The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

I’m sure a lot of you have enjoyed the 1966 classic Western “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach. This movie is seen as one of the greatest and most influential Westerns of all time and was a clear childhood favorite of mine. Clint Eastwood played the role of “Blondie” (a.k.a. the Man with No Name). He had confidence, power, poise, style(somewhat raw), also pity he showed to a dying soldier by laying his coat over him and letting him smoke his cigar. He was the Good” in the movie. Lee Van Cleef as Angel Eyes was the “Bad”, a cold, ruthless, unfeeling, and sociopathic mercenary who always finishes a job he is paid for(finding and killing people). Eli Wallach was Tuco, the “Ugly”, a comical, oafish but cagey and resilient, fast-talking Mexican bandit wanted by the authorities.

The lead characters were apt for their roles I thought at the time as I wanted to see more of the Good, less of the Bad and definitely not much of the Ugly. But the movie was so successful due to the three distinct characters. We enjoyed how the characters appeared for the first time (introduction), how they came to be (exploration) and how they dealt with each other (interaction). If any of them were missing that would have taken away the essence of the film and made it less enjoyable. The re-surfacing of the characters at various times and how they interacted made it…