, with the opening solo by the English horn.[63] The song is played in the film when the character Tuco is ecstatically searching for gold, hence the song's name, "The Ecstasy of Gold".[64] Within popular culture, the song has been utilized by such artists as Metallica, who have used the song to open up their live shows and have even covered the song. Other bands such as the Ramones have featured the song in their albums and live shows. The song has also been sampled within the genre of Hip Hop, most notably by rappers such as Immortal Technique and Jay-Z. The Ecstasy of Gold has also been used ceremoniously by the Los Angeles Football Club to open home games.[64]

The main theme, also titled "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", was a hit in 1968 with the soundtrack album on the charts for more than a year,[62] reaching No. 4 on the Billboard pop album chart and No. 10 on the black album chart.[65] The main theme was also a hit for Hugo Montenegro, whose rendition was a No. 2 Billboard pop single in 1968.[66]

In popular culture, the American new wave group Wall of Voodoo performed a medley of Ennio Morricone's movie themes, including the theme for this movie. The only known recording of it is a live performance on The Index Masters. Punk rock band the Ramones played this song as the opening for their live album Loco Live as well as in concerts until their disbandment in 1996. The British heavy metal band Motörhead played the main theme as the overture music on the 1981 "No sleep 'til Hammersmith" tour. American heavy metal band Metallica has run "The Ecstasy of Gold" as prelude music at their concerts since 1985 (except 1996–1998), and in 2007 recorded a version of the instrumental for a compilation tribute to Morricone.[67] XM Satellite Radio's The Opie & Anthony Show also opens every show with "The Ecstasy of Gold". The American punk rock band The Vandals' song "Urban Struggle" begins with the main theme. British electronica act Bomb the Bass used the main theme as one of several samples on their 1988 single "Beat Dis", and used sections of dialogue from Tuco's hanging on "Throughout The Entire World", the opening track from their 1991 album Unknown Territory. This dialogue along with some of the mule dialogue from Fistful of Dollars was also sampled by Big Audio Dynamite on their 1986 single Medicine Show. The main theme was also sampled/re-created by British band New Order for the album version of their 1993 single "Ruined in a Day". A song from the band Gorillaz is named "Clint Eastwood", and features references to the actor, along with a repeated sample of the theme song; the iconic yell featured in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly's score is heard at the beginning of the music video.[68]