Sometimes the best lines are the ones not said.
I particularly like one of the opening scenes in "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly".
We see four armed men walk down a dusty street. They pause outside a Barber Shop, draw their guns, and using body language all enter the shop at the same time, guns a-blazing.
Next we see a man, wrapped in the smock of a customer crash through the front window, having killed all four of his attackers. He tears off the smock, breathing heavily and grunting, wipes away the shaving cream from his face.
This is our introduction to the The Ugly.
Outside a Beauty Shop.
Beauteous Interruptus.
How Ironic.
Later, the Good, played by Clint Eastwood, will take him in to the Sheriff and collect a bounty.
The Ugly is wanted in "14 counties of Five States " for crimes such as "Abandonment, Cruelty to Animals, Inciting a riot, Mayhem,Robbery, Robbery of a Church, Murder, Cruelty to Old People and Sodomy".
Then, just as the Ugly hangs, the Good shoots the rope from around his neck and rescues him, only to take him to the next Sheriff and collect the bounty again.
It reminds me of what I used to do at age 10 on Saturday mornings. It was back in the day of "returnable" glass soda bottles.
I would bike down to the local Buddies Grocery and by a Coke.
And while I was buying the coke, I would grab two or three of the empty bottles sitting in the "Returnables" rack beside the Coke machine.
Lighthearted, I would make my way to the nearest Piggly Wiggly, where I would turn in my bottles for a nickle each, and as I passed merrily by the "Returnables" rack, I would grab a few more empties, and off I would go to Safeway!
When I had 50 cents earned (or collected, however say you) I would go to Jeds Wondramat (a Laundry), where there was a Pinball Machine called "Spanish Eyes".
For a dime I could play, and sometimes win a free game.
If I lost too quickly, I would just go and talk a storeowner out of a coke and start my enterprise once again.
My Saturdays were filled with 'Spanish Eyes".
When I became a Boy Scout the next year, I had to stop.
God, how I'd love to see one of those old "Spanish Eyes" pinball machines.
By the way, I once racked up 11 free games on one play.
I was like the Ugly, coming out of that window.
Pop,pop,popoppop, popopop,po! Pop, pop, pop!
8 comments:
With such an attitude, no wonder you got bulletholes in your mailbox, Sir!
Ha! Thanks for your help to find your Gaelic (I had never even KNOWN there was such a thing to search with. Great! I commented, too!
hey Angie! i use it a lot to find an old post I want to link to...like key word.
Then if you can rember to put a label at the bottom, that helps keep things together too.
The best part is its all FREE!
check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3gp7B8WC4Q
Wanted for "mahem"... that's hilarious. But sodomy? He doesn't look like a sodomist, but maybe I've got a romantic image of sodomists. The opening of The Good, The Bad & The Ugly is fabulous indeed: the sharp music, the close ups of wild-eyed, dirty unshaven ugly basterds... in Hollywood everything is so clean and sugar coated.
Last summer, I drove through Spain in search of the landscape Leone where filmed it. Unfortunately my car broke down and I lost my temper with Spain. So I drove off. I caused some minor mayhem too, but probably not enough to be wanted for.
Martijn
Hey cornbread! I looked at that and there are a few others I'd like to look at when I have time....A ukelele orchestra indeed!
i heard that Metallica opens shows with the Theme.
Martijn....the movie gets better every time you see it!
"Lost my temper with Spain"...Thats funny!
Bulletholes- you're a funny ugly at least. Boy,I sure do wish I had been a pigtailed little girl living next door to a funny kid named Steve. We would have had a riot of a time together- when we were 7, or was it 11?
How could one possibly"lose their temper with Spain"
All those olives and wine? sigh..
I learned to play serious pinball at a bar I worked in at college. I almost got fired for not putting a big enough head on the draft beer.
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