Reviewing a .Spaghetti. Western is not an easy thing to do. Reason is there is always that thought in the back of your mind that it.s really a B-Western. The contrary can be said about The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. As far as Westerns go this movie is one of those that don.t age even if it was made in the 60.s. Filmed in Spain, We meet Tuco (Eli Wallach .the Ugly.) as he guns down three bounty hunters who are trying to bring him in. Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef .the Bad.) who really is bad, murdering a farmer and his son for money, and then shooting the man who paid him to do it. His part in events gets introduced further into the movie, but we know from his introduction that he.s not one to be trifled with. Finally we meet Blondie (Clint Eastwood .the Good.) gunning down three other bounty hunters wanting to take Tuco in, just seeing the way this scene is executed gives the whole movie a new level of .cool.. From then on an adventure begins where the three of them cross paths and set out to dig up $200,000.00 in gold buried in a graveyard. Tuco knows the location of the graveyard and blondie knows the name on the tombstone. Set in the Civil War era, Tuco and blondie cross paths with both Confederate and Union officers played by various European extras. Perfectly cast, superbly written, beautifully shot, his movie sets a benchmark for legendary screen entertainment in the Western Genre.

VIDEO
I really couldn.t believe what I was seeing when I popped this baby in. At last a studio spending the time and effort to really give a film the restoration it so utterly deserves, presented at 2.35 Anamorphic Widescreen. It was quite remarkable to see such clean crisp sharp images flowing across the screen. There is, at times, some dirt and discolorisation or yellow haze that seems to appear but was not distracting and was forgivable. Colours and black levels were brilliant giving way to detail which was so superb you could see every bead of sweat and every grain of sand. This is what DVD is all about, an absolute pleasure to watch.

AUDIO
It.s a real shame that movie looking so good, sounds so disappointing. Obviously this movie was dubbed from its original Italian soundtrack to English. It is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and yes, the dubbing is really noticeable. I did however find gunshots quite pleasing but no real use of the surrounds was noticeable except for distant cannon fire etc. All the action was pretty much kept in the front and centre channels, but I will say the music scores have never sounded better. Listening to the Morricone's score in 5.1 surround was probably the most pleasing and also the vocals on The Ecstasy of Gold coming from the surrounds did enhance the listening experience.
Other Audio formats available were French and German both in Mono.

EXTRAS