The film is Sergio Leone’s 1966 western masterpiece “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” I mean what’s not to like? Staring Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef, these three actors were at the top of their games. Not to mention quotable lines such as:
“When you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.” Wallach as Tuco the Ugly.
“You see in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend. Those with loaded guns, and those that dig. You dig.” Eastwood as The Good.
“If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working?” Tuco
The plot of the movie was fairly simple. Three bounty hunters go to great, and often violent, lengths competing with each other to track down buried treasure during the American Civil War.
In addition to the action, the humor, and characters, though, I’ve always loved the music. In fact we had a copy of the movie soundtrack at home and that record shared my turntable along with the Moody Blues, The Who, and The Doors. It is considered by many to be one of the most original film scores in history and the album went as high as the number four spot on the Billboard charts in 1968.
While the score’s main title track with it’s wah, wah, wahs was probably the best-known song, I was especially fond of the stirring “The Ecstasy of Gold” which in the movie plays while Tuco is running through the cemetery in search of the treasure buried in the unmarked grave next to the one occupied by Arch Stanton.
But if you asked me more than a half a century after the release of the movie and soundtrack who it was who wrote or performed that great music I couldn’t have told you.
Then I recently read Ennio Morricone’s memorial tribute in Time Magazine. I learned that Morricone was the music composer for that film as well as others such as “Once Upon a Time in America.”
Morricone died in July at the age of 91 and was considered an icon in the industry.
I, for one, will always be grateful to him for creating my favorite soundtrack and will add his name to the list of my most admired songwriters.