Behind the scenes of: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966).
Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef take a break from filming to pose for a photo on the set of one of the most beloved westerns ever made.
Believe it or not Clint Eastwood wasn’t super excited about the movie to begin with. After reading the script and seeing that he’d be sharing the screen with two other prominent actors he felt he was being “crowded out of the movie”.
When negotiations for the film fell apart and it looked like he might not be in it after all, his agents not only managed to get him a $250,000 salary but also a 10% share of the profits AND a Ferrari if he agreed to do it. Needless to say Clint said, “ah go on then!” (Not an official quote). 😳
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is widely considered the best film in the “Dollars Trilogy”, and although it’s the third instalment of the “franchise”, many fans consider it to be a prequel to the first movie A Fistful of Dollars (1964). This is mainly due to the fact that in it we see “the man with no name” (Eastwood) acquire the famous poncho that he wears in the first two films. This and several other subtle clues could just be fans over interpreting the movies though as director Sergio Leone never intended for them to be viewed as a trilogy.
That said, the continuity between the three films is strong, particularly when viewed in the order of: The Good the Bad and the Ugly, For a Few Dollars More, and finally A Fistful of Dollars.
Like many other films that went on to gain “classic” status, the third “Spaghetti Western” received mixed reviews on release with one critic writing in The New York Times that the film "must be the most expensive, pious and repellent movie in the history of its peculiar genre."
Two things I’ve come to learn about the movie industry are that studios need to leave filmmaking to the filmmakers and film critics don’t know sh#t about good entertainment. 😵