Clint Eastwood is the Good in classic Sergio Leone operatic oater
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (Sergio Leone, 1966)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
June 9, 10, 12, 21
Series runs through June 21
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
One of the all-time-great spaghetti Westerns, Sergio Leone’s dusty three-hour operatic oater stars Clint Eastwood as the Good (Blondie), Lee Van Cleef as the Bad (Angel Eyes), and Eli Wallach as the Ugly (Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez, whose list of criminal offenses is a riot), three unique individuals after $200,000 in Confederate gold buried in a cemetery in the middle of nowhere. Nearly 20 minutes of never-before-seen footage added to the film several years ago, with Wallach and Eastwood overdubbing brand-new dialogue, so if you haven’t seen it in a while, it might just be time to catch it again, this time on the big screen as part of Film Forum’s impressive “Spaghetti Westerns” series. Ennio Morricone’s unforgettable score and Torino delli Colli’s gorgeous widescreen cinematography were also marvelously enhanced; their work in the scene when Tuco first comes upon the graveyard will make you dizzy with delight. And then comes one of the greatest finales in cinema history. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is screening at Film Forum on June 9, 10, 12, and 21, with the series continuing with such well-known classics and under-the-radar gems as Damiano Damiani’s A Bullet for the General, Giulio Petroni’s Death Rides a Horse, Monte Hellman’s China 9, Liberty 37, and Giulio Questi’s Django Kill . . . If You Live, Shoot!