It was years before it struck me that I have been listening to Ennio Morricone’s signature tune my whole life.
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly main theme no longer remains just a movie theme. Such is its popularity and never-ending appeal.What makes this particular theme so boisterously popular in his staggering filmography?
For starters, there is a hint of leisure in it and adventure, that every listener relates to invariably. There is a personal connect to it, and joyful simplicity, like talking a leisurely walk in splendid weather.
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly main theme is the stuff of legend, and part of our collective universal consciousness.
Hundreds of advertisers have used the tune without acknowledgement, there are umpteen movie comedy tracks that play up the tune to spoof up the scene, there is even an early 90s Hindi film song where the makers brazenly duplicate the signature tune.
Believe it or not, here is the incriminating video!
Ennio Morricone: A life in music
Morricone’s first claim to flame were the Italian westerns. It was his pioneering work for the Sergio Leone trilogy – A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and the iconic The Good, The Bad, The Ugly that made his name. He went on to score in English, German and French productions, accounting for over 400 movies and television productions. He has scored for movies of every genre. The simplicity of the melody set Morricone apart from the tribe.
The lightness of guitar, majestic trumpets, the whistle, orchestral grandeur, as in the pulsating crime drama The Untouchables (1987), there was no mood that Morricone could turn into melody. Another triumph is the score for the stunning drama that celebrates movie watching – Cinema Paradiso (1988). If you are cinephile, go watch and lend two ears to Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).
Morricone won an honorary Oscar in 2007, fittingly presented to him by Leone trilogy westerns star Clint Eastwood. He went on to win his first individual Oscar in 2016 for his The Hateful Eight score.
The balcony experience
Morricone (1928-2020) the great has passed on, and it has made me ruminate on that extraordinary experience of watching a Sergio Leone classic, years ago. It was in the Leone western trilogy that Morricone made a killing, mirroring the gun-warring proceedings.
Pune city, India, has had for decades two distinct single screen theaters, Alaka Talkies and Vijay, a decade ago Vijay used to do evening specials of English classics.
They have done Russell Crowe specials for a whole week, followed by a entire line of westerns where The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly was featured.
They also did The Sixth Sense screening, where people started walking out right before the big reveal in the end, many to date I suspect, unaware of what all the fuss was about.
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly experience
Vijay had a unique tradition during the special screenings – No Intermission. Ever.
Yes, I saw three hours and 58 minutes of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly to watering, blood red eyes.
The collected audience laughed off the opening title credits, where the animated cutout of a man galloping on a horseback across the screen is subjected to fatal cannon ball shots to make the three blood-red lines of the movie title.
Brutal.
There are a lot of gunshots in that opening credits scene, and they don’t run out of bullets either.
The midway chorus in the main theme is meant to imitate coyotes howling – that’s how assured and fearless Morricone sounds, not afraid to experiment and stand different from every other music composer out there.
The trumpet is exemplary, war-like and the marching sound is collective, connecting seamlessly to the civil war movie motif.
The effect is playful, almost comical, yet cinematic, unlike anything we have heard before or since.
So long, Morricone.
You were a different breed, outrageously unique and so yourself.