The Good, the Bad & the Ugly: The Story 4:The Prologue

[KC]

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly begins with three sequences in which the three main characters are introduced. Tuco, "the Ugly," escapes from some bounty hunters; Angel Eyes, "the Bad," carries out a contract to get some information and kills both the man he's sent after and the man who hired him; and Blondie, "the Good," rescues Tuco from more bounty hunters, then works a scam with him in which he turns him in for the bounty, then saves him from hanging and splits the money with him, finally abandoning him as not worth the continued effort.





What do you think of this prologue? It lasts nearly half an hour; is it too long? Is it an effective introduction to all three characters? Why do you think Leone chose to introduce the characters in this order, and why did he make each successive sequence longer than the preceding one?

[D'Ambrosia]

It’s an effective way to introduce each character with a little bit of a back story.  Leone does it in such a way you really don’t think of it as as a prologue at all.  It just seems to blend right into the movie.  The Good the Bad and the Ugly is such a long spectacle that the lengthy prologue doesn’t detract from the movie whatsoever.  I’m not quite sure why the characters are introduced in reverse order of the title and had really never giving it much thought.

It's such a great touch to have the screen frezze and the script come across the screen.  I've never seen anything quite like it!

[Chessie]

When one goes into a Leone film there is a certain expectation, especially if having viewed the two previous dollars films.  Personally, this is my favorite prologue in any film, with maybe the exception of magnolia.  For a screenwriter, writing a prologue that goes as long as this one does, would be ridiculous in today's cinema.  The fact that Leone takes so much time to develop the characters is really rewarding especially when we get the pay off of the names reappearing.  Since Blondie is probably the most morally ambiguous character, we as the audience have to realize that Blondie kills the most people, backstabs his partner, and willing withholds information at times, this is as good of a character as we'll get in this movie.  Because the film is dealing with a different time and different types of people than we're use to, even in 1966, the audience needs that time to acclimate to this world.  I think Tuco is the simplest of all the characters in the film, followed by Angel Eyes, and ending with Blondie, for the audience we only needed a little amount of time to understand what kind of person Tuco is, and longer Angel Eyes, and so on.  The prologue is epic which keeps in tune with Leone's style in general, and it has become very iconic.

[bdc28]

No way was this prologue too long, it was completely necessary.

The established motives of the characters, greed was the intertwine. Based on that, how would you know who the good, the bad, or the ugly was.

I think that was the genius OF this movie. Short of THE BAD, there was no real distinguishing line between good and bad....they were all pretty cruddy in their own rights....even "the Good".

The prologue was needed to say how they got their monnikers in the movie.

[Christopher]

I haven't watched this movie recently, so I didn't realize it takes almost half an hour for the three sequences to introduce the characters. But like BDC mentioned, it gets us right into the motives of the characters, and the plot of the movie.

[Matt]

I love the prologue.  It's one of those things that you'll see today in Tarantino films, but this is where he got it from.

It takes time, but you get caught up in the individual stories and forget the title will be coming (you obviously don't know the first one is coming). And then it comes up "The Ugly", and you laugh a little. It's a show. It's a fun time. That's what I get from it.

In my view, this sets The Good, The Bad and The Ugly apart from the more "high brow" westerns of the time that took themselves so seriously... this was Leone's way of telling us he had a story for us, and prepare to be entertained by it.

[The Man With No Aim]

I love the prologue.  It's one of those things that you'll see today in Tarantino films, but this is where he got it from.

It takes time, but you get caught up in the individual stories and forget the title will be coming (you obviously don't know the first one is coming). And then it comes up "The Ugly", and you laugh a little. It's a show. It's a fun time. That's what I get from it.

In my view, this sets The Good, The Bad and The Ugly apart from the more "high brow" westerns of the time that took themselves so seriously... this was Leone's way of telling us he had a story for us, and prepare to be entertained by it.

OK, so I'm just asking a friendly honest question.

We got Angel Eyes, we got Tuco, we got Blondie.

I've never really been sure which one is supposed to be Good, Bad, Ugly.

Did the producer or director or Clint or somebody ever say which is supposed to be which?


Man   

[Matt]

MWNA:  Congrats on your 500th post and Member Extraordinareness.

OK, so I'm just asking a friendly honest question.

We got Angel Eyes, we got Tuco, we got Blondie.

I've never really been sure which one is supposed to be Good, Bad, Ugly.

Did the producer or director or Clint or somebody ever say which is supposed to be which?


Man

They tell us in the prologue sequences (not in the script):