SERGIO LEONE’S CLASSIC 1966 SPAGHETTI WESTERN MAKES A WELCOME RETURN TO THE BIG SCREEN IN A FULLY RESTORED AND EXTENDED VERSION.
The final instalment in the phenomenally successful ‘Dollars’ trilogy starring Clint Eastwood as the taciturn, super-cool Man with No Name, ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ revealed the growing ambition and complexity of Leone’s cinema. Providing a panoramic view of the American West during the Civil War, this epic movie has a labyrinthine plot that interweaves the stories of three drifters—Eastwood’s bounty hunter (‘he Good’), Lee van Cleef’s evil killer (‘the Bad’) and Eli Wallach’s wild Mexican rapscallion (‘the Ugly’)—as they compete to find a fortune hidden in an unmarked war grave. Each of the desperadoes knows part of the secret to accessing the treasure, and each is willing to employ any trick to gain the upper hand as they travel through a surreal landscape ravaged by the Civil War.
Leone’s film is a foreigner’s dream of the West, filmed on Spanish locations with an international cast and featuring grandiloquent pastiches of Leone’s favourite moments from American westerns. The director’s uniquely impassioned Italian sensibilities turn the American West into a dream-like terrain of ghost towns, cathartic shootouts and wide vistas that alternate with jarring zooms and enormous close-ups. Leone’s unbridled cinematic flamboyance combines with Ennio Morricone’s powerful and imaginative music to create what critic Michael Wilmington described as ‘a mix of Verdi and Ford, ‘Tosca’ and ‘High Noon’.’ As this new print demonstrates, the screen, however large, can barely contain the epic assemblage of invention, wit and style.
To celebrate the re-release of ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’, we’re also screening new prints of ‘A Fistful of Dollars’ and ‘For a Few Dollars More’.