Tripwire Reviews Arrow’s The Good, The Bad And The Ugly 4K Restoration

Striking Gold

Tripwire’s editor-in-chief Joel Meadows takes a look at Arrow’s The Good, The Bad And The Ugly 4K Restoration, out now on UHD and Blu-ray…

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly 4K Restoration
Director: Sergio Leone
Stars: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef

The third in Sergio Leone’s Fistful trilogy is arguably its most ambitious and its most bawdy and almost caricatured. Here the Man With No Name (Eastwood) finds himself facing off against Tuco (Wallach) and Angel Eyes (Van Cleef) on the trail of buried gold. Two years before Once Upon A Time in The West, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly feels like a more epic production than its two progenitors (Fistful Of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More). It encompasses concepts like the US Civil War and also questions just what makes a man good. Eastwood is magnetic on screen here as Blondie while Wallach manages to straddle the line between comedy and drama as his occasional partner/ occasional adversary Tuco, a distinctly Italian figure. Van Cleef gives Angel Eyes a quiet malevolence that marks him out as one of the most memorable villains in Westerns of this important period.

As you’d expect with Leone, there’s a visual virtuosity that runs all the way through here. Morricone’s theme tune here also helps lend it that extra air of timeless iconic simplicity, instantly recognisable. Scenes like the ride through the desert when it seems as if Tuco has the upper hand, Tuco and Blondie blowing up the bridge so they can get to the cemetery quicker and the scene where the pair get captured by the South are all among the most enduring in modern cinema.

As with his later effort Once Upon A Time in The West, there are nods to John Ford like Tuco and Blondie’s stagecoach ride through the scenery and the scene in the Arizona desert. The final reel set in the cemetery is still one of the boldest in the cinema of the Western, considering that it was shot in a place that was created from scratch by the filmmakers with the assistance of Franco’s soldiers in Spain.

The restoration here adds an extra layer of cinematic impact with the colours popping out of the screen. We have two versions of the film, one the international cut and the other an extended version which incorporates extra footage like a long scene that introduces Angel Eyes. The new footage is interesting but scenes like the one I just mentioned is let down by the fact that the audio isn’t from Van Cleef as he’s not around anymore. So the theatrical cut remains the best version of this film although it is intriguing to check out the extended version as a contrast.

The extras here are very good with extended interviews with key figures like the stunt man and the sound editor on the film. They give the viewer a lot of extra background detail and insights into the film’s making.

Leone was a filmmaker who brought the Western into the latter part of the twentieth century, building on what Hollywood directors like John Ford and Howard Hawks had begun. The Fistful trilogy is arguably the most important Western series in modern cinema and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is its apotheosis, with the director reaching his zenith with this material. Only possibly eclipsed by Once Upon A Time In The West in terms of its ambition, this film comes closest to showing just what he could achieve as an auteur. It’s great to see it in such a beautiful new format and the extras here do add something to the viewing experience. For aficionados of Leone and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, this is a must purchase item.

JOEL MEADOWS

https://www.arrowfilms.com/p/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-4k-uhd/17118429/