Synopsis: Amazon.com If you think of A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More as the tasty appetizers in Sergio Leone’s celebrated “Dollars” trilogy of Italian “Spaghetti” Westerns, then The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is a lavish full-course feast. Readily identified by the popular themes of its innovative score by Ennio Morricone (one of the bestselling soundtracks of all time), this cinematic milestone eclipsed its influential predecessors with a $1.2 million budget (considered extravagant in the mid-1960s), greater production values to accommodate Leone’s epic vision of greed and betrayal, and a three-hour running time for its wide-ranging plot about the titular trio of mercenaries (“Good” Blondie played by rising star Clint Eastwood, “Bad” Angel Eyes played by Lee Van Cleef, and “Ugly” Tuco played by Eli Wallach) in a ruthless Civil War-era quest for $200,000 worth of buried Confederate gold. Virtually all of Leone’s stylistic attributes can be found here in full fruition, from the constant inclusion of Roman Catholic iconography to a climactic circular shoot-out, along with Leone’s trademark use of surreal landscapes, brilliant widescreen compositions and extreme close-ups of actors so intimate that they burn into the viewer’s memory. And while some Leone fans may favor the more scaled-down action of For a Few Dollars More or the masterful grandiosity of Once Upon a Time in the West, it was The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly that cemented Leone’s reputation as a world-class director with a singular vision. –Jeff Shannon Product Description By far the most ambitious, unflinchingly graphic and stylistically influential western ever mounted, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is an engrossing actioner shot through with a volatile mix of myth and realism. Clint Eastwood returns as the “Man With No Name,” this time teaming with two gunslingers (Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef) to pursue a cache of $200,000and letting no one, not even warring factions in a civil war, stand in their way. From sun-drenched panoramas to bold,hard close-ups, exceptional camera work captures the beauty and cruelty of the barren landscape andthe hardened characters who stride unwaveringly through it. Forging a vibrant and yet detached style of action that had not been seen before, and has never been matched since, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly shatters the western mold in true Clint Eastwood style. Set Contains: Like Leone’s subsequent epics, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly suffered through a seemingly endless series of cuts, re-cuts, and censorship during its rocky history of global distribution, and this two-disc collector’s edition meticulously restores the film to Leone’s originally desired length (179 minutes), with a fully restored 5.1-channel English-language soundtrack, including dialogue from Eastwood and Wallach re-recorded exclusively for this restoration in 2003. Disc 1 presents the film in glorious 2.35:1-ratio widescreen Techniscope (a “poor-man’s Cinemascope” process that squeezed two images into each normal 35mm frame), with the aforementioned Dolby Digital 5.1-channel surround mix–admittedly a bane to Leone purists who prefer the original mono tracks, but a positive boon for 21st-century home-theater systems. The full-length commentary by film historian, Time magazine critic and Eastwood biographer Richard Schickel is very good (if a bit droning at times), with astute emphasis on Leone’s artistic influences, thematic consistencies throughout Leone’s films, and behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the film’s production. Bonus features on disc 2 begin with “Leone’s West” (19:53) and “The Leone Style” (23:47), a pair of excellent documentaries exploring The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and the evolution of Leone’s visual style as his budgets and production values grew to epic proportions. Featuring interviews with Eastwood, Schickel, and others, these must-see features are packed with entertaining observations and anecdotes. Lending historical context to Leone’s film, “The Man Who Lost the Civil War” is a 14-minute excerpt from a documentary about ill-fated Confederate general Henry Hopkins Sibley’s botched campaign to expand Confederate dominance in the West. The “Reconstruction” featurette (11:07) is a detailed study of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’s painstaking restoration to Leone’s intended 179-minute extended cut, featuring an interview with MGM director of technical operations John Kirk, who supervised the film’s meticulous reconstruction. The essential contribution of composer Ennio Morricone is celebrated in the “Il Maestro” featurette (7:47) and film music historian Jon Burlingame provides an excellent audio-only survey (12:29) of Morricone’s popular musical themes. Deleted scenes include the extended “Tuco torture” sequence (in which the brutal beating of Eli Wallach’s character is masterfully cross-cut with the melancholy performance of a prison-camp orchestra); a film-and-still-photo reconstruction of fragme