THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (1967) **1/2 Aw, what would the wild west have been without flies and full-screen face shots? A bunch of bad people, including Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef, keep telling Clint Eastwood that he's blond and calling him "blondie." Just when Wallach is going to shoot him in the desert a stagecoach full of dead Confederate soldiers rides up and one of them is throwing around secrets about buried treasure. It goes on but some of the gallows humour is very funny and the three principals deliver the best of their lines with a dryness that matches the environmental milieu. Eastwood delivers best, but his face gestures are no better than second to Wallach. There's actually a very powerful anti-war statement that concludes somewhere around when Wallach says "Then the idiots will have to go fight someplace else." Many memorable lines including "There are two kinds of people. People with loaded guns, and people who dig." The comedic musical accompaniment of gratuitously brutal scenes laid the ground work for even more stylistic execution in Goodfellas. Ennio Morricone's musical theme complements the Sergio Leone feel perfectly and is well known, but take a close listen when the Mexican horns get going.
back to Brilliant Observations on 1776 Films home
go back home, or send me email
no more reviews! I want to buy your novel!