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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
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=== Pre-production === After the success of ''For a Few Dollars More'', executives at [[United Artists]] approached the film's screenwriter, Luciano Vincenzoni, to sign a contract for the rights to the film and the next one. Producer Alberto Grimaldi, Sergio Leone and he had no plans, but with their blessing, Vincenzoni pitched an idea about "a film about three rogues who are looking for some treasure at the time of the American Civil War".<ref>Frayling (2000), p. 209</ref> The studio agreed but wanted to know the cost for this next film. At the same time, Grimaldi was trying to broker his own deal, but Vincenzoni's idea was more lucrative. The two men struck an agreement with UA for a million-dollar budget, with the studio advancing $500,000 upfront and 50% of the box-office takings outside of Italy. The total budget was eventually $1.2 million.<ref name="The Good 2014" /> Leone built upon the screenwriter's original concept to "show the absurdity of war ... the Civil War, which the characters encounter. In my frame of reference, it is useless, stupid: it does not involve a 'good cause'."<ref>Frayling (2000), p. 204</ref> An avid history buff, Leone said, "I had read somewhere that 120,000 people died in Southern camps such as [[Andersonville prison|Andersonville]]. I was not ignorant of the fact that there were camps in the North. You always get to hear about the shameful behavior of the losers, never the winners."<ref>Frayling (2000), p. 205</ref> The Batterville Camp where Blondie and Tuco are imprisoned was based on steel engravings of Andersonville. Many shots in the film were influenced by archival photographs taken by [[Mathew Brady]] and [[Alexander Gardner (photographer)|Alexander Gardner]].<ref>Hanley (2016), e.g. Figure 1.15 on p. 21, Behind-the-scenes of Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, {{ISBN|978-3-00-040476-4}}</ref> As the film took place during the Civil War, it served as a prequel for the other two films in the trilogy, which took place after the war.<ref name="Munn59">Munn, p. 59</ref> While Leone developed Vincenzoni's idea into a script, the screenwriter recommended the comedy-writing team of Agenore Incrucci and Furio Scarpelli to work on it with Leone and Sergio Donati. According to Leone, "I couldn't use a single thing they'd written. It was the grossest deception of my life."<ref name="Frayling215">Frayling (2000), p. 215</ref> Donati agreed, saying, "There was next to nothing of them in the final script. They only wrote the first part. Just one line."<ref name="Frayling215"/> Vincenzoni claims that he wrote the screenplay in eleven days, but he soon left the project after his relationship with Leone soured. The three main characters all contain autobiographical elements of Leone. In an interview he said, "[''Sentenza''] has no spirit, he's a professional in the banalest sense of the term. Like a robot. This isn't the case with the other two. On the methodical and careful side of my character, I'd be nearer ''il Biondo'' (Blondie), but my most profound sympathy always goes towards the ''Tuco'' side ... He can be touching with all that tenderness and all that wounded humanity."<ref>Frayling (2000), p. 217</ref> [[Film director]] [[Alex Cox]] suggests that the cemetery-buried gold hunted by the protagonists may have been inspired by rumours surrounding the [[anti-Communist]] [[Gladio]] organisation, who hid many of their 138 weapons caches in cemeteries.<ref>Cox, p. 93</ref> Eastwood received a percentage-based salary, unlike in the first two films, from which he received a straight fee. When Lee Van Cleef was again cast for another ''Dollars'' film, he joked, "the only reason they brought me back was that they forgot to kill me off in ''For a Few Dollars More''".<ref name="Munn59" /> The film's working title was ''I due magnifici straccioni'' (''The Two Magnificent Tramps''). It was changed just before shooting began when Vincenzoni thought up ''Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo'' (''The Good, the Ugly, the Bad''), which Leone loved. In the United States, United Artists considered using the original Italian translation, ''River of Dollars'', or ''The Man With No Name'', but decided on ''The Good, the Bad and the Ugly''.<ref name="Hughes15" />
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