Starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach, Aldo Giuffre, Luigi Pistilli
Directed by Sergio Leone
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
During the Civil War, three violent men make their way across the battle lines in search of a hidden fortune in gold, leading to an inevitable showdown.
Leone's third and last film in the trilogy featuring Eastwood as "The Man With No Name," the picture is one of the great westerns, with great visuals featuring panning and intercutting closeups that have become a trademark, as well as Ennio Morricone's iconic musical score. Like some others, I do find the film at nearly three hours to be a little lengthier than it had to be, but was never bored, with the action on the screen, the excellent production values, and Leone's first-rate visual storytelling more than compensating. This film and its predecessors in the series established the persona Eastwood probably is still best known for, and he's perfect as the bounty hunter who helps his prey escape execution so he can collect additional reward money. Van Cleef is fine in another villainous and sadistic role in which he always fulfills a contract even those paid by his victims. Wallach's profane and revenge-minded criminal gets the bulk of the film's dialogue and screen time, and seems to revel in his character's degradations. This is a very violent film and from reading Wikipedia, was controversially so at its time, although there's not a great deal of blood spilled on screen. Regardless, it's a classic and a triumph for Leone and all involved.
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