The Good, The Bad and The Ugly:
From Spaghetti to Brilliance

by Jules Varwig

Most westerns prior to GB&U were "in your face" morality plays and the directors were clear in what lessons you were to take home from the theater. John Wayne was the "good guy" because the director said he was and because he got a pained expression on his face while killing legions of Indians. Next week he would be killing Orientals 100 years later but still be in the Army and still looking pained over the whole ordeal. He was an efficient warrior extending the power of his Empire to those who didn’t appreciate it – but his heart was in the right place and that made it all right. On the other hand– and the brilliance of GB&U resides here – Leone wrings moral conclusions from morally ambiguous characters and situations entirely rooted in the reality of how humans behave. Not only this – but enclosed within the film is a scathing indictment of the State and those who support it. It is an essential film for anyone interested in Liberty and the personal pursuit of it.

The movie opens with a lengthy introduction to the principal players. The first character we meet is Tuco, the "Ugly" of the title. Such labels may or may not mean much in this movie, as we shall find out. "Tuco" is most wondrously played by Eli Wallach. Three men ambush Tuco while he is eating and we learn that he is a tough hombre. He makes quick work of at least two of the three and makes good his escape.

"Angel Eyes", played by the sinister Lee van Cleef, is the next of our cast. He is a contract killer astride a horse and though he may abide by the letter of his contracts, we learn he certainly doesn’t let the spirit of them trouble him. He has been hired to find out some information concerning gold stolen from a government payroll and to kill the man possessing the information to boot. Before he kills that man, the unfortunate victim pays him to kill his original employer. Angel Eyes sees opportunity for more profit and fulfills that contract as well. Leone labels him "the Bad".

Finally we meet Clint Eastwood, playing a derivative of his "Man with No Name" character, but called "Blondie" in this movie. Tuco is back in the picture and also in the picture on a poster offering a reward for his capture. Blondie takes possession of Tuco from several fellows who have captured him. The next thing we know, Tuco has a rope around his neck and a rather amazing list of crimes is being read by the local magistrate. Tuco seems an ambitious sort of desperado, judging by this reiteration of his career. As the authorities prepare to carry out Tuco’s sentence, Blondie – who has been watching the proceedings – cuts the rope around his neck with a rifle bullet and both men escape into the desert to evenly split the price the State had put upon Tuco’s head. Another town and the duo run the same scam at the expense of the locals – but this time with a twist. After escaping, Blondie tells Tuco that he doesn’t think Tuco will ever be worth a much higher price and, "Our partnership is untied...Oh no....You remain tied....I’ll take the money– and you can have the rope." Leone tells us Blondie is "the Good".

Much of the first half of the film is taken up with the relationship that develops between Tuco and Blondie. Tuco makes his way to a town after being abandoned by Blondie and robs a shopkeeper to re-outfit himself with a gun and some walking around money. Tuco may be a disreputable thief but in addition to the inner steel he has already demonstrated, he has a somewhat justified sense of when he has been wronged. He finds Blondie and attempts to exact his revenge by hanging his former partner but an errant cannon shell of a nearby Civil War battle disrupts the proceedings. Blondie escapes but Tuco perseveres in his quest for revenge. Though Tuco captures Blondie again and has every intention of killing him, they find themselves unlikely partners when each of them are made privy to a part of the stolen gold puzzle mentioned at the beginning of the film.

From here we reach the meat and potatoes of the movie. Throughout, the State is exposed as either unable to control the strong willed and capable principals or is shown as a willing mass murderer when it suits its own interests.

During the quest for the treasure, Blondie and Tuco find themselves in a Federal POW camp where Angel Eyes has a cushy job as a guard. The commandant of the camp appears to be concerned for the prisoners under his care but is entirely ineffectual at preventing Angel Eyes from brutally looting them. Angel Eyes, though nominally a minor bureaucrat, wields tremendous authority by virtue of his willingness to be "bad" in his own interests. He uses the collective authority of the State when it pleases him and disregards any of the intentions of that authority when it doesn’t suit him. By wearing the uniform of the government and accepting the authority that entails, he makes himself complicit in the truly evil activities of the State shown in later scenes.

Tuco is referred to as an "idiot" a couple times during the movie – once when he and Blondie have donned government uniforms themselves – and if he isn’t exactly stupid, he is failing to realize that there is a war being waged within himself. Though possessed of strength, skill and a sense of justice; he insists on ignoring justice when it suits him and employing his strengths to exploit those not so well equipped. Angel Eyes beats Tuco’s part of the gold secret from him but makes Blondie a nominal partner – "Not because you’re any tougher than Tuco – but because you’re smarter."

Blondie is somewhat of an enigma in this Leone constructed world. He is the "good guy" but there must be a battle going on inside him also– though not to the extent of Tuco’s internal strife. Blondie doesn’t seem to have too much trouble double crossing Tuco earlier in the movie and just as quickly seems to abandon him when offered the opportunity to buddy up with Angel Eyes. But has he really abandoned Tuco to Angel Eyes’ tender ministrations in the prison camp or has he recognized he needs to get out of the realm of State authority to pursue his and Tuco’s common interests? Blondie is aware of the State and its implications; has exploited the State’s claimed authority to his own interests though not to the exclusion of other’s interests as has Angel Eyes; but has ever operated outside the boundaries of the beast itself. Blondie allows Angel Eyes, the embodiment of State, to make no claims on him.

Meanwhile, Tuco has escaped the Federal guards. Blondie and Angel Eyes don’t remain partners for long. Blondie and Tuco meet again, eliminate Angel Eyes’ gang– though not Angel Eyes himself who leaves a note calling them idiots (Blondie claims the note is for Tuco)– and take up their own previous partnership in search of the gold.

In one of the most powerful vignettes in this epic, Blondie and Tuco find their way to the hiding place of the treasure blocked by two armies locked in battle over a meaningless bridge. Within the Federal camp, they meet the commander of the Union Army. A man who realizes the futility of the ongoing battle and is heartsick over his perceived duty to send more and more soldiers to slaughter everyday, the Union officer has sought solace in a bottle. The two outsiders in his camp allow him to air his misgivings. He has them drink with him. Only numbing the senses allows one to accept the evils of war. The Captain tells Tuco and Blondie that he has dreamed of destroying the bridge so that no more men should die on it.

He says, "To even think of destroying that bridge is a crime. I have dreamed of it and even have a plan – it must be destroyed right after a battle when a truce is declared to retrieve the wounded – but I lack something. I lack the guts."

The Captain knows the difference between moral courage and physical courage and realizes he lacks the former. He thinks he recognizes such courage in Blondie but he informs Tuco that he has a career as a Colonel awaiting him.

Another fight looms and Tuco and Blondie watch from above as the two armies turn the disputed bridge into an abattoir. Blondie especially contemplates the ramifications of the situation and says, "I have never seen so many men wasted so badly." The Captain demonstrates that moral courage and physical courage are indeed two separate things and is mortally wounded leading his men into battle on the bridge. Blondie and Tuco have decided to blow up the bridge so that – as the always pragmatic Tuco says – "The two armies will go somewhere else to fight."

Blondie whispers to the stricken Captain, "Keep your ears open..."

Once again, he has realized – and we do also if we think about it – that his interests and those of others may coincide and be fulfilled to mutual satisfaction independent of the coercion of others.

As the Captain demands his surgeon keep him alive, "...just a little while longer...I’m expecting good news" Tuco and Blondie set explosives beneath the bridge and succeed in blowing it up.

The armies are gone the next morning – seeking something new and equally worthless to fight over – and Blondie finds a wounded soldier abandoned by his departing comrades. He shows some true compassion for the first time in the movie, giving the dying soldier a drag from his cigar and covering him with his coat. Something has been settled within Blondie.

The gold is hidden in a vast cemetery of war dead. Buried in a grave – a grave which only Blondie knows the identity of – the money’s legitimate ownership is with the dead it was stolen from. Angel Eyes makes his reappearance and demands that Blondie and Tuco dig up the gold but Blondie will allow no illegitimate claims on himself or on the gold after his epiphany at the bridge.

He tells the other two men, " That’s a lot of money. We’re going to have to earn it."

Blondie stages the climactic showdown by writing the name of the grave that contains the gold on a rock, over which the three men will duel. Blondie kills Angel Eyes in an incredibly well directed gunfight scene. Tuco is no threat – unknown to him, Blondie unloaded his gun the night before. Neither is there actually a name on the stone placed in the middle of the field of honor. The stone is unmarked and so is the grave that contains the gold. Even had Angel Eyes won the duel, Blondie had determined there was no way that Angel Eyes could legitimately claim the gold. Angel Eyes was a minion of the State that had stolen the gold in the first place and was the "Bad" in absolute terms. His death laid waste to such illegitimate claims.

Tuco was in an ugly struggle between the better and worse parts of his nature. He had earned his label but had done nothing to grow in principle and earn the prize. Still, Blondie realizes that Tuco isn’t the absolute evil that Angel Eyes was.

There is also a matter to be settled between Blondie and Tuco. Blondie did indeed do earlier injustice to Tuco and atonement must be had for Blondie’s sake. He ties Tuco with a rope around his neck but leaves half the money and rides off over a hill only to reappear and again employ his incredible marksmanship skills to cut the rope. The debt he owed himself and Tuco has been settled though Tuco was as dependent on the machinations of others – despite his own considerable abilities – as he had been at the beginning.

Blondie was more worthy of his "Good" title by the end of the movie. Moral courage that was undoubtedly within him the whole time eventually led him to discover principles worthy of that courage. Never compromising with the State or employing its authority on his own behalf left him untainted by the soul decay that characterized Angel Eyes. Discovering that his interests could be satisfied at no one else’s expense allowed him to avoid the pitfall of parasitism that Tuco found himself in.

And oh yeah....they do a lot of cool gunfights too.

March 11, 2002

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