In a feature here on “Random thoughts of 210Darryl” started a few weeks ago I’m listing my favorite movies in a few different genres. We started with my top five favorite comedy movies and counted up toward my favorite, Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Now we’re taking a look at my five favorite westerns, and at #4 we had The Magnificent Seven. This week Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly comes in at #3.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is the third film in the “Man with No Name Trilogy”, with A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More being the first two to be released. The events in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly take place before what happens in the other two movies, making the last movie in the series really the first movie. In my opinion, it’s the best of the three by a good margin.
The one thing that detracts from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and most other Spaghetti Western is the voice dubbing is pretty bad. The actors all performed in their native languages and then has voices dubbed to match the language of the country the film was released in. Getting by the bad dubbing was easy for me, but I could see how it could turn others off from the movie.
One of the things I like about the movie is for the first ten minutes or so there is no dialogue. It really does set the tone for the entire movie. Leone does a masterful job of filmmaking in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and it really is one of the best westerns out there.
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
Directed by Sergio Leone
Produced by Alberto Grimaldi
Screenplay by Age & Scarpelli, Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Leone, Sergio Donati (uncredited)
English Version by Mickey Knox
Story by Luciano Vincenzoni & Sergio Leone
Starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Aldo Giuffre, Mario Brega, and Eli Wallach
Music by Ennio Morricone
Cinematography by Tonino Delli Colli
Edited by Eugenio Alabiso and Nino Baragli
Release date December, 15 1966 (Italy)
Running time 177 minutes
Budget $1.2 million
Box office $25.1 million
Random thoughts of 210Darryl 
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