(1966) The final episode in Sergio Leone's western triptych of the kind, the cruel and the funny - a bathetic ballet to Ennio Morricone's unmistakable soundtrack. Everybody's tough and hard-bitten; there are few women; the towns are often all-but-empty and gritty with dust in the wind. Late in the Civil War Union troops fight Confederate forces near Santa Fe in the New Mexico territory: while the cannonballs fly and the soldiers clash and die, three anarchists whose only motive is money take advantage of the chaos of conflict.

Are these nihilists supposed to be the same characters from the earlier films? The bad: bounty killer Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef), in the pay of Baker, visits a man to extract a name (William Carson, formerly Jackson, along with mention of a cash box), while at the same time accepting a thousand dollars to kill Baker (which he does later after delivering the name) before killing the man and his older son in self-defense: "When I'm paid, I always follow through."

The ugly: gregarious gunslinger Tuco Ramirez (Eli Wallach), who's guilty of just about every crime from murder and rape to robbery and bigamy, gets caught (reward paid) and turned over to the authorities to be hanged repeatedly, each time rescued by a bullet slicing through the rope at the last moment.

The good (but not particularly scrupulous) with a rifle: Blondie (Clint Eastwood), a man of few words and many stogies, is Tuco's partner until he nearly misses the rope (second shot frees Tuco), severing their relationship, leaving Tuco to walk 70 miles through the desert to the next town.

Later Tuco turns the tables on Blondie, forcing his former associate to walk through the desert, nearly killing him, while he rides with plenty of water and a pink umbrella. They come upon a wagon with dead rebels, except for a dying Bill Carson, who begins to tell Tuco of $200,000 in gold coins in the Sad Hill Cemetery in exchange for some water; but when Tuco goes for a canteen, Bill dies, having passed along the name of the grave where the Confederate government's treasure's buried to Blondie.

Having a change of heart toward Blondie, Tuco delivers his "friend," both garbed in Confederate gray, to a monastery converted into a temporary hospital for wounded soldiers, where his brother Father Pablo is in charge. Recovered from his ordeal through the desert, Blondie with Tuco head off to find the treasure only to get captured by Yankees and taken to a fortress where Angel Eyes has become a sergeant with his brutal henchman Cpl Wallace, who unmercifully beats (a nasty scene not to be seen by the squeamish) the information about the gold out Tuco, who nevertheless will recover quickly and fully. Angel Eyes says to Blondie, "You've changed partners, but you've got the same deal."

On a train ride with Wallace and Tuco chained together, the ugly evildoer again gets free and revenge (another nasty scene not to be seen by the squeamish). In a town wrecked by the warfare, Tuco, while taking a bubble bath, faces an intruder (the first face on the screen at the opening of the movie) intent on revenge for the loss of his right arm, explaining how he has spent eight months learning how to wield a gun in his left hand, and blasts him: "When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk."

Loyalties shift again, with Tuco and Blondie back together against Angel Eyes and his handful of ruffians, followed by a tour of the Union position on one side of a river with a captain who speaks of the futility of defending a bridge. While their motive in blowing up the bridge is for their own advantage in getting to the cemetery, the deed also serves the captain's wish for an end to the fighting.

Only near the end (after nearly three hours) does Blondie appear with his serape and his best line: "There are two kinds of people - those with loaded guns and those who dig." Memorable ending.

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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