by T. Larry Verburg

One aspect of Sergio Leone’s famous spaghetti western, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), has always intrigued me—the odd friendship of Tuco (Eli Wallach) and Joe (Clint Eastwood, referred to in the film as “Blondie”).  Since Tuco, at any given time in the first third of the film, desires nothing more that to kill Blondie (in revenge for his abandonment in the desert by Blondie), this question is more problematic than it may at first appear.  What, then, is the answer to the question, “Are Tuco and Blondie friends or enemies?”

Before this telling episode, Tuco and Blondie can only be seen as enemies who work along with one another because it is in their best interests to do so.  For the first half of the film, there is no love lost between the pair, as they struggle for the upper hand in the relationship, a relationship that, of course, must be based solely on power.  The ebbing and flowing of this remarkable friendship creates much of the tension and suspense in the film.  In fact, finding the treasure becomes of secondary interest to the more basic question of the unfolding nature of the men’s relationship.

Will Tuco kill Blondie?  Will Blondie kill Tuco?  Viewers who have seen Leone’s Fistful of Dollars (1964) or For A Few Dollars More (1965) are predisposed to assume that Blondie/Eastwood will not die, but, in the context of the film, the possibility of Tuco actually killing Blondie must still be considered.  The question becomes a leitmotif that recurs again and again in counterpoint to the wonderful, doleful, soundtrack by Ennio Morricone.  Throughout much of the film, as their relationship unfolds, the two men play a kind of dangerous one-upmanship in their quest for the treasure.  Tuco tries to outsmart Blondie on several occasions, but Tuco’s motives are never difficult for Blondie to read.  With the viewer constantly reminded of the gold through the intervention and ubiquitousness of Setenza (Lee Van Cleef, referred to as “Angel Eyes” in the film) and his host of lackeys, greed becomes a powerful temptation and motive for lesser men.

Even though they are also seeking the gold, somehow Tuco and Blondie are separate from this venal struggle for wealth above all else.  While the quest for money is what creates their “friendship” and cements their somewhat reluctant reliance on one another, the two appear to have hidden motives for their actions—not all of them necessarily evil and repugnant.  Indeed, their quest is in reality one that is only partially for money.  In part, the quest itself becomes a kind of goal, as they interact with other characters in the film, like the Union commander (Aldo Giuffrè) who sees so vividly the utter futility and obscenity of wars in general and the Civil War in particular.  Their journey is also a kind of odyssey, and as they move through the world of the film, they are changed by what they see and the people they meet.

Tuco, the “Ugly,” and Blondie, the “Good,” are poles apart in temperament, personality, and physicality.  Tuco is more open, more willing to say what is on his mind than Blondie.  Eastwood, in his reprised role as “the man with no name,” a sequel to Leone’s first two westerns, Fistful of Dollars, and For A Few Dollars More, is pure stoic—unemotional and diffident, in effect, a perfect foil to Tuco’s loquaciousness and emotional volatility.  One runs hot, while the other runs cold.  Blondie is tall and slim and exudes a kind of somber rationality.  He is almost ascetic.  Tuco, shorter and fleshier than his companion, is a man who enjoys eating and drinking and is drawn to the fleshpots of life.

But this does not explain the episode with Tuco’s brother, the unfriendly priest.  What is its significance for the film?  Blondie, after his ordeal in the desert, must recuperate.  He has quite literally escaped death by Tuco’s hand for the second time, and he must regain his strength to fulfill the quest for treasure.  There is something almost Christ-like in this situation, that after wandering in the desert, after suffering so much physical pain, he seeks only to return to his quest or mission.  Of course, it can be said that he cannot kill Tuco, because Tuco holds another part of the puzzle that Blondie needs.  But this seems an oversimplification, given the action of the film and its obvious symbolic nature.

Tuco recognizes he needs Blondie to find the treasure—and we recognize the truth of the old saying about gold: radix omnium malorum est cupiditas (love of money is the root of all evil).  But Tuco’s brother, Father Ramirez (Luigi Pistilli), denies him because he has taken a different path—that of bandit—and the priest is ashamed of his brother.  The priest doesn’t ask or care about Blondie, or seek to know why Tuco is “saving” Blondie.  Tuco, in caring for Blondie, in saving the life he came so near to ending, has in a sense become the “savior,” or at least taken on the outward trappings of the healer.  The irony of this situation comes in remarkable contrast to the actions of his brother, the real priest, who, as “father,” has denied his children.

This spark of good in Tuco, an otherwise dark and possibly evil character, allows the audience to relate to the bandit—to begin, in a sense, to root for him.  In many ways he is a more interesting character than either Blondie, with his stoic quite and resolve, or Angel Eyes, with his particularly virulent and oily villainy.  For, as we come to understand, Tuco is not all bad.  The dramatic scene between Tuco and his brother that begins the “interlude” is key to our understanding of the film’s message.

Tuco reminds his brother that there were only two ways for the children of their family to escape from such dire and miserable poverty—to take the cloth or to become bandits.  Tuco angrily chides his brother that he, Tuco, had by far the more difficult path in life—it is truly not easy to be a bandit.  In this scene we learn some of Tuco’s motivation, what makes him tick.  And what we see reminds us of the basic humanity of mankind—that there is evil and goodness in each of us; and that whether or not we choose the right path is often occasioned by mere chance.  This then is the meaning of this very dramatic, almost Biblical, sequence, which is otherwise strangely at odds with the violent saga.

In contradistinction to Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef, the “Bad”), Tuco does have a code of ethics.  In his world family and friendship are all-important.  The priest, in denying him, his own brother, has injured Tuco’s sense of the sacredness of family and transgressed the higher, natural law.  It is for this reason that Tuco berates his brother for having taken the easy way out.  The priest, seeing the truth behind Tuco’s brutal words, realizes the enormity of his denial of his brother and asks poignantly, “Tuco, please forgive me.”  This heartfelt plea makes absolutely no sense unless it is seen in the context of the moral code of the film, such as it is.

Because he has betrayed Tuco (by abandoning him horseless and helpless in the desert), Blondie must suffer.  Vengeance and retribution in Tuco’s world are normally swift and deadly.  Blondie, the “Good,” is a kind of wandering misfit who is, at base, at least partly good.  Blondie is violent and misguided, but not really evil.  Therefore, Blondie must not die; he must be redeemed.

On a narrative level, the deus ex machina of Bill Carson’s sudden appearance and death serves to prolong Blondie’s life, at the exact moment when Tuco is going to sacrifice him to vengeance and honor.  Carson has given Blondie information that preserves his life, literally whispered the secret to the treasure with his dying breath.  His role is symbolic, as redeemer, or life-giver, and yet profoundly ironic (he passes on a secret from one thief to the next).

Tuco at this point might be expected to become frustrated and angry at the hand fate has dealt him.  But Tuco is nothing if not adaptable.  He quite happily continues his plan to obtain the treasure and even to share it with his erstwhile enemy, who is now his partner.

But the audience knows that Angel Eyes, who seems always one step ahead of Tuco and Blondie, awaits them in the final reckoning.  Angle Eyes, the Western version of the Grim Reaper, is the quintessential loner—he has neither family nor friends and lacks essential humanity.  He, unlike Tuco and Blondie, has no code of life or honor to give his existence value.  This is why, in the end, he must die.  He, unlike Blondie and Tuco, would never be satisfied with a divided treasure.  Angel Eyes is bent on one mission only, to benefit himself, and so he has no recognizable family ties.  His “friends” are merely hired guns, companions only to assist him in achieving his ends.  Since they are types and not really people, they are expendable; their lives are cheap.

In one telling scene following Blondie’s release from the Union Army prison camp, Angel Eyes uncaringly allows his companions to face Tuco and Blondie without him.  As he makes his escape, Tuco and Blondie are killing all his men.  Tuco and Blondie team up in a sympathetic way to eradicate these one-dimensional villains—and they actually save each other’s lives in this showdown.

For this very reason—that Tuco and Blondie share the rudiments of trust and friendship—Tuco cannot die at the end.  At the final scene, Blondie has tellingly shared the gold with his partner Tuco.  However, since Blondie leaves Tuco teetering precariously on the wooden grave marker, his neck in a noose, the audience perceives this act as a second betrayal of Tuco.  At this point, Tuco has really shown more goodness than Blondie’s character—if not his steadfastness and stoicism.  There is marvelous irony in the fact that in balancing on the wooden cross that marks a grave, Tuco is literally standing on the precipice between heaven and hell.

To have ended the film with Tuco’s death in so cowardly a fashion would have vitiated the film by negating the very real and carefully established and choreographed friendship between these two unlikely companions.  The audience would have left the theater with a very bad taste in their mouths, indeed.  As it is, the audience is supplied with one more element of suspense:  Will Blondie really allow Tuco to die?  Given the extreme violence and the casual attitude towards life that is portrayed in the film, no one in the audience can really be sure which way the film will end.  Finally, Blondie severs the rope that is taking Tuco’s life with a well-aimed rifle bullet. 

Apparently, Leone agrees with Alfred Hitchcock, who, early in his career, observed that when you build up suspense in a film about the possible death of a sympathetic character, as Hitchcock does in Sabotage (1936) with the boy Stevie, you must not cheat the audience by killing that person.  As Mark Osteen writes (“It doesn’t pay to antagonize the public”: Sabotage and Hitchcock’s audience,” Literature/Film Quarterly 28, 4 [2000]: 259-268), “a filmmaker may alarm his audience, but he must also provide them with an emotional pay-off that dissipates the unease he has inspired.  Rather than pacifying the audience, Sabotage violates it” (260).  Leone’s film does not make the mistake that Hitchcock made in Sabotage.

With the death of Angel Eyes, the symbolic resurrection of Tuco, and Blondie’s gift of sharing the gold, the two friends are ultimately redeemed as men of honor.  Though Tuco characteristically persists in railing at Blondie for putting him through this mortal torment, the good deed has been ritualistically performed and the two friends pass as heroes into the world of legend and myth.