THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (IL BUONO, IL BRUTTO, IL CATTIVO), 1966, Park Circus/MGM, 161 min. Dir. Sergio Leone. From the opening whistle-and-whipcrack theme to the final images of a vast cemetery stretching almost to infinity, THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY is surely one of the bloodiest, funniest and most wickedly entertaining portraits of human corruption ever made. Leone’s surreal masterpiece of the American West during the last days of the Civil War follows a trio of equally violent and unrepentant gunslingers (Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef) who engage in a jaw-dropping series of double and triple crosses to get their hands on a fortune in stolen Confederate gold.