Trivia - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

In addition to the train scene,Eli Wallach cheated death in the first scene where Blondie shoots him down from a hanging. The gunshot scared the horse, which took off running at full speed for nearly a mile. Wallach's hands were tied behind his back, and

In the gun store, everything Eli Wallach does with the guns is completely unscripted. Eli knew little about the guns, so he was instructed to do whatever he wanted.

The price of gold in 1862 was US$20.672 an ounce. As of 5 March 2010 it is US$1134.45 an ounce. So the $200,000 Tuco, Angel Eyes and Blondie are after would be worth $10,975,715.94 on 5 March 2010.

Clint Eastwood wore the same poncho through all three "Man with No Name" movies without replacement or cleaning.

Because Sergio Leone spoke barely any English and Eli Wallach spoke barely any Italian, the two communicated in French.

Ennio Morricone's iconic theme music was designed in places to mimic the sound of crying hyena.

Eli Wallach would have been decapitated during the train scene if he had lifted his head up. In the wide-shot, you can see the step that would have impacted his head.

Orson Welles warned Sergio Leone not to make this movie on the grounds that Civil War pictures were box office poison.

The real location of the Sad Hill Cemetery is Carazo near Salas de los Infantes, province of Burgos, Spain. The coordinates are: 41.990517, -3.408511.

Although Clint Eastwood is usually top-billed in this film's credits, Eli Wallach has the most screen-time.

There is no dialog for the first 10-1/2 minutes of the film.

The film was budgeted at an expensive (for the time) $1.6 million.

Due to the striking height difference between Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach of over 9 inches, it was sometimes difficult to include them in the same frame.

Eli Wallach claims that Sergio Leone decided that Tuco would carry his pistol on a lanyard and stuck in his belt rather than a holster because Wallach told him he always had trouble putting a pistol in a holster without looking at it.

Charles Bronson was offered both the roles of Tuco and Angel Eyes (the latter because Sergio Leone feared that audiences would not take kindly to Lee Van Cleef going from the fatherly, likable Col. Mortimer to a sneering villain. He declined both.

The prison camp "Betterville" was inspired by the actual Confederate prison camp of Andersonville, where thousands of Union prisoners died, and based on steel engravings of Andersonville from August 1864.

Besides Clint Eastwood of course, actors Mario Brega, Benito Stefanelli, Aldo Sambrell, Lorenzo Robledo, and Antonio Molino Rojo are the only actors to appear in all 3 of the "Dollars Trilogy" movies. Even though this movie does not have the word "Dollars

After the scene where Blondie splashes water in Tuco's face in the infirmary, there is a fade-out to the next scene. This was where the intermission was located, but this fade-out was excised in the 179-minute extended version.

Shot in the deserts of Spain with 1,500 Spanish soldiers as extras.

The trim on Confederate soldiers' uniforms identified the type of unit they were assigned to. Blue indicated infantry, gold cavalry and red artillery. Most of the soldiers in the prison camp wore historically accurate uniforms.

In the scene where Blondie brings a tied-up Tuco into town to claim the bounty on him, Tuco spits out a cigar and yells out something in Spanish. Translated to English, he is yelling out "Son of a bitch that gave birth to you!"

The train features an armed car with a mortar type cannon. These were actually mounted on trains during the Civil War, especially where railroads had to operate near places where there was heavy fighting.

In two of the deleted scenes featuring Lee Van Cleef's character, a substitute voice actor - Simon Prescott, was used for the dubbing. Van Cleef had died in 1989, and the scenes had never been dubbed into English.

Sergio Leone first had Gian Maria Volonté in mind as "The Ugly".

Jack Elam turned down the role of Elam, the one-armed gunslinger who attempts to kill Tuco in the bathtub.

Ennio Morricone's iconic theme music was designed in places to mimic the sound of a howling coyote.

The guns in the film were supplied by Aldo Uberti Inc., a company in Italy.

Italian censorship visa # 48356 delivered on 23-12-1966.

Sergio Leone: [Large circles covered in pave stones]

Sergio Leone: [theme] The Blonde, Sentenza, and Tuco.

Sergio Leone: [close-up]

The skeleton found by Tuco inside the wrong coffin at Sad Hill cemetery, was a real human skeleton. A deceased Spanish actress wrote in her will she wanted to act even after her death.

The bridge that Tuco and Blondie blow was an actual bridge built by Spanish army engineers. The Spanish agreed to blow the bridge only if their captain could be the one to do it. When it came to blowing the bridge the captain didn't notify Sergio Leone an

According to an introduction by Stephen King in one of his books, this movie, along with the Lord of the Rings book series, is the primary influence for his book series: The Dark Tower.

The movie remains the highest rated movie in IMDb to not receive a single oscar nomination.

Gian Maria Volonté turned down the role of Tuco in favor of El Chuncho in A Bullet for the General (1966), a film that allowed him to make a statement about his political views.

Eli Wallach found the scene where Tuco confronts his friar brother, Pablo, difficult to perform because Luigi Pistilli, the actor who plays Pablo, could not speak English.

The mini 5X7 posters that are included in the MGM 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly' 2-disc DVD Collector's Set released in 2004, are from Posteritati.

Bernie Grant was the voice actor who dubbed Gian Maria Volonté in A Fistful of Dollars (1964), Aldo Giuffrè in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), and Gabriele Ferzetti in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).

Sad Hill Cemetery was a very-convincing set piece constructed by the pyrotechnic crew and not a real cemetery. Today the site is marked as a local point of interest. Though the central stone 'proscenium' and parapet are gone, the circles of grave-mounds a

Four scenes were cut from the original English-language release and were never dubbed into English from Italian. When American Movie Classics showed the "Extended English Version", the scenes were restored. Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach dubbed their voic

The three man gunfight scene is called either a "Mexican standoff" or a truel (game theory). There are several mathematical papers covering the many complex outcomes of a truel. Other movies that use a truel are Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (199

Besides Clint Eastwood of course, actors Mario Brega, Benito Stefanelli, Aldo Sambrell, Lorenzo Robledo, Frank Braña and Antonio Molino Rojo are the only actors to appear in all 3 of the "Dollars Trilogy" movies. Even though this movie does not have the w

As an Italian-made film, the sound would not recored live. This means that the actors would have spoken whatever they wanted and the dialogue would have been dubbed in post production. This was the traditional way of making films in Italy and was because

In the theatrical trailer, Angel Eyes is "The Ugly" and Tuco "The Bad," which is the reverse of their designations in the actual film. This is because the Italian title translated into English is actually The Good, the Ugly, the Bad, not The Good, the Bad

Though no specific year or date is stated in the movie, at least part of it takes place during the New Mexico Campaign of 1862. This is confirmed when both the hotel-keeper and Tuco mentions the retreating Confederate General Sibley (the historical Henry

In 1960's Hollywood was still following the The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (a.k.a. The Hays Moral Code), especially when it came to Westerns. After the Good, the Bad and the Ugly was released Hollywood had to change its moral standards in orde

The film was shot with a process called Techniscope. This process means that you can shoot without an anamorphic lens, and only use half as much film as you would normally use. The Techniscope process places two widescreen frames on a single 35 mm frame.

Although Sergio Leone never made an official sequel to this film, screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni wrote a treatment for a sequel, tentatively titled 'Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo n. 2.' According to Eli Wallach, the film would have followed Tuco pursui

Shortly after Blondie brings in Tuco to the Sheriff for the first time, the Sheriff comes out with one of Tuco's wanted posters and unrolls it to show Tuco his picture on it. If you look carefully, you will see that the name on the poster is Guy Calloway

The town where Tuco's second hanging takes place, the town where Maria is interrogated by Angel Eyes, the town where Tuco visits the gun shop, and the town where Tuco and his gang attempt to ambush Blondie during a cavalry march are, in fact, the same tow

The mud-strewn town where Blondie brings Tuco for his first hanging is the same town from Sergio Corbucci's Django (1966), filming for which had taken place earlier that year. The set, built on the Elios Film Studios in Rome, had not been cleaned between

For the scene where Angel Eyes interrogates Maria the prostitute for information about Bill Carson, Lee Van Cleef was so appalled by the fact that he was required to actually hit Maria's actress, Rada Rassimov, that a stunt double was used for shots where

When the bridge is blown up, and Tuco and Blondie are hunkered down behind sandbags waiting for the explosion, Clint Eastwood's career came within 2 feet of ending prematurely. A fist-sized piece of rock shrapnel from the explosion slams into the sandbag

Mario Brega appears in all 3 of the Dollars Trilogy movies as a henchman for the main villain(s), and in all 3 movies, his character meets an unfortunate demise (oddly enough, none of these deaths is caused by gunfire). In this movie, his character of Wal

Despite being frequently referred to as a sequel to For a Few Dollars More (1965) ("For a Few Dollars More"), this film is set during the American Civil War whereas that one takes place afterwards, and while Lee Van Cleef here plays a villain who gets kil

Due to the striking height difference between Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach (over nine inches), it was sometimes difficult to include them in the same frame.

Orson Welles warned Sergio Leone not to make this movie on the grounds that Civil War pictures were box-office poison.

According to an introduction by Stephen King in one of his books, this movie, along with the "Lord of the Rings" book series, is the primary influence for his book series: "The Dark Tower".

Filming had a short delay when Clint Eastwood refused to turn up for work until Sergio Leone agreed to his $250,000 fee in addition to a new Ferrari.

Eli Wallach found the scene where Tuco confronts his friar brother, Pablo, difficult to perform because Luigi Pistilli, the actor who played Pablo, could not speak English.

Clint Eastwood wasn't happy with the finished movie. He later said it was bloated rather than expansive, and the only fleshed-out character was Tuco.

The train features an armored car with a mortar-type cannon. These were actually mounted on trains during the Civil War, especially where railroads had to operate near places where there was heavy fighting.

In two of the deleted scenes featuring Lee Van Cleef's character, a substitute voice actor-- Simon Prescott--was used for the dubbing. Van Cleef had died in 1989, and the scenes had never been dubbed into English.

The mini 5x7 posters that are included in the MGM two-disc DVD Collector's Set of this film, released in 2004, are from Posteritati.

Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.

Henry Fonda, Lee Marvin and Enrico Maria Salerno were considered for Angel Eyes.

In their introductory scenes (where they are identified onscreen as the "good", "bad" or "ugly"), Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach each shoot three people.

As a non-smoker, Clint Eastwood hated smoking cigars and Sergio Leone often did multiple takes. According to Eli Wallach, Eastwood would sometimes tell the director: "You'd better get it this time, because I'm going to throw up."

In the original Italian script for the film, Blondie is named "Joe" (his nickname in A Fistful of Dollars (1964)), but is referred to as Blondie in the Italian and English dialogue.

Eli Wallach and Clint Eastwood flew to Madrid together and between shooting scenes, Eastwood would relax and practice his golf swing.

Lost scenes include Tuco continuing his search for Blondie in a Texican pueblo while Blondie is in a hotel room with a Mexican woman (Silvana Bacci) and Tuco lighting cannons before the Ecstasy of Gold sequence.

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 (1965)."

Film director Alex Cox suggests that the cemetery-buried gold hunted by the protagonists may have been inspired by rumours surrounding the anti-Communist Gladio terrorists, who hid many of their 138 weapons caches in cemeteries.

Sergio Leone: [Large circles covered in pave stones]

Sergio Leone: [theme] The Blonde, Sentenza, and Tuco.

Sergio Leone: [close-up]

In the gun store, everything Eli Wallach does with the guns is completely unscripted. Wallach knew little about guns, so he was instructed to do whatever he wanted. Most of Enzo Petito's bemused reactions throughout the scene are genuine. The scene where

Eli Wallach was almost poisoned on the set after drinking acid used to burn the bags filled with gold coin to make them rip open easier when struck with the spade. The acid had been poured into a lemon soda bottle and Wallach didn't know it. He drank a lo

In addition to the train scene, Eli Wallach cheated death in the first scene where Blondie shoots him down from a hanging. The gunshot scared the horse, which took off running at full speed for nearly a mile. Wallach's hands were tied behind his back, and

Sad Hill Cemetery was a very convincing set piece constructed by the pyrotechnic crew, and not a real cemetery. Today the site is marked as a local point of interest. Though the central stone "proscenium" and parapet are gone, the circles of grave mounds

Four scenes were cut from the original English-language release and never dubbed into English from Italian. When American Movie Classics showed the "Extended English Version", the scenes were restored. Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach dubbed their voices fo

Eli Wallach remembered that when he first came to Madrid all the hotels were full. Clint Eastwood invited him to sleep over at a friend's house and they shared the same bed. Wallach's wife Anne Jackson told him he could boast that he was the only man to s

Besides Clint Eastwood--of course--actors Mario Brega, Benito Stefanelli, Aldo Sambrell, Lorenzo Robledo, Frank Braña and Antonio Molino Rojo are the only actors to appear in all three of the "Dollars Trilogy" movies. Even though this movie does not have

The three principal actors are the only ones who speak actual English in the film: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach, with the exceptions of Al Mulock (the one-armed man) and John Bartha (the sheriff). Everyone else in the film is really speaking

Sergio Leone originally titled his story "The Magnificent Rogues" and "The Two Magnificent Tramps," but impulsively changed it during a meeting in which he was pitching the story to United Artists executives Arnold Picker and Arthur Krim. The improvised n

The three-man gunfight scene is called either a "Mexican standoff", or a truel (game theory). There are several mathematical papers covering the many complex outcomes of a truel. Other movies that use a truel are Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (19

For the scene where Angel Eyes interrogates Maria the prostitute for information about Bill Carson, Lee Van Cleef was appalled by the fact that he was required to actually hit Maria (played by Rada Rassimov), complaining "I can't hit a woman." Rassimov re

As an Italian-made film, the sound would not have been recored live. This means that the actors would have spoken whatever they wanted and the dialogue would have been dubbed in post-production. This was the traditional way of making films in Italy and wa

Charles Bronson was offered both the roles of Tuco and Angel Eyes (the latter because Sergio Leone feared that audiences would not take kindly to Lee Van Cleef going from the fatherly, likable Col. Mortimer to a sneering villain). He declined both, as he

In the theatrical trailer, Angel Eyes is "The Ugly" and Tuco "The Bad," which is the reverse of their designations in the actual film. This is because the Italian title translated into English is actually "The Good, the Ugly, the Bad", not "The Good, the

After Eli Wallach agreed with Sergio Leone that Tuco would carry his pistol on a lanyard, the director asked him to grasp the gun by shaking his neck, thus making the gun land in his hand. Wallach claimed that he wasn't able to do the intended action, and

The Union prison camp "Battleville" was inspired by the actual Confederate prison camp of Andersonville, where thousands of Union prisoners died, and based on steel engravings of Andersonville from August 1864. In the film, when Angel Eyes (disguised as a

The grips on Clint Eastwood's pistol have an inlaid silver rattlesnake. His pistol in For a Few Dollars More (1965) had the same grips. In the TV series Rawhide (1959), Rowdy Yates (Eastwood) kills a gunfighter carrying a pistol with the same grips and ta

According to Eli Wallach's autobiography "The Good, the Bad and Me", Sergio Leone picked him for the role of Tuco not because of his role as Calvera in The Magnificent Seven (1960) as most people assumed but rather because of his brief role as a Tuco-like

When Blondie and Angel Eyes are traveling to the cemetery, Blondie shoots a skulker, then counts the number of people that will be traveling together. He says, "Six. A perfect number." In mathematics, a number is perfect if the sum of its factors (excludi

The film was shot with a process called Techniscope. This means that you can shoot without an anamorphic lens and only use half as much film as you would normally use. The Techniscope process places two wide-screen frames on a single 35mm frame. This tech

Although Sergio Leone never made an official sequel to this film, screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni wrote a treatment for a sequel, tentatively titled "Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo n. 2". According to Eli Wallach, the film would have followed Tuco pursui

Shortly after Blondie brings in Tuco to the sheriff for the first time, the sheriff comes out with one of Tuco's wanted posters and unrolls it to show Tuco his picture on it. If you look carefully, you will see that the name on the poster is "Guy Calloway

According to Sergio Leone, it took a lot of discussion before Clint Eastwood agreed to do the movie because he felt his character would be upstaged by Tuco, even before the part was cast. He said, "In the first movie I was just about alone. In the second,

Though no specific year or date is stated in the movie, at least part of it takes place during the New Mexico Campaign of 1862. This is confirmed when both the hotel-keeper and Tuco mentions the retreating Confederate Gen. Sibley (real-life Henry H. Sible

In the 1960s Hollywood was still following the The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (a.k.a. The Hays Moral Code), especially when it came to westerns. After this film was released, Hollywood had to change its moral standards in order to stay competi

The town where Tuco's second hanging takes place, the town where Maria is interrogated by Angel Eyes, the town where Tuco visits the gun shop and the town where Tuco and his gang attempt to ambush Blondie during a cavalry march are, in fact, the same town

Tuco tells his brother Father Pablo Ramirez (played by Luigi Pistilli) "Where we came from, if one did not want to die of poverty, one became a priest or a bandit!". Ironically, in For a Few Dollars More (1965), Pistilli played a bandit, so in a sense, he

The following guns are used in this movie. 1.Blondie uses: A Colt 1851 cartridge conversion revolver (with silver snake grips), and a Winchester 1866 "yellow boy" with ladder elevated sights. 2. Tuco uses: A Colt 1851 Navy cartridge conversion revolver wi

The mud-strewn town where Blondie brings Tuco for his first hanging is the same town from Sergio Corbucci's Django (1966), filming for which had taken place earlier that year. The set, built at the Elios Film Studios in Rome, had not been cleaned between

Sergio Leone first had Gian Maria Volontè in mind as Tuco, but the actor turned the role down in favor of El Chuncho in Damiano Damiani's A Bullet for the General (1966), as the latter was a role that would allow him to make a political statement in line

Throughout production, Clint Eastwood regularly socialized with would-be Spaghetti Western veteran Franco Nero, who was working on Texas, Adios (1966) at the time. The two films share three cast members: Luigi Pistilli (Father Pablo in this film, Hernande

"Pitchfork" put at 32nd place the main theme of this film, composed by Ennio Morricone, on its list of The 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s Quote from Pitchfork: "Film was the most important medium of the 20th century, and Ennio Morricone was among its chi

Tuco's line "When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk!" was actually improvised by Eli Wallach, which apparently caused the whole crew to burst out laughing. Eli was a little perplexed because he thought that what he said was actually pretty sensible; th

In the original working script, Angel Eyes was named "Banjo", but is referred to as "Sentenza" (meaning "Sentence" or "Judgement") in the Italian version. Clint Eastwood came up with the name Angel Eyes on the set, for Lee Van Cleef's gaunt appearance and

Because the film was set during the Civil War, Leone wanted to preserve a certain sense of accuracy, and went to America to research the film. Among his inspirations were Library of Congress documents and the photographs of legendary photographer Mathew B

The three main characters all contain autobiographical elements of Sergio 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 meth

According to Eli Wallach, when it came time to blow up the bridge, Sergio Leone asked the Spanish army captain in charge to trigger the fuse, as a sign of gratitude for the army's collaboration. They agreed to blow up the bridge when Leone gave the signal

During the scene right before the final duel where Tuco (Eli Wallach) is running frantically through the cemetery, a dog can be seen running on-screen at the beginning of the scene. In reality, that was improvised on the spot. Sergio Leone, who was afraid

When the bridge is blown up, and Tuco and Blondie are hunkered down behind sandbags waiting for the explosion, Clint Eastwood's career came within two feet of ending prematurely. A fist-sized piece of rock shrapnel from the explosion slams into the sandba

Although Blondie (Clint Eastwood) is labeled "the good" in the film, he actually kills 11 people during the course of the movie, which is more than Tuco (Eli Wallach) and Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef) combined. Tuco, "the ugly", kills 6 people while Angel Ey

Mario Brega appears in all three of the "Dollars Trilogy" movies as a henchman for the main villain(s), and in all three movies his character meets an unfortunate demise (oddly enough, none of these deaths is caused by gunfire). In this movie his characte

Despite being frequently referred to as a sequel to For a Few Dollars More (1965) ("For a Few Dollars More"), this film is set during the American Civil War, whereas the former takes place afterwards, and while Lee Van Cleef here plays a villain who gets

In the gun store, everything Eli Wallach does with the guns is completely unscripted. Wallach knew little about guns, so he was instructed to do whatever he wanted. Most of Enzo Petito's bemused reactions throughout the scene are genuine. The scene where Tuco shoves the open/closed sign in his mouth was also Wallach's idea.

In addition to the train scene, Eli Wallach cheated death in the first scene where Blondie shoots him down from a hanging. The gunshot scared the horse, which took off running at full speed for nearly a mile. Wallach's hands were tied behind his back, and he had to hang on for dear life with his knees.

Eli Wallach was almost poisoned on the set after drinking acid used to burn the bags filled with gold coin to make them rip open easier when struck with the spade. The acid had been poured into a lemon soda bottle and Wallach didn't know it. He drank a lot of milk and filmed the scene with a mouth full of sores.

Sad Hill Cemetery was a very convincing set piece constructed by the pyrotechnic crew, and not a real cemetery. Today the site is marked as a local point of interest. Though the central stone "proscenium" and parapet are gone, the circles of grave mounds are still quite prominent.

The price of gold in 1862 was US$20.672 an ounce. On 23 August 2011, an ounce of the metal reached an all-time high of US$1917.90. The $200,000 of gold that Tuco, Angel Eyes and Blondie were after would be worth over $18.5 million in 149 years.

Four scenes were cut from the original English-language release and never dubbed into English from Italian. When American Movie Classics showed the "Extended English Version", the scenes were restored. Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach dubbed their voices for the movie, but another actor had to be found to dub Angel Eyes' lines, as Lee Van Cleef had died in 1989. The actor who dubbed Angel Eyes' lines into English was voice actor Simon Prescott.

For the scene where Angel Eyes interrogates Maria the prostitute for information about Bill Carson, Lee Van Cleef was appalled by the fact that he was required to actually hit Maria (played by Rada Rassimov), complaining "I can't hit a woman." Rassimov replied with, "Don't worry. I'm an actress. Even if you slap me for real, it's no problem," but Van Cleef further stated, "I know, but I can't!" As a result, a stunt double was used for shots where Rassimov was slapped, which were intercut with shots of Van Cleef himself. As he later put it: "There are very few principles I have in life . . . one of them is I don't kick dogs, and the other one is I don't slap women in movies".

Eli Wallach remembered that when he first came to Madrid all the hotels were full. Clint Eastwood invited him to sleep over at a friend's house and they shared the same bed. Wallach's wife Anne Jackson told him he could boast that he was the only man to sleep with Clint Eastwood.

Sergio Leone originally titled his story "The Magnificent Rogues" and "The Two Magnificent Tramps," but impulsively changed it during a meeting in which he was pitching the story to United Artists executives Arnold Picker and Arthur Krim. The improvised new title amused them both, and they agreed to put between $1.2 and $1.6 million to make it and retain North American distribution rights.

The three-man gunfight scene is called either a "Mexican standoff", or a truel (game theory). There are several mathematical papers covering the many complex outcomes of a truel. Other movies that use a truel are Inglorious Bastards, Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994).

The three principal actors are the only ones who speak actual English in the film: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach, with the exceptions of Al Mulock (the one-armed man) and John Bartha (the sheriff). Everyone else in the film is really speaking their native language, mostly Italian and Spanish, and was later dubbed into English.

As an Italian-made film, the sound would not have been recored live. This means that the actors would have spoken whatever they wanted and the dialogue would have been dubbed in post-production. This was the traditional way of making films in Italy and was because of the poor soundproofing in Italian studios and the difficulty of keeping Italian crews and spectators quiet. All the actors in the film spoke in their native languages, and were dubbed into other languages in post-production (Italian, German, Spanish, English, etc.)

According to Sergio Leone, it took a lot of discussion before Clint Eastwood agreed to do the movie because he felt his character would be upstaged by Tuco, even before the part was cast. He said, "In the first movie I was just about alone. In the second, there were two of us, and now three. If it goes on like this I'm going to end up with a whole cavalry".

Charles Bronson was offered both the roles of Tuco and Angel Eyes (the latter because Sergio Leone feared that audiences would not take kindly to Lee Van Cleef going from the fatherly, likable Col. Mortimer to a sneering villain). He declined both, as he was in England filming The Dirty Dozen (1967).

Besides Clint Eastwood--of course--actors Mario Brega, Benito Stefanelli, Aldo Sambrell, Lorenzo Robledo, Frank Braña and Antonio Molino Rojo are the only actors to appear in all three of the "Dollars Trilogy" movies. Even though this movie does not have the word "Dollars" in its title, it is grouped with A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965) as part of the "Dollars Trilogy".

In the theatrical trailer, Angel Eyes is "The Ugly" and Tuco "The Bad," which is the reverse of their designations in the actual film. This is because the Italian title translated into English is actually "The Good, the Ugly, the Bad", not "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", and the Italian trailer had "The Ugly" and "The Bad" in that order. When the trailer was transferred to English, "The Ugly" and "The Bad" were not reversed to coincide with the altered title, causing the incorrect designations.

After Eli Wallach agreed with Sergio Leone that Tuco would carry his pistol on a lanyard, the director asked him to grasp the gun by shaking his neck, thus making the gun land in his hand. Wallach claimed that he wasn't able to do the intended action, and asked Leone to demonstrate it. When Leone tried, the pistol missed the director's hand and hit his crotch. Leone then told Wallach to hold the gun in the belt.

The grips on Clint Eastwood's pistol have an inlaid silver rattlesnake. His pistol in For a Few Dollars More (1965) had the same grips. In the TV series Rawhide (1959), Rowdy Yates (Eastwood) kills a gunfighter carrying a pistol with the same grips and takes it for his own. Eastwood's character would carry the pistol with the rattlesnake grips for the remainder of the series' run.

According to Eli Wallach's autobiography "The Good, the Bad and Me", Sergio Leone picked him for the role of Tuco not because of his role as Calvera in The Magnificent Seven (1960) as most people assumed but rather because of his brief role as a Tuco-like bandit in How the West Was Won (1962), in particular the railroad scene.

Although Sergio Leone never made an official sequel to this film, screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni wrote a treatment for a sequel, tentatively titled "Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo n. 2". According to Eli Wallach, the film would have followed Tuco pursuing Blondie's grandson for the gold. Clint Eastwood expressed an interest in acting as a narrator for the film; Joe Dante and Leone were approached to direct and produce the film, respectively. The project was eventually vetoed by Leone, as he did not want the film's title, nor its characters, to be reused.

The film was shot with a process called Techniscope. This means that you can shoot without an anamorphic lens and only use half as much film as you would normally use. The Techniscope process places two wide-screen frames on a single 35mm frame. This technique is called "two-perf". A 35mm frame has four perforations.

In the 1960s Hollywood was still following the The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (a.k.a. The Hays Moral Code), especially when it came to westerns. After this film was released, Hollywood had to change its moral standards in order to stay competitive with such foreign-made films. This particular film broke many, if not most, of those standards.

When Blondie and Angel Eyes are traveling to the cemetery, Blondie shoots a skulker, then counts the number of people that will be traveling together. He says, "Six. A perfect number." In mathematics, a number is perfect if the sum of its factors (excluding itself) equals itself. Six is a perfect number because 1, 2, and 3 are factors and 1 + 2 + 3 = 6. (The next perfect number is 28.)

The Union prison camp "Battleville" was inspired by the actual Confederate prison camp of Andersonville, where thousands of Union prisoners died, and based on steel engravings of Andersonville from August 1864. In the film, when Angel Eyes (disguised as a Union sergeant) is berated by the camp commandant about his treatment of Confederate prisoners, he sarcastically asks the commandant if Union soldiers are treated any better in Andersonville.

Though no specific year or date is stated in the movie, at least part of it takes place during the New Mexico Campaign of 1862. This is confirmed when both the hotel-keeper and Tuco mentions the retreating Confederate Gen. Sibley (real-life Henry H. Sibley) and the advancing Union Col. Canby (another real-life Edward Canby). This is consistent with the campaign that took place between February-April 1862 in the Union territory of New Mexico and the Confederate state of Texas.

Tuco's line "When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk!" was actually improvised by Eli Wallach, which apparently caused the whole crew to burst out laughing. Eli was a little perplexed because he thought that what he said was actually pretty sensible; that is, he didn't mean it as a joke, but his delivery and the look on his face made it side-splittingly hilarious.

Tuco tells his brother Father Pablo Ramirez (played by Luigi Pistilli) "Where we came from, if one did not want to die of poverty, one became a priest or a bandit!". Ironically, in For a Few Dollars More (1965), Pistilli played a bandit, so in a sense, he's been both a priest and a bandit at the same time.

The town where Tuco's second hanging takes place, the town where Maria is interrogated by Angel Eyes, the town where Tuco visits the gun shop and the town where Tuco and his gang attempt to ambush Blondie during a cavalry march are, in fact, the same town. Set designer Carlo Simi had previously created the set for For a Few Dollars More (1965) (in which the town was referred to as El Paso), and was portrayed as four different settlements in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) by shooting in different areas of the set for each scene. The "El Paso" set still exists, as a western theme park known as "Mini Hollywood".

The mud-strewn town where Blondie brings Tuco for his first hanging is the same town from Sergio Corbucci's Django (1966), filming for which had taken place earlier that year. The set, built at the Elios Film Studios in Rome, had not been cleaned between its use in the two films.

The following guns are used in this movie. 1.Blondie uses: A Colt 1851 cartridge conversion revolver (with silver snake grips), and a Winchester 1866 "yellow boy" with ladder elevated sights. 2. Tuco uses: A Colt 1851 Navy cartridge conversion revolver with a lanyard. 3. Angel Eyes uses: A Remington 1858 Army percussion revolver. 4. Soldiers used: Gatling guns with drum magazines, and Howitzer cannons.

"Pitchfork" put at 32nd place the main theme of this film, composed by Ennio Morricone, on its list of The 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s Quote from Pitchfork: "Film was the most important medium of the 20th century, and Ennio Morricone was among its chief architects. 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly' didn't simply reinvent soundtracks; it reinvented movies. For even the most uncouth audiences, the titular theme--hell, just the opening 'wah-wah-wah'--is synonymous with stoicism, murder, and pop-art delirium. Despite the Wagnerian crescendos and theatrical irony, every effect is critical and unforgettable: pacing boots, tribal flutes, flaring surf guitar, Indian war whoops, field-recording flotsam, meth-mangled trumpet solos. In just under three minutes, Morricone condenses all the greatest elements of music--from opera, garage, musique concrète, peyote songs, whatever--and layers it over stampeding horses and shotgun blasts. It's kaleidoscopic, exhilarating, and incontrovertibly badass. --Alex Linhardt".

Sergio Leone first had Gian Maria Volontè in mind as Tuco, but the actor turned the role down in favor of El Chuncho in Damiano Damiani's A Bullet for the General (1967), as the latter was a role that would allow him to make a political statement in line with his own leftist views.

Because the film was set during the Civil War, Leone wanted to preserve a certain sense of accuracy, and went to America to research the film. Among his inspirations were Library of Congress documents and the photographs of legendary photographer Mathew Brady. The film is not completely historically accurate, though. It features the use of dynamite before that particular explosive was invented.

As of September 2016, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) is the only film to be charted among IMDb top 20 movies, without a single Oscar nomination.

Throughout production, Clint Eastwood regularly socialized with would-be Spaghetti Western veteran Franco Nero, who was working on Texas, Adios (1966) at the time. The two films share three cast members: Luigi Pistilli (Father Pablo in this film, Hernandez in 'Texas, Adios'), Livio Lorenzon (Baker in the former film, Alcalde Miguel in the latter) and Silvana Bacci (who plays a barmaid in Texas, Adios and a Mexican prostitute in a scene that was ultimately cut from 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly').

Henry Fonda, Lee Marvin and Enrico Maria Salerno were considered for Angel Eyes. As with the previous "Dollars Trilogy" films, Salerno wound up dubbing Clint Eastwood's voice in the Italian version.

In the original working script, Angel Eyes was named "Banjo", but is referred to as "Sentenza" (meaning "Sentence" or "Judgement") in the Italian version. Clint Eastwood came up with the name Angel Eyes on the set, for Lee Van Cleef's gaunt appearance and expert marksmanship.

In the Italian version of the movie (and some U.S. laserdisc prints), instead of "The Good", "The Bad" and "The Ugly" written in English, their Italian counterparts are written, "Il Buono", "Il Cattivo", "Il Brutto." There, they are written in each actor's own handwriting. In the English version, just one post-production person did the cursive writing for all three.

The three main characters all contain autobiographical elements of Sergio 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."

The screenplay is co-credited to Age-Scarpelli, the screenwriting team of Agenore Incrocci and Furio Scarpelli, who were known for writing comedies. To Sergio Leone's displeasure, they wrote a comedy western. Very little of what they wrote made it to the screen.

Tuco's "You know what you are" at the end is sampled into Ministry's song of the same name off the 1988 album "The Land Of Rape and Honey"

"The Good, the Bad & the Very Ugly" is the title of an autobiography by Sondra Locke, who lived with Clint Eastwood for 14 years. The book deals with controversial matters such as abortion, homosexuality, infidelity and palimony.

In the English language version, the names of the characters played by Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef are never revealed. They are always referred to by the nicknames given to them by Tuco: "Blondie" and "Angel Eyes." This fitted in with United Artists' U.S. "Man With No Name" campaign.

Blonde and Tuco use Model 1851 Colt Navy pistols that have been converted from percussion to use cartridges. There was no such conversion on theae guns at any time during the Civil War. During the trello at the end of the movie Angel Eyes uses a Model 1858 Remington Army pistol which shows the small percussion caps on it. It is the only pistol used by the three main actors that is period correct. Oddly, in The Outlaw Josey Wales Eastwood exclusively uses percussion Colt pistols which are period correct.

Cameo: Chelo Alonso. She had a brief appearance as the wife of Stevens, the man visited by Angel Eyes in his opening scene. The Cuban born actress/dancer had been a major star in the previous Italian film craze, the sword and sandal/mythological muscle man movies.

According to Eli Wallach, when it came time to blow up the bridge, Sergio Leone asked the Spanish army captain in charge to trigger the fuse, as a sign of gratitude for the army's collaboration. They agreed to blow up the bridge when Leone gave the signal "Vai!" (Go!) over the walkie-talkie. Unfortunately, another crew member spoke on the same channel, saying the words "vai, vai!", meaning "it's OK, proceed" to a second crew member. The captain heard this signal, thought it was for him and blew the bridge; unfortunately, no cameras were running at the time. Leone was so upset that he fired the crewman, who promptly fled from the set in his car. The captain was so sorry for what happened that he proposed to Leone that the army would rebuild the bridge to blow it up again, with one condition: that the fired crewman be re-hired. Leone agreed, the crewman was forgiven, the bridge was rebuilt and the scene was successfully shot.

During the scene right before the final duel where Tuco (Eli Wallach) is running frantically through the cemetery, a dog can be seen running on-screen at the beginning of the scene. In reality, that was improvised on the spot. Sergio Leone, who was afraid that the scene was going to slip into melodrama, released the dog without informing Eli Wallach first--thus, his look of surprise is quite genuine.

When the bridge is blown up, and Tuco and Blondie are hunkered down behind sandbags waiting for the explosion, Clint Eastwood's career came within two feet of ending prematurely. A fist-sized piece of rock shrapnel from the explosion slams into the sandbag right next to Eastwood's head (watch it in slow motion to see the rock flying in).

Although Blondie (Clint Eastwood) is labeled "the good" in the film, he actually kills 11 people during the course of the movie, which is more than Tuco (Eli Wallach) and Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef) combined. Tuco, "the ugly", kills 6 people while Angel Eyes, "the bad", has the lowest body count with 3.

Mario Brega appears in all three of the "Dollars Trilogy" movies as a henchman for the main villain(s), and in all three movies his character meets an unfortunate demise (oddly enough, none of these deaths is caused by gunfire). In this movie his character of Wallace is killed when Tuco (chained to him) jumps off the train with him, and bangs his head against some rocks. This is the only movie from the trilogy in which Brega plays an American; in the other movies, he plays a Mexican.

Shortly after Blondie brings in Tuco to the sheriff for the first time, the sheriff comes out with one of Tuco's wanted posters and unrolls it to show Tuco his picture on it. If you look carefully, you will see that the name on the poster is "Guy Calloway" (presumably one of Tuco's aliases). Guy Calloway also happens to be the name of one of the wanted men that Col. Mortimer (played by Lee Van Cleef, who played Angel Eyes in this movie) shoots and kills in For a Few Dollars More (1965).

Despite being frequently referred to as a sequel to For a Few Dollars More (1965), this film is set during the American Civil War, whereas the former takes place afterwards, and while Lee Van Cleef here plays a villain who gets killed, he turns up in the first one as a very much alive good guy.

The three-man gunfight scene is called either a "Mexican standoff", or a truel (game theory). There are several mathematical papers covering the many complex outcomes of a truel. Other movies that use a truel are Inglorious Bastards (2009), Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994).

As an Italian-made film, the sound would not have been recorded live. This means that the actors would have spoken whatever they wanted and the dialogue would have been dubbed in post-production. This was the traditional way of making films in Italy and was because of the poor soundproofing in Italian studios and the difficulty of keeping Italian crews and spectators quiet. All the actors in the film spoke in their native languages, and were dubbed into other languages in post-production (Italian, German, Spanish, English, etc.)

Once again, as was the case with " For a Few Dollars More ", Lee Van Cleef was a replacement for Charles Bronson. This time, Bronson was tied up filming " The Dirty Dozen " in England.

$200,000 in gold at the 1860's rate would weigh over 660 pounds (300 kilos). Gold was valued at $20 an ounce. Thus there was about 1000 ounces. 1000 troy ounces would weigh over 660 pounds. Way too heavy for the horses to carry out the gold and riders.

"The Good, the Bad and the Very Ugly" is the title of an autobiography by Sondra Locke, who lived with Clint Eastwood for 14 years. The book deals with controversial matters such as abortion, homosexuality, infidelity and palimony.

The film is included on Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" list.

Though Angel Eyes carries a period correct revolver (model 1858 Remington), he has cartridges in his belt that would not fit his pistol. That pistol did not take cartridges.