The Good, the Bad and The Ugly (1966)

This is pretty much the classic spaghetti western - ignoring Once Upon A Time in the West which doesn't quite count by virtue of being so atypical. The Good (Clint Eastwood) and The Ugly (Eli Wallach) each find out half the details of the location of a stash of stolen confederate gold, and spend the next two hours (the first hour is largely spent establishing the characters with only marginal reference to the actual plot) traipsing across civil war America with a view to claiming the gold for themselves. The Bad (Lee Van Cleef) also has some of the details, and manages to beat some more of the details out of The Ugly, and so is also in on the act.

If there's one real criticism of the film, it's that The Bad has a fairly minor role in it, which is a shame given that Lee Van Cleef is pretty much the perfect actor for the Spaghetti Western (and is the reason that I marginally prefer For A Few Dollars More, even if it's objectively not quite as good). However, on the whole it accomplishes everything it sets out to do: it's a slightly silly adventure story about gold and double-crossing combined with a surprisingly bleak depiction of the civil war backdrop. The last 20 minutes or so, from the moment they enter the graveyard onwards, are pretty much flawless, and the 5 minutes of the three characters staring at each other for the final gunfight (it's 5 minutes because that's how long the accompanying music is) are a wonderful reminder of just how far Leone's westerns are prepared to go.

I do have a slight issue with the extended version, which is unfortunately the one that appears on most DVDs. It adds in a few deleted scenes which range from bad (Tuco's chicken scene) to slightly pointless (most of the others). The only one that I think adds anything to the film really is The Bad's visit to a beaten-down confederate outpost, which at least adds a bit more of Lee Van Cleef at a time when he's slightly lacking. However, my main issue with these scenes is the dialogue, which doesn't really have the tone of the rest of the film, especially relating to the civil war where it breaks the "show; don't tell" approach that the rest of the film doesn't quite well.