The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Showdown

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) is arguably the most well-known Western film from Hollywood, and with good reason.  The writing, acting and directing is done well enough to keep the audience on the edge of their seats with every duel.  Let's take a look at my personal favorite standoff: the final one (be warned; there will be some spoilers here).

Towards the end of the three-hour-long film, we have a final showdown among the good "Blondie" (the Man with No Name), the ugly Tuco, and the bad Angel Eyes.  They stare each other down in the middle of a dusty graveyard where $200,000 is buried.  The problem is that only Blondie knows which grave the money is buried in.  He takes a rock, writes the name on the bottom with his cigar, and places it in the center of a rocky circle.  This is all done in almost complete silence as the camera cuts back and forth between Blondie walking calmly to the circle and Tuco and Angel Eyes looking at him with hatred and greed.

The music, an ominous reprise of the main theme, starts to play quietly as the trio slowly takes their places around the circle, spreading out and keeping their eyes on each other and the rock with the name.  Tuco is trembling and looks very nervous, Angel Eyes has a grim scowl on his face, and Blondie is calm and confident.  As the trio slows to a stop in three equally spaced-out positions, the music begins to crescendo, and the camera draws closer on each of their faces.  Here is where the suspense starts to really build.  The camera begins with a medium pan shot of all three characters, and then drops to close-ups of each character at a time.  The close-ups grow more intense with the music, and soon the audience is seeing just the characters' eyes and their hands near their guns, with the cuts happening quicker and quicker.  Tuco's hand is trembling a lot, suggesting growing nervousness, Angel Eyes slowly moves his hand across his belt, and Blondie's hand is still as a statue.  This keeps going for quite a few minutes as the audience is left guessing what will happen; it has been clearly established that each of these characters are very quick and very skilled shots, so it is really difficult to know who will shoot first and who will come out of this alive.  Suddenly, the music swells and then...!

Nothing.  The music quickly quiets down and the camera fixates on Angel Eyes' gaze for a moment, still in a close-up.  He then finally decides to draw his gun.  In a speedy second, the camera cuts to a medium shot of Tuco drawing his gun, then to Blondie pulling his trigger, and then to Angel Eyes falling to his death.  This part personally made me jump; the random slow-down of the music and camera tricked me into thinking that nothing would happen and the three would put aside their differences, but then the bullets started flying!

The duel ends with Tuco realizing that his gun was empty as Blondie continues shooting at Angel Eyes' corpse until it conveniently falls into an open grave.  Tuco yells at Blondie for taking his ammo and trying to get him killed.  Blondie just strolls past dust clouds towards the rock, picks it up and reveals that he never wrote the name on there, like a boss.