The March of Time is an American radio news series broadcast from 1931 to 1945, and a companion newsreel series shown in movie theaters from 1935 to 1951. Created by broadcasting pioneer Fred Smith and Time magazine executive Roy E. Larsen, the program combined actual news events with reenactments. The "voice" of The March of Time was Westbrook Van Voorhis. The radio program was later developed into a newsreel series produced and written by Louis de Rochemont and his brother Richard de Rochemont. The March of Time was recognized with an Academy Honorary Award in 1937.

The March of Time organization also produced four feature films for theatrical release, and created documentary series for early television. Its first TV series, Crusade in Europe (1949), received a Peabody Award and one of the first Emmy Awards.

Radio series[link]

The March of Time had its origins in a 1928 radio series developed at WLW in Cincinnati, Ohio, by radio pioneer Fred Smith, who obtained permission to use material from Time magazine in his broadcasts. Later, Smith and Roy E. Larsen, the first circulation manager for Time, developed Time magazine's own radio program, which they called Newscasting. That program evolved into The March of Time, the first network presentation of a dramatized "news" format. At Smith's suggestion, the program included the "10 best radio actors," an "announcer extraordinary," a "splendid orchestra" and a "clever director."^[2]

"The March of Time was the first radio newsreel," wrote radio historian John Dunning, "dramatized news events, elaborately staged with sound effects and music, put together like a newspaper — often on deadline, with impact and accuracy its twin goals."^[1]:435

The March of Time began airing as a weekly series March 6, 1931, on CBS Radio. The half-hour program aired Fridays at 8:30 p.m. ET. In 1935 the program was trimmed to 15 minutes and aired five times a week,^[3] but after a year returned to its 30-minute weekly format. Suspended in 1939, the series was revived in 1941 with a new format, and lasted until 1945.^[4]:19

Time Inc. was the only sponsor of all of the shows; other sponsors included Remington Rand, the Wrigley Company and Electrolux. The March of Time aired on CBS through October 7, 1937, and was subsequently broadcast on the Blue Network (October 14, 1937–June 5, 1942), NBC (July 9, 1942–October 26, 1944), and ABC (November 2, 1944–July 26, 1945).^[5]

One of radio's most popular programs, The March of Time was described by Variety as "the apex of radio showmanship." It reached millions of Americans during its 14-year history. The series's promotional value to Time Inc. proved to be incalculable, although Time had announced that it would discontinue the program after the first year.^[4]:18–19 It was an expensive production requiring as many as 75 staff and 1,000 hours of labor to get each issue on the air.^[4]:12–13

The full studio orchestra was conducted by Howard Barlow (CBS) and Donald Voorhees (NBC). The sound effects team was led by Ora Daigle Nichols, the only woman who made a living as a sound engineer that time. She and her husband Arthur started the business of sound effects for radio, drawing on many successful years of stage and silent film experience. They began to freelance their talents to radio in 1928, and were put under contract by CBS as the demand for sound effects increased. After her husband's death in 1931, Nichols continued to lead the profession and was called the "first lady of sound effects." The media voted Nichols one of the most influential women in radio; other women honored included Amelia Earhart, Eleanor Roosevelt and Kate Smith.^[6]

The March of Time broadcasts began with the tramp-tramp-tramp of shuffling feet, to indicate "the relentless impersonal progress of events." The principal narrator was the Voice of Time; another was the Voice of Fate, narrating stories of catastrophe or the death of a notable person. The first Voice of Time was Ted Husing; Westbrook Van Voorhis was the Voice of Fate. In fall 1931 Harry von Zell began a brief tenure as Time, but in October 1933 Van Voorhis moved into the lead role. His voice — concluding most broadcasts with a booming, "Time … marches on!" — became synonymous with the program, both on radio and in the newsreel series.^{[1]:436–437}

Written to match the style of Time magazine, radio scripts incorporated transcripts of statements and comments by the figures impersonated on The March of Time whenever possible. When these could not be obtained, writers were allowed to "re-create" appropriate dialogue. Actors researched and rehearsed with great care to mimic the precise voice patterns and characteristics of the people they were impersonating. March of Time creator Roy E. Larsen recalled that only one person, Franklin D. Roosevelt, ever complained about their treatment on the program. The President was annoyed because he was getting calls from political advisors regarding statements spoken on The March of Time that he had not uttered, even though they matched his policies. White House complaints continued until 1937, when The March of Time stopped imitating FDR altogether.^[4]:14–15

"From the beginning it was known that The March of Time would face the stiffest production challenges that radio had yet known," wrote John Dunning:

When a big story broke at the last minute, a polished ready-to-air show was reorganized: the entire menu was shifted as events demanded. Newspapers are accustomed to this … but in radio, a new breed of actor had come to the fore, players who could deliver superb performances from scripts they had never seen before going live on the air. Sight reading, they called it: reading always two lines ahead and acting the lines they had already read. Actors, sound artists, and musicians worked feverishly to accommodate the bulletins from Time's reporters in the field.^[1]:436

Seven or eight sketches were featured in each show, varying in length from 90 seconds to four minutes. Newspapers were sometimes scooped by the radio docudrama. On May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg disaster took place two hours before air time, and The March of Time created a segment that focused on the history of airship travel and ended with the news of the disaster in Lakehurst, New Jersey.^[1]:436 Herbert Morrison's recorded radio eyewitness report from the landing field was not broadcast until the next day.

Cast[link]

Unless noted, information is drawn from John Dunning's On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio (1998).^{[1]:434–435}

Broadcast history[link]

Unless noted, broadcast information for The March of Time is drawn from John Dunning's On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio (1998).^[1]:434

• 1931–1935: CBS, March 6, 1931–April 26, 1935, 30 minutes. Fridays at 10:30 p.m. ET March 6, 1931–June 1931; Fridays at 8 p.m. July 1931 – 1933; Fridays at 8:30 p.m. 1933–1934; Fridays at 9 p.m. 1934–1935.
• 1935–1936: CBS, August 26, 1935–September 25, 1936, 15 minutes. Weeknights at 10:30 p.m. ET.
• 1936–1937: CBS, October 15, 1936–October 7, 1937, 30 minutes. Thursdays at 10:30 p.m ET.
• 1937–1939: Blue Network, October 14, 1937–April 28, 1939, 30 minutes. Thursdays at 8:30 p.m. ET October 14, 1938–January 1938; Thursdays at 8 p.m. January–July 1938; Fridays at 9:30 p.m. July 8, 1938^[9]–April 28, 1939.
• 1941–1942: Blue Network, October 9, 1941–June 5, 1942, 30 minutes. Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET October 9, 1941–February 1942; subsequently Fridays at 9:30 p.m. or 9 p.m.
• 1942–1944: NBC, July 9, 1942–October 26, 1944, 30 minutes. Thursdays at 10:30 p.m. ET.
• 1944–1945: ABC, November 2, 1944–July 26, 1945, 30 minutes. Thursdays at 10:30 p.m. ET.

Reviews and commentary[link]

• Orson Welles, This is Orson Welles — It was a marvelous show to do. Great fun, because, half an hour after something happened, we'd be acting it out with music and sound effects and actors. It was a super show — terribly entertaining. … I began as an occasional performer, because they had a regular stock company, and then I was finally let in — one of the inner circle. And then I had the greatest thrill of my life — I don't know why it thrilled me (it does still, to think of it now), I guess because I thought March of Time was such a great thing to be on. One day they did as a news item on March of Time the opening of my production of the black Macbeth, and I played myself on it. And that to me was the apotheosis of my career — that I was on March of Time acting and as a news item. I've never felt since that I've had it made as much as I did that one afternoon.^[8]:74
• John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio — And like any good newspaper, it was damned left and right. Real newsmen condemned it for hamming up the news. Communists called it fascistic. William Randolph Hearst labeled it Communistic propaganda and forbade mention of it in the pages of his newspapers. It was banned in Germany, It even ran afoul of Roosevelt, who asked and later demanded that it stop impersonating him, because the actors were so good they were diminishing the impact of his Fireside Chats. It was accused of being pompous, pretentious, melodramatic, and bombastic. But it was never dull. In the mid-1930s, Time had Hooper numbers in the 25 point range.^[1]:436

Awards and recognition[link]

The March of Time was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1990.^[10]

Newsreel series[link]

The companion newsreel series to the March of Time radio broadcast was launched February 1, 1935, in over 500 theaters. Each entry in the series was either a two- or three-reel film (20 or 30 minutes). Westbrook Van Voorhis, who hosted the radio program, served as narrator of the film series. The series, which finally totalled close to 200 segments, was an immediate success with audiences. However, because of its high production costs—estimated at $50,000 per episode, released at the rate of about one episode per month—the series was a money loser. However, it remained in production for six years beyond the cancellation of the radio show on which it was based.

Like its radio namesake, The March of Time included reporting, on-location shots, and dramatic reenactments.

"Implicit in all March of Time issues was a kind of uncomplicated American liberalism — general good intentions, a healthy journalistic skepticism, faith in enlightened self-interest, and substantial pride in American progress and potential," wrote March of Time chronicler Raymond Fielding:

The men who made the March of Time were not political theorists they were journalists. For them, fascism, communism, and native demagogues seemed foreign to the American ethic, and they exposed and attacked them accordingly. … A cinematic agent provocateur, the March of Time turned over a lot of rocks, both at home and abroad, and illuminated the creatures it found beneath them. The demagogues and quacks whom they attacked in the 1930s may seem like obvious targets now, but they didn't seem so then. They were popular, powerful, frightening people, and the March of Time stood entirely alone in theatrical motion picture circles as a muckraker.^[4]:87

The March of Time newsreel series ended in 1951, when the widespread adoption of television and daily TV news shows made the newsreel format obsolete. Other newsreel series such as Pathé News (1910–1956), Paramount News (1927–1957), Fox Movietone News (1928–1963), Hearst Metrotone News/News of the Day (1914–1967), and Universal Newsreel (1929–1967) continued for a while longer.

Episodes[link]

Unless noted, sources for episode information are The March of Time, 1935–1951 by Raymond Fielding,^{[4]:335–342} and the HBO Archive's summary of The March of Time Newsreels.^[11]

Reviews and commentary[link]

• Alistair Cooke, The Listener (November 20, 1935) — The March of Time is not the result of bright inspiration. Behind it is ten years' experience with a magazine of the same style; an army of correspondents and cameramen scattered throughout the world; an historical film library it took two years to prepare; a newspaper cutting library as exhaustive as anything extant; and in New York and Chicago a vast research staff alert to trace the origins of any family, war, author, statesman, treaty, or breath or rumour. With no less than this should any other film company irresponsibly compete.^[4]:67
• Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times (September 2, 2010) — It's hard to know today even what to call these films. (Raymond Fielding, a retired college educator who wrote a book about the series, told me that roughly 290 were made.) '"Newsreels'" seems inadequate; they are longer, more detailed and much more opinionated than the standard-issue newsreels that preceded them. "Documentaries" is closer, but the blaring orchestrations and outlandish voice-overs sound nothing like a modern documentary. It's tempting to give up and label these whats-its a mass-media Neanderthal — an evolutionary dead end; an attempt to merge the tools of newsgathering and filmmaking that had its moment but died out. Except that, once you watch a few and learn about how they were made, you start to see a little March of Time in almost everything: Fox News, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, the History channel, schlocky reality shows of the I Shouldn't Be Alive variety, PBS's P.O.V.^[13]
• Tom Shales, The Washington Post (September 4, 2010) — Fascinating, enthralling, enlightening—many a superlative applies to these documentary shorts, which have gathered value with the march of time itself and have been rescued from the ravages of time by New York's Museum of Modern Art and the HBO Archive, corporate relative of the series's original creators. … It's something of an irony that The March of Time may be less famous today than a bull's-eye parody of it — a parody that millions have seen, many of them perhaps not even knowing that it is a parody or what it's lampooning. Does News on the March ring a bell? It's the title of the fake-out newsreel that begins the Orson Welles classic Citizen Kane, and it includes wily duplications of all the March of Time trademarks, including the white-on-black transitional title cards, the wall-to-wall musical score and the bombastic narration.^[14]

Awards and recognition[link]

• The March of Time received an honorary Academy Award in 1937 "for its significance to motion pictures and for having revolutionized one of the most important branches of the industry — the newsreel."^[15]

• The March of Time episode "Norway in Revolt" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) in 1941.^[16]

• "Prelude to Victory" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) in 1942.^[17]

• "Youth in Crisis" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) in 1943.^[17]

• "Atomic Power" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) in 1946.^[17]

• "A Chance to Live" received the Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) in 1949.^[17]

• "Inside Nazi Germany," a 1938 March of Time episode directed by Jack Glenn, was deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1993.^[18]

Films[link]

Four feature-length films were produced by The March of Time.^{[4]:343–347}

• The Ramparts We Watch (August 1940, 99 minutes)
• The Story of the Vatican (August 1941, 53 minutes)
• We Are the Marines (December 1942, 70 minutes)
• The Golden Twenties (April 1950, 67 minutes)

Television[link]

In 1949 The March of Time created the first extensive documentary series for television, Crusade in Europe, based on the book by Dwight D. Eisenhower. The ABC series received a Peabody Award and one of the first Emmy Awards (Best Public Service, Cultural or Educational Program).^[19] It was followed by Crusade in the Pacific (1951).^[4]:302

In 1965–1966, producer David L. Wolper revived the March of Time title for a series of documentary films produced in association with Time-Life, Inc.^[20] The series was not successful.^[4]:302

Legacy[link]

The March of Dimes, a fundraising organization that still exists, was named by Eddie Cantor in 1937 as a play on The March of Time. Because Franklin D. Roosevelt founded the March of Dimes, originally called the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, a dime was chosen to honor him after his death.^[21]

The March of Time series was satirized in Orson Welles's film Citizen Kane (1941) with the News on the March segment showing the life and funeral of the fictional Charles Foster Kane.

The Canadian documentary series The World in Action (1942–1945) was patterned after The March of Time newsreel series.^[22]

References[link]

External links[link]

• 75th Anniversary of The March of Time at Turner Classic Movies
• The March of Time at the National Radio Hall of Fame
• The March of Time as Documentary and Propaganda, American Studies Program at the University of Virginia
• Finding Aid (PDF), The March of Time (Radio Program), New York Public Library
• History
• The March of Time collection from Thought Equity Motion
• The March of Time Newsreels and Documentaries
• The March of Time at the Encyclopedia of American Journalism
• Jack Glenn papers (March of Time director) at the University of Wyoming - American Heritage Center

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Italian: Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo) is a 1966 Italian epic Spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach in the title roles.^[3] The screenplay was written by Age & Scarpelli, Luciano Vincenzoni and Leone, based on a story by Vincenzoni and Leone. Director of photography Tonino Delli Colli was responsible for the film's sweeping widescreen cinematography and Ennio Morricone composed the famous film score, including its main theme. It is the third film in the Dollars Trilogy following A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965). The plot revolves around three gunslingers competing to find a fortune in buried Confederate gold amid the violent chaos of gunfights, hangings, American Civil War battles and prison camps.^[4]

Plot[link]

In a desolate ghost town during the American Civil War, bandit Tuco Ramirez ("The Ugly," Eli Wallach) narrowly shoots his way past three bounty hunters to freedom, killing two but only badly wounding the third. Miles away, Angel Eyes ("The Bad," Lee Van Cleef) interrogates a former soldier called Stevens (Antonio Casas) about a missing man named Jackson who has taken on the name "Bill Carson" (Antonio Casale) and a cache of stolen Confederate gold. He brutally guns down Stevens and his eldest son after the interrogation, but not before Stevens pays Angel Eyes to kill Angel Eyes' employer, another former soldier named Baker. Angel Eyes later collects his fee for Stevens' killing from Baker, and then shoots and kills him, too.

Meanwhile, during Tuco's flight across the desert he runs into a group of bounty hunters who prepare to capture him when they are approached by Blondie ("The Good," Clint Eastwood), a mysterious lone gunman who challenges the hunters to the draw, which he wins with lightning speed. Initially elated, Tuco is enraged when Blondie delivers him up to the local authorities for the reward money of $2,000. Hours later, as Tuco awaits his execution, Blondie surprises the authorities and frees Tuco by shooting the execution rope; the two later meet to split the reward money, revealing their lucrative money-making scheme. After Tuco's bounty is raised to $3,000, the two repeat the process at another town before Blondie, weary of Tuco's incessant complaints about the dividing of the profits from their scheme, abandons him in the desert, keeping all of the money. A livid Tuco manages to make it to another town and rearm himself with a revolver. Some time later in another town, Tuco enlists three outlaws to come with him to kill Blondie. As the three men break into Blondie's room, Blondie shoots and kills all three of them, but to Blondie's surprise Tuco climbs up through his back window and aims his gun at Blondie and captures him while a skirmish between Union and Confederate troops rages on outside. As Tuco prepares to kill Blondie by fashioning a noose and forcing Blondie to put it around his neck, a cannonball hits the hotel and demolishes the room, allowing Blondie to escape.

Following a relentless search, Tuco captures Blondie using the same scheme with another partner (Tuco doesn't allow Blondie to shoot the rope this time and the unfortunate "Shorty" is hanged) and marches him across the harsh desert. When Blondie finally collapses from dehydration and heatstroke, Tuco prepares to kill him but pauses when a runaway ambulance carriage appears on the horizon heading their way. Inside, while looting the dead soldiers, Tuco discovers a dying Bill Carson, who reveals that $200,000 in stolen Confederate gold is buried in a grave in Sad Hill cemetery but falls unconscious before naming the grave. When Tuco returns with water, he discovers Carson dead and Blondie slumped against the carriage beside Carson's body. Before passing out, Blondie says that Carson told him the name on the grave, so now Tuco and Blondie know half of the secret of the location but neither can get the gold without the help of the other. Tuco takes Blondie (both disguised as Confederate soldiers) to a Catholic mission run by Tuco's older brother Father Pablo. Tuco nurses Blondie back to health, and the two leave, still disguised. They inadvertently encounter a force of Union soldiers (whom they take for Confederates due to thick coatings of grey dust on their uniforms). They are captured and marched to a Union prison camp.

At the camp, Corporal Wallace (Mario Brega) calls the roll. Tuco answers for Bill Carson, catching the attention of Angel Eyes, now disguised as a Union Sergeant stationed at the camp. Angel Eyes has Wallace viciously beat and torture Tuco into revealing Sad Hill Cemetery as the location of the gold, but Tuco also confesses that only Blondie knows the name on the grave. Convinced that Blondie would not be easily broken, Angel Eyes offers to take Tuco's place in the partnership to recover the gold. Blondie agrees and rides out with Angel Eyes and his posse. Meanwhile, Tuco escapes while being transported by train to his execution, killing Corporal Wallace in the process.

We next see Angel Eyes' gang, including Blondie, arriving in a town that's rapidly being evacuated due to heavy artillery fire. Tuco, wandering aimlessly through the wreckage of that same town, is oblivious of the bounty hunter that survived at the start of the movie (Al Mulock), who tracks and ambushes Tuco who is taking a bath in an abandoned building. Despite the surprise, Tuco shoots and kills the bounty hunter. Blondie investigates the gunshot, finding Tuco and informing him of Angel Eyes's involvement. The two resume their old partnership, stalking through the wrecked town and killing Angel Eyes' henchmen before discovering that Angel Eyes has escaped and left an insulting note for them.

Tuco and Blondie find their way to Sad Hill Cemetery, but it is blocked by large Union and Confederate forces who are separated only by a narrow bridge. Each side is preparing to fight for it, but apparently both sides have been ordered not to destroy the bridge. Reasoning that if the bridge were destroyed "these idiots would go somewhere else to fight", Blondie and Tuco wire the bridge with dynamite. During the process, the two trade information, Tuco revealing Sad Hill Cemetery as the gold's location and Blondie saying that the name on the grave is Arch Stanton. The two then take cover as the bridge blows up and the two armies resume their battle. The next morning, the Confederate and Union soldiers have gone. Tuco abandons Blondie (who has stopped to tend to a dying young Confederate soldier) to retrieve the gold for himself at the cemetery. Frantically searching the sea of makeshift tombstones and grave markers, Tuco finally locates Arch Stanton's grave. As he digs, Blondie appears (now clad in his trademark poncho) and tosses him a shovel. A second later, the two are surprised by Angel Eyes, who holds them at gunpoint. Blondie kicks open Stanton's grave to reveal just a skeleton. Declaring that only he knows the real name of the grave, Blondie writes it on a rock in the middle of the graveyard and tells Tuco and Angel Eyes that "two hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. We're going to have to earn it."

The three stare each other down in the circular center of the cemetery, calculating alliances and dangers in a Mexican standoff before suddenly drawing. Blondie shoots Angel Eyes, who tries to shoot Blondie while he is down only to be shot by Blondie again and roll into an open grave, dead. Tuco also tries to shoot Angel Eyes, but discovers that Blondie had unloaded his gun the night before. Blondie directs Tuco to the grave marked "Unknown" next to Arch Stanton's. Tuco digs and is overjoyed to find bags of gold inside, but is shocked when he turns to Blondie and finds himself staring at a noose. Seeking a measure of revenge for what Tuco has done to him, Blondie forces Tuco to stand atop a tottery grave marker and fixes the noose around his neck, binding Tuco's hands before riding off with his share of the gold. As Tuco screams for mercy, Blondie's silhouette returns on the horizon, aiming a rifle at him. Blondie fires a single shot and severs the noose rope, just like old times, dropping Tuco face-first onto his share of the gold. Blondie smiles and rides off as Tuco, who has his gold but no horse, curses him in rage by shouting "Hey Blondie! You know what you are? Just a dirty son of a bitch!"

Cast[link]

The trio[link]

• Clint Eastwood as "Blondie": The Good, a.k.a. the Man with No Name, a subdued, cocksure bounty hunter who teams with Tuco, and Angel Eyes temporarily, to find the buried gold. Blondie and Tuco have an ambivalent partnership. Tuco knows the name of the cemetery where the gold is hidden, but Blondie knows the name of the grave where it is buried, forcing them to work together to find the treasure. In spite of this greedy quest, Blondie's pity for the dying soldiers in the chaotic carnage of the War is evident. "I've never seen so many men wasted so badly," he remarks.

Rawhide had ended its run as a series in 1966 and at that point neither of Clint Eastwood's Italian films had been released in the United States. When Leone offered him a role in his next movie, it was the only big film offer he had; however, Eastwood still needed to be convinced to do it. Leone and his wife traveled to California to persuade him. Two days later, he agreed to make the film upon being paid $250,000^[5] and getting 10% of the profits from the North American markets—a deal with which Leone was not happy.

• Lee Van Cleef as Angel Eyes: The Bad, a ruthless, unfeeling, and sociopathic mercenary named "Angel Eyes" (Sentenza—Sentence—in the original script and the Italian version), who always finishes a job he's paid for (which is usually finding—and killing—people). When Blondie and Tuco are captured while posing as Confederate soldiers, Angel Eyes is the Union sergeant who interrogates and tortures Tuco, eventually learning the name of the cemetery where the gold is buried, but not the name on the tombstone. Angel Eyes forms a fleeting partnership with Blondie, but Tuco and Blondie turn on Angel Eyes when they get their chance.

Originally, Leone wanted Charles Bronson to play Angel Eyes but he was already committed to playing in The Dirty Dozen (1967). Leone thought about working with Lee Van Cleef again: "I said to myself that Van Cleef had first played a romantic character in For a Few Dollars More. The idea of getting him to play a character who was the opposite of that began to appeal to me."^[6]

• Eli Wallach as Tuco: The Ugly, Tuco Benedicto Pacífico Juan María Ramírez, a comical, oafish (though proven also very dangerous as seen throughout the film), fast talking bandit who is wanted by the authorities for a long list of crimes. Tuco manages to discover the name of the cemetery where the gold is buried, but he does not know the name of the grave—only Blondie does. This state of affairs forces Tuco to become reluctant partners with Blondie.

The director originally considered Gian Maria Volonté for the role of Tuco, but felt that the role required someone with "natural comic talent". In the end, Leone chose Eli Wallach based on his role in How the West Was Won (1962), in particular, his performance in "The Railroads" scene.^[6] In LA, Leone met Wallach, who was skeptical about playing this type of character again, but after Leone screened the opening credit sequence from For a Few Dollars More, Wallach said: "When do you want me?"^[6] The two men got along famously, sharing the same bizarre sense of humor. Leone allowed Wallach to make changes to his character in terms of his outfit and recurring gestures. Both Eastwood and Van Cleef realized that the character of Tuco was close to Leone's heart, and director and Wallach became good friends. They communicated in French, which Wallach spoke badly and Leone spoke well. Van Cleef observed, "Tuco is the only one of the trio the audience gets to know all about. We meet his brother and find out where he came from and why he became a bandit. But Clint's character and Angel's remain mysteries."^[6]

In the theatrical trailer, Angel Eyes is referred to as The Ugly and Tuco, The Bad.^[7] This is due to a translation error; the original Italian title translates literally to "The Good, the Ugly, the Bad".

Supporting cast[link]

• Aldo Giuffrè as the Union Captain: A drunken Union officer who befriends Tuco and Blondie. He feels that the bloody confrontation his men are involved in is a futile waste, and dreams of destroying the bridge—a wish carried out by Blondie and Tuco. Mortally wounded in the Battle of Branstone Bridge, he dies smiling just after hearing the bridge's destruction. Giuffré was an Italian comedian who had become an actor.
• Mario Brega as Corporal Wallace: A thuggish prison guard who works for Angel Eyes and brutally tortures Tuco to get him to reveal the hidden location of the treasure. Angel Eyes turns Tuco over to Wallace so that he can turn Tuco in for the reward money. Tuco, however, kills Wallace and escapes. A butcher turned actor, the imposing, heavyset Brega was a mainstay in Leone's films and Spaghetti Westerns in general.
• Luigi Pistilli as Father Pablo Ramirez: Tuco's brother, a Catholic friar. He holds Tuco in contempt for his choice of life as a bandit, but ultimately loves him. Pistilli was a veteran of many Spaghetti Westerns, usually playing a villain (as in Leone's For a Few Dollars More).
• Al Mulock as One-armed Bounty Hunter: Wounded by Tuco in the early part of the film, he loses his right arm. He seeks revenge, only to be shot and killed by Tuco, leading to the line: "When you have to shoot, shoot! Don't talk." Mulock was a Canadian actor who later appeared in Once Upon a Time in the West as one of the three gunmen in the film's opening sequence. Still in costume, he committed suicide by jumping from a hotel window during the making of that film.
• Antonio Casas as Stevens: Killed by Angel Eyes, who was paid to carry out the killing by Baker. Casas was a Spanish footballer turned actor.
• Antonio Casale as Bill Carson/Jackson
• Sergio Mendizábal as blond bounty hunter. One of three bounty hunters killed by Blondie during an attempted arrest of Tuco.
• John Bartha as Sheriff. Takes custody of Tuco. Hat shot off by Blondie.
• Claudio Scarchilli as Pedro, a member of Tuco's Gang. Killed by Blondie.
• Sandro Scarchilli as 'Chico, a member of Tuco's Gang. Killed by Blondie.
• Antonio Molino Rojo as Captain Harper, the good captain at the Union prison camp who is slowly losing a leg to gangrene. Harper warns Angel Eyes not to be dishonest on his watch, but Angel Eyes holds him in contempt and deliberately ignores his orders. Rojo usually played henchmen in Leone's films and other Spaghetti Westerns, but here he played a more sympathetic character.
• Benito Stefanelli as Angel Eyes Gang Member. Henchman killed by Tuco. Leone's stunt coordinator who frequently had bit parts in Spaghetti Westerns.
• Aldo Sambrell as Angel Eyes Gang Member. Henchman killed by Blondie. Sambrell was a Spanish actor whose initially small parts in Spaghetti Westerns made him somewhat famous in his home country.
• Lorenzo Robledo as Clem, henchman sent to follow Blondie when he leaves Angel Eyes' hideout, after Tuco kills the bounty hunter. Blondie discovers him and shoots him in the stomach.
• Enzo Petito as the guileless store keeper robbed by Tuco.
• Livio Lorenzon as Baker, The Confederate soldier involved in the money scheme with Stevens and Carson.
• Rada Rassimov as Maria, a prostitute that is beaten up by Angel Eyes in order to get information about Bill Carson
• Chelo Alonso as Stevens' Wife. An Italian star of the sword and sandal films in the 50s and early 60s, she had worked with Leone on several of his films as an assistant director.

Development[link]

Pre-production[link]

After the success of For a Few Dollars More, executives at United Artists approached the film’s screenwriter, Luciano Vincenzoni, to sign a contract for the rights to the film and for the next one. He, producer Alberto Grimaldi and Sergio Leone had no plans, but with their blessing, Vincenzoni pitched an idea about “a film about three rogues who are looking for some treasure at the time of the American Civil War.”^[6] The studio agreed but wanted to know the cost for this next film. At the same time, Grimaldi was trying to broker his own deal but Vincenzoni’s idea was more lucrative. The two men struck an agreement with UA for a million dollar budget with the studio advancing $500,000 up front and 50% of the box office takings outside of Italy. The total budget would eventually be $1.3 million.

Leone built upon the screenwriter’s original concept to “show the absurdity of war...the Civil War which the characters encounter. In my frame of reference, it is useless, stupid: it does not involve a 'good cause.'"^[6] An avid history buff, Leone said, “I had read somewhere that 120,000 people died in Southern camps such as Andersonville. I was not ignorant of the fact that there were camps in the North. You always get to hear about the shameful behavior of the losers, never the winners.”^[6] The Batterville Camp where Blondie and Tuco are imprisoned was based on steel engravings of Andersonville. Many shots in the film were influenced by archival photographs taken by Mathew Brady. As the film took place during the Civil War, it served as a prequel for the other two films in the trilogy, which took place after the war.^[8]

While Leone developed Vincenzoni’s idea into a script, the screenwriter recommended the comedy-writing team of Agenore Incrucci and Furio Scarpelli to work on it with Leone and Sergio Donati. According to Leone, "I couldn’t use a single thing they’d written. It was the grossest deception of my life."^[6] Donati agreed, saying, "There was next to nothing of them in the final script. They only wrote the first part. Just one line."^[6] Vincenzoni claims that he wrote the screenplay in 11 days, but he soon left the project after his relationship with Leone soured. The three main characters all contain autobiographical elements of Leone. In an interview he said, "[Sentenza] has no spirit, he's a professional in the most banal sense of the term. Like a robot. This isn't the case with the other two. On the methodical and careful side of my character, I’d be nearer il Biondo (Blondie): but my most profound sympathy always goes towards the Tuco side...He can be touching with all that tenderness and all that wounded humanity.”^[6]

Eastwood received a percentage-based salary, unlike the first two films where he received a straight fee salary. When Lee Van Cleef was again cast for another Dollars film, he joked "the only reason they brought me back was because they forgot to kill me off in For A Few Dollars More."^[8]

The film’s working title was I due magnifici straccioni (The Two Magnificent Tramps). It was changed just before shooting began when Vincenzoni thought up Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (The Good, the Ugly, the Bad), which Leone loved. In the United States, United Artists considered using the original Italian translation, River of Dollars, or The Man With No Name, but decided on The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.^[7]

Production[link]

Filming began at the Cinecittà studio in Rome again in mid-May 1966, including the opening scene between Clint and Wallach when The Man With No Name captures Tuco for the first time and sends him to jail.^[9] The production then moved on to Spain's plateau region near Burgos in the north, which doubled for the southwestern United States, and again shot the western scenes in Almería in the south.^[10] This time the production required more elaborate sets, including a town under cannon fire, an extensive prison camp and an American Civil War battlefield; and for the climax, several hundred Spanish soldiers were employed to build a cemetery with several thousand grave stones to resemble an ancient Roman circus.^[10] For the scene where the bridge was destroyed, it had to be filmed twice as the first time none of the three cameras were filming it being destroyed by dynamite.^[11] The Spanish government approved production and provided the army for technical assistance; the film's cast includes 1,500 local militia members as extras.^{[citation needed]} Eastwood remembers, "They would care if you were doing a story about Spaniards and about Spain. Then they’d scrutinize you very tough, but the fact that you're doing a western that’s supposed to be laid in southwest America or Mexico, they couldn’t care less what your story or subject is."^[6] Top Italian cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli was brought in to shoot the film and was prompted by Leone to pay more attention to light than in the previous two films; Ennio Morricone composed the score once again. Leone was instrumental in asking Morricone to compose a track for the final Mexican stand-off scene in the cemetery, asking him to compose what felt like "the corpses were laughing from inside their tombs", and asked Delli Colli to creating a hypnotic whirling effect interspersed with dramatic extreme close ups, to give the audience the impression of a visual ballet.^[10] Filming concluded in July 1966.^[5]

Eastwood was not initially pleased with the script and was concerned he might be upstaged by Wallach, and said to Leone, "In the first film I was alone. In the second, we were two. Here we are three. If it goes on this way, in the next one I will be starring with the American cavalry".^[12] As Eastwood played hard-to-get in accepting the role (inflating his earnings up to $250,000, another Ferrari^[13] and 10% of the profits in the United States when eventually released there), Eastwood was again encountering publicist disputes between Ruth Marsh, who urged him to accept the third film of the trilogy, and the William Morris Agency and Irving Leonard, who were unhappy with Marsh's influence on Clint.^[12] Eastwood banished Marsh from having any further influence in his career and he was forced to sack her as his business manager via a letter sent by Frank Wells.^[12] For some time after, Eastwood's publicity was handled by Jerry Pam of Gutman and Pam.^[9]

Wallach and Eastwood flew to Madrid together and between shooting scenes, Eastwood would relax and practice his golf swing.^[14] Wallach was almost poisoned during filming when he accidentally drank from a bottle of acid that a film technician had set next to his soda bottle. Wallach mentioned this in his autobiography^[15] and complained that while Leone was a brilliant director, he was very lax about ensuring the safety of his actors during dangerous scenes.^[6] For instance, in one scene, where he was to be hanged after a pistol was fired, the horse underneath him was supposed to bolt. While the rope around Wallach's neck was severed, the horse was frightened a little too well. It galloped for about a mile with Wallach still mounted and his hands bound behind his back.^[6] The third time Wallach's life was threatened was during the scene where he and Mario Brega—who are chained together—jump out of a moving train. The jumping part went as planned, but Wallach's life was endangered when his character attempts to sever the chain binding him to the (now dead) henchman. Tuco places the body on the railroad tracks, waiting for the train to roll over the chain and sever it. Wallach, and presumably the entire film crew, were not aware of the heavy iron steps that jutted one foot out of every box car. If Wallach had stood up from his prone position at the wrong time, one of the jutting steps could have decapitated him.^[6] The bridge in the film was reconstructed twice by sappers of the Spanish army after being rigged for on-camera explosive demolition. The first time, an Italian camera operator signaled that he was ready to shoot, which was misconstrued by an army captain as the similar sounding Spanish word meaning "start". Luckily, nobody was injured in the erroneous mistiming. The army rebuilt the bridge while other shots were filmed. As the bridge was not a prop but a rather heavy and sturdy structure, powerful explosives were required to destroy it.^[6] Leone has said that this scene was, in part, inspired by Buster Keaton’s silent film, The General.

As an international cast was employed, actors performed in their native languages. Eastwood, Van Cleef and Wallach spoke English, and were dubbed into Italian for the debut release in Rome. For the American version, the lead acting voices were used, but supporting cast members were dubbed into English. The result is noticeable in the bad synchronization of voices to lip movements on screen; none of the dialogue is completely in sync because Leone rarely shot his scenes with synchronized sound. Various reasons have been cited for this: Leone often liked to play Morricone's music over a scene and possibly shout things at the actors to get them in the mood. Leone cared more for visuals than dialogue (his English was limited, at best). Given the technical limitations of the time, it would have been difficult to record the sound cleanly in most of the extremely wide shots Leone frequently used. Also, it was standard practice in Italian films at this time to shoot silently and post-dub. Whatever the actual reason, all dialogue in the film was recorded in post-production. The relationship between Eastwood and Leone had remained strained from their previous collaboration and it only worsened during the dubbing sessions for the US version because the actor was presented with a different script than the one they had shot with. He refused to read from this new version, insisting on using the shooting script instead.

Leone was unable to find an actual cemetery for the Sad Hill shootout scene, so the Spanish pyrotechnics chief hired 250 Spanish soldiers to build one in Carazo near Salas de los Infantes, which they completed in two days.^[16]

Set of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly with the distinctive rugged terrain in the background

By the end of filming, Eastwood had finally had enough of Leone's perfectionist directorial traits, who, often forcefully, insisted on shooting scenes from many different angles, paying attention to the most minute of details, which would often exhaust the actors.^[14] Leone, a glutton, was also a source of amusement for his excesses, and Eastwood found a way to deal with the stresses of being directed by him by making jokes about him and nicknamed him "Yosemite Sam" for his bad temperament.^[14] Eastwood was never directed by Leone again, later turning down the role as Harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) in which Leone had personally flown to Los Angeles to give him the script for, which eventually went to Charles Bronson.^[17] Years later, Leone exacted his revenge upon Clint during the filming of Once Upon a Time in America (1984) when he described Eastwood's abilities as an actor as being like a block of marble or wax and inferior to the acting abilities of Robert De Niro, saying, "Eastwood moves like a sleepwalker between explosions and hails of bullets, and he is always the same—a block of marble. Bobby first of all is an actor, Clint first of all is a star. Bobby suffers, Clint yawns."^[18] Eastwood later gave his friend the poncho he wore in the three films, where it was hung in a Mexican restaurant in Carmel, California.^[19]

Release[link]

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was not released in the US until December 1967.^[20] The original Italian domestic version was 2 hours, 57 minutes long; but the international version was 2 hours, 41 minutes—16 minutes shorter.

Given that the Italian Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo literally translates to the English: The Good, the Ugly, the Bad, reversing the last two adjectives, advertisements for the original Italian release show Tuco before Angel Eyes, and, when translated into English, erroneously label Angel Eyes as "The Ugly" and Tuco as "The Bad".

Opening on December 15, 1966 in Italy and in the United States on December 23, 1967, the film grossed $6.3 million.^[21]

Critical reception[link]

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was criticized for its depiction of violence.^[22] Leone explains that "the killings in my films are exaggerated because I wanted to make a tongue-in-cheek satire on run-of-the-mill westerns... The west was made by violent, uncomplicated men, and it is this strength and simplicity that I try to recapture in my pictures."^[23] To this day, Leone's effort to reinvigorate the timeworn Western is widely acknowledged.^[24]

Critical opinion of the film on initial release was mixed as many reviewers at that time looked down on spaghetti westerns. In a negative review in The New York Times, critic Renata Adler said that the film "must be the most expensive, pious and repellent movie in the history of its peculiar genre."^[25] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the "temptation is hereby proved irresistible to call The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, now playing citywide, The Bad, The Dull, and the Interminable, only because it is."^[26] Roger Ebert, who later included the film in his list of Great Movies,^[27] retrospectively noted that in his original review he had "described a four-star movie but only gave it three stars, perhaps because it was a 'spaghetti western' and so could not be art".^[28] Ebert also points out Leone's unique perspective that enables the audience to be closer to the character as we see what he sees.

Despite the original negative reception, today, the film has since accumulated very positive feedback. It remains one of the most popular and well known westerns and is considered to be one of the greatest of its genre. It is in Time's "100 Greatest movies of the last century" as selected by critics Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel.^[24] Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 97% percent of film critics gave the film positive reviews.^[29][30][31] The Good, the Bad and the Ugly has been described as European cinema's best representation of the Western genre film,^[32] and Quentin Tarantino has called it "the best-directed film of all time" and "the greatest achievement in the history of cinema."^[33] This was reflected in his vote for a 2002 Sight & Sound magazine poll, in which he voted for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as his choice for the best film ever made.^[34]

Empire magazine added The Good, the Bad and the Ugly to their Masterpiece collection in the September 2007 issue and in their poll of "The 500 Greatest Movies," "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" was voted in at number 25.

Home media[link]

The film was first released on DVD by MGM in 1998. The special features contain 14 minutes of scenes that were cut for the film's North American release, including a scene which explains how Angel Eyes came to be waiting for Blondie and Tuco at the Union prison camp.

In 2002, the film was restored with the 14 minutes of scenes cut for US release re-inserted into the film. Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach were brought back in to dub their characters' lines more than 35 years after the film's original release. Voice actor Simon Prescott substituted for Lee Van Cleef who had died in 1989. Other voice actors filled in for actors who had since died. In 2004, MGM released this version in a two-disc special edition DVD.

Disc 1 contains an audio commentary with writer and critic Richard Schickel. Disc 2 contains two documentaries, "Leone's West" and "The Man Who Lost The Civil War", followed by the featurette, "Restoring 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly'"; an animated gallery of missing sequences entitled, "The Socorro Sequence: A Reconstruction"; an extended Tuco torture scene; a featurette called "Il Maestro"; an audio featurette named, "Il Maestro, Part 2"; a French trailer; and a poster gallery.^[35]

This DVD was generally well received, though some purists complained about the re-mixed stereo soundtrack with many completely new sound effects (notably, all the gunshots were replaced), with no option for the original soundtrack. At least one scene that was re-inserted had been cut by Leone prior to the film's release in Italy, but had been shown once at the Italian premiere. According to Richard Schickel,^[35] Leone willingly cut the scene for pacing reasons; thus, restoring it was contrary to the director's wishes.^{[citation needed]} The 1998 DVD with the original US version of the mono soundtrack is still available in stores, although the sound quality is vastly inferior to that on the restored DVD. (Unlike the original DVD releases of the other two "Dollars" films, the transfer is anamorphically enhanced for 16:9 televisions.)