Wedding of the Season: Abandoned at the Altar

• ISBN13: 9780061963155
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

There are rules for dealing with ghosts. Too bad Ree Hutchins doesn't know them.

When her favorite patient at a private mental hospital passes away, psychology student Ree Hutchins mourns the elderly woman's death. But more unsettling is her growing suspicion that something unnatural is shadowing her.

Amateur ghost hunter Hayden Priest believes Ree is being haunted. Even Amelia Gray, known in Charleston as The Graveyard Queen, senses a gathering darkness. Driven by a force she doesn't understand, Ree is compelled to uncover an old secret and put abandoned souls to restâ€"before she is locked away forever....

An ebook exclusive prequel to The Graveyard Queen series.There are rule! s for dealing with ghosts. Too bad Ree Hutchins doesn't know them.

When her favorite patient at a private mental hospital passes away, psychology student Ree Hutchins mourns the elderly woman's death. But more unsettling is her growing suspicion that something unnatural is shadowing her.

Amateur ghost hunter Hayden Priest believes Ree is being haunted. Even Amelia Gray, known in Charleston as The Graveyard Queen, senses a gathering darkness. Driven by a force she doesn't understand, Ree is compelled to uncover an old secret and put abandoned souls to restâ€"before she is locked away forever....

An ebook exclusive prequel to The Graveyard Queen series.BEATEN, BLOODIED, AND BRUISED, and things are going to get worse.

Angelina awakes from a drug-induced haze, alone in the dim parking lot of a biker gang’s clubhouse. Her violent husband, who has left her there to suffer, has kidnapped their young son. The desperate woman slowly makes her way into ! the rundown building with the hope of finding help. Instead, a! gang of bikers, who intend to make the young mother their property, approaches her.
After a disheartening confrontation, a club member with a past full of disappointment and regret insists that the attractive woman ride with him. In doing so, he upsets the balance of the gang, infuriating another member in the process. As they travel across country, Angelina quickly learns that not only does she have to worry about the safety of her child, but her own safety as well.
It will take determination, inner strength, and the help of a handsome stranger in order for her to survive the ride of her life.

This romantic suspense novel will keep you speculating throughout the journey.BEATEN, BLOODIED, AND BRUISED, and things are going to get worse.

Angelina awakes from a drug-induced haze, alone in the dim parking lot of a biker gang’s clubhouse. Her violent husband, who has left her there to suffer, has kidnapped their young son. The desperate woman slowly makes h! er way into the rundown building with the hope of finding help. Instead, a gang of bikers, who intend to make the young mother their property, approaches her.
After a disheartening confrontation, a club member with a past full of disappointment and regret insists that the attractive woman ride with him. In doing so, he upsets the balance of the gang, infuriating another member in the process. As they travel across country, Angelina quickly learns that not only does she have to worry about the safety of her child, but her own safety as well.
It will take determination, inner strength, and the help of a handsome stranger in order for her to survive the ride of her life.

This romantic suspense novel will keep you speculating throughout the journey.

On Christmas Eve in 1985, a hunter found a young boy's body along an icy corn field in Nebraska. The residents of Chester, Nebraska buried him as "Little Boy Blue," unclaimed and unidentified-- until a phone call fr! om Ohio two years later led authorities to Eli Stutzman, the b! oy's fat her.

Eli Stutzman, the son of an Amish bishop, was by all appearances a dedicated farmer and family man in the country's strictest religious sect. But behind his quiet façade was a man involved with pornography, sadomasochism, and drugs. After the suspicious death of his pregnant wife, Stutzman took his preschool-age son, Danny, and hit the road on a sexual odyssey ending with his conviction for murder. But the mystery of Eli Stutzman and the fate of his son didn't end on the barren Nebraska plains. It was just beginning. . .

SAIL AWAY Adam Drake was determined to clear his name of the false charges that ruined his career at Montgomery Inns â€" and if that meant deceiving the hotelier’s beloved daughter, Marnie Montgomery, and even stowing away on her boat, so be it. If she had secrets, he would discover every single one.... MILLION DOLLAR BABY When Chandra Hill is awakened by a cry in the night, she is shocked to discover an abandoned newborn in her ! barn. Emergency room doctor Dallas O’Rourke finds himself bonding instantly with the baby â€" and the intriguing woman who brought him in. And when the baby’s adoption becomes national news, he’s stunned to realize he wants a life with them both.... “This campy cool thriller builds to a surprising cliffhanger ending.” â€"Publishers Weekly on Without Mercy (starred review)

Abandoned at the altar . . .

Lady Beatrix Danbury had always known she would marry William Mallory. She'd loved him forever and she'd never doubted he loved her, too. But when she made him choose between their life together or his lifelong dream, Will chose the latter . . . and left two weeks before their wedding.

Return of the duke . . .

Will has no illusions that Beatrix would welcome him back with open arms, but six years did not dim his love or desire for her. The only problem is, she's about to marry someone else. Someone safe and predictable . . . the comple! te opposite of Will. But can he stop the wedding of the season! and win Beatrix back, or is it just too late?

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Broken Embraces [Blu-ray]

• Condition: New
• Format: Blu-ray
• AC-3; Color; Dolby; Dubbed; Subtitled; Widescreen

A luminous Penélope Cruz stars as an actress who sacrifices everything for true love in Broken Embraces, Academy Award -winning filmmaker (2003, Best Writing, Original Screenplay, Talk to Her) Pedro Almodóvar's acclaimed tale of sex, secrets and cinema. When her father becomes gravely ill, beautiful Lena (Cruz) consents to a relationship with her boss Ernesto (José Luis Gómez), a very wealthy, much-older man who pays for her father's hospitalization and provides her a lavish lifestyle. But Lena's dream is to act and soon she falls for the director of her first film - a project bankrolled by her husband to keep her near. Upon his discovery of the affair, Ernesto stops at nothing to ruin Lena's happiness.Pedro Almodóvar continues to reinvent Hollywood's Golden Age for a new era wi! th Broken Embraces. A blind screenwriter in the present day, Mateo Blanco, a.k.a. Harry Caine (Lluís Homar), reminisces about his favorite leading lady to his assistant, Diego (Tamar Novas). In 1992, when Caine met Lena (Penélope Cruz), stockbroker Ernesto (José Luis Gómez) had just made the cash-strapped secretary his mistress. First, Ernesto pays for her mother's medical care; then he supports her dream to act. In the process, Caine casts her in his screwball comedy and falls in love, and a passionate affair begins. Ernesto suspects something is up, so he hires his shifty son, Ernesto Jr. (the off-key Rubén Ochandiano), to film the couple surreptitiously, and a lip reader translates their conversations. Caine's production manager, Judit (Volver's Blanca Portillo), further complicates the scenario. By the end, Caine, whose name serves as a tip of the hat to hard-boiled author James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice), has lost his vision and ! his girl, and the culprit isn't as obvious as it seems. With Embrac es, Almodóvar riffs on Tinseltown classics where greed and lust lead to death. If less successful than Live Flesh, a prior noir, his jigsaw storytelling remains just as riveting and his principal cast rises to the occasion, particularly Cruz, who plays a more passive character than usual and remains, much like Otto Preminger's Laura before her, a mystery that no one, not even the filmmaker, can ever completely solve. --Kathleen C. Fennessy


Stills from Broken Embraces (Click for larger image)

A luminous Penélope Cruz stars as an actress who sacrifices everything for true love in Broken Embraces, Academy Award -winning filmmaker (2003, Best Writing, Original Screenplay, Talk to Her) Pedro Almodóvar's acclaimed tale of sex, secrets and cinema. When her father becomes gravely ill, beautiful Lena (Cruz) consents to a ! relationship with her boss Ernesto (José Luis Gómez), a very! wealthy , much-older man who pays for her father's hospitalization and provides her a lavish lifestyle. But Lena's dream is to act and soon she falls for the director of her first film - a project bankrolled by her husband to keep her near. Upon his discovery of the affair, Ernesto stops at nothing to ruin Lena's happiness.Pedro Almodóvar continues to reinvent Hollywood's Golden Age for a new era with Broken Embraces. A blind screenwriter in the present day, Mateo Blanco, a.k.a. Harry Caine (Lluís Homar), reminisces about his favorite leading lady to his assistant, Diego (Tamar Novas). In 1992, when Caine met Lena (Penélope Cruz), stockbroker Ernesto (José Luis Gómez) had just made the cash-strapped secretary his mistress. First, Ernesto pays for her mother's medical care; then he supports her dream to act. In the process, Caine casts her in his screwball comedy and falls in love, and a passionate affair begins. Ernesto suspects something is up, so he hires his shifty so! n, Ernesto Jr. (the off-key Rubén Ochandiano), to film the couple surreptitiously, and a lip reader translates their conversations. Caine's production manager, Judit (Volver's Blanca Portillo), further complicates the scenario. By the end, Caine, whose name serves as a tip of the hat to hard-boiled author James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice), has lost his vision and his girl, and the culprit isn't as obvious as it seems. With Embraces, Almodóvar riffs on Tinseltown classics where greed and lust lead to death. If less successful than Live Flesh, a prior noir, his jigsaw storytelling remains just as riveting and his principal cast rises to the occasion, particularly Cruz, who plays a more passive character than usual and remains, much like Otto Preminger's Laura before her, a mystery that no one, not even the filmmaker, can ever completely solve. --Kathleen C. Fennessy


Stills from ! Broken Embraces (Click for larger image)

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THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI 24x36 COLOR POSTER PRINT

• Stunning quality 24x36 inch Poster Print!
• Ideal to hang on your wall or frame
• Would look great at home or in your office!
• Exclusive product only available from Moviestore!

Spectacularly produced, and the winner of seven Academy Awards® (1957), including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor (Alec Guinness), The Bridge on the River Kwai continues to be one of the most memorable cinematic experiences of all time. Now, for the first time on Blu-ray, following an extensive all-new 4K digital restoration from the original negative, with newly restored 5.1 audio, experience director David Lean's masterpiece as you never have before.
Director David Lean's masterful 1957 realization of Pierre Boulle's novel remains a benchmark for war films, and a deeply absorbing movie by any standard--like most of Lean's canon, The Bridge on the River Kwai ach! ieves a richness in theme, narrative, and characterization that transcends genre.

The story centers on a Japanese prison camp isolated deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia, where the remorseless Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) has been charged with building a vitally important railway bridge. His clash of wills with a British prisoner, the charismatic Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), escalates into a duel of honor, Nicholson defying his captor's demands to win concessions for his troops. How the two officers reach a compromise, and Nicholson becomes obsessed with building that bridge, provides the story's thematic spine; the parallel movement of a team of commandos dispatched to stop the project, led by a British major (Jack Hawkins) and guided by an American escapee (William Holden), supplies the story's suspense and forward momentum.

Shot on location in Sri Lanka, Kwai moves with a careful, even deliberate pace that survivors of latter-day, high-! concept blockbusters might find lulling--Lean doesn't pander t! o attent ion deficit disorders with an explosion every 15 minutes. Instead, he guides us toward the intersection of the two plots, accruing remarkable character details through extraordinary performances. Hayakawa's cruel camp commander is gradually revealed as a victim of his own sense of honor, Holden's callow opportunist proves heroic without softening his nihilistic edge, and Guinness (who won a Best Actor Oscar, one of the production's seven wins) disappears as only he can into Nicholson's brittle, duty-driven, delusional psychosis. His final glimpse of self-knowledge remains an astonishing moment--story, character, and image coalescing with explosive impact.

Like Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai has been beautifully restored and released in a highly recommended widescreen version that preserves its original aspect ratio. --Sam Sutherland

Stills from The Bridge on the River Kwai (click fo! r larger image)

Beyond The Bridge on th! e River Kwai

The David Lean Collection

WWII 60th Anniversary Collection

The True Story of the Bridge on the River Kwai (History Channel)

Director David Lean's masterful 1957 realization of PierreBoulle's novel remains a benchmark for war films, and a deeply absorbing movie by any standard--like most of Lean's canon, The Bridge on the River Kwai achieves a richness in theme, narrative, and characterization that transcends genre.

The story centers on a Japanese prison camp isolated deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia, whe! re the remorseless Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) has been charged with building a vitally important railway bridge. His clash of wills with a British prisoner, the charismatic Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), escalates into a duel of honor, Nicholson defying his captor's demands to win concessions for his troops. How the two officers reach a compromise, and Nicholson becomes obsessed with building that bridge, provides the story's thematic spine; the parallel movement of a team of commandos dispatched to stop the project, led by a British major (Jack Hawkins) and guided by an American escapee (William Holden), supplies the story's suspense and forward momentum.

Shot on location in Sri Lanka, Kwai moves with a careful, even deliberate pace that survivors of latter-day, high-concept blockbusters might find lulling--Lean doesn't pander to attention deficit disorders with an explosion every 15 minutes. Instead, he guides us toward the intersection of the two plots! , accruing remarkable character details through extraordinary ! performa nces. Hayakawa's cruel camp commander is gradually revealed as a victim of his own sense of honor, Holden's callow opportunist proves heroic without softening his nihilistic edge, and Guinness (who won a Best Actor Oscar, one of the production's seven wins) disappears as only he can into Nicholson's brittle, duty-driven, delusional psychosis. His final glimpse of self-knowledge remains an astonishing moment--story, character, and image coalescing with explosive impact.

Like Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai has been beautifully restored and released in a highly recommended widescreen version that preserves its original aspect ratio. --Sam SutherlandLed in great part by Mitch Miller's recording of "The River Kwai March/Colonel Bogey March," this soundtrack became part of the mass-consciousness of the 1950s and following decades. The infectious and defiant whistling of the British prisoners of war is only one aspect of the film, th! ough, standing alongside a score by Malcolm Arnold that (although winning an Academy Award) became overshadowed by Miller's commercial success. Often wading in folly as much as doom, Arnold views the adversities and will of the POWs in a way akin to Mickey's battle with the brooms in Fantasia. "Shear's Escape" floats in the life-and-death realism of the situation yet seems to find the playfulness and romantic abandon of a walk through a forest. "Overture," in its simultaneously laborious and stirring tones, prefers the stark representation of menace and captivity, orchestral sections battling one another as they search for a means of escape yet, in the end, find they must submit. And standing among it all is K. Alford's "Colonel Bogey March," the whistling tribute to another Disney film score that has always seemed to alleviate even the worst days of drudgery at a cruel job. --James StockstillThis is a truly exceptional item! A high quality poster print measu! ring 24x36 inches professionally printed on quality Kodak phot! ographic paper. This is no ordinary cheap commercial poster on thin art paper. Our poster is produced on real photo paper by our experienced photo technicians here at Moviestore. We guarantee that you will be delighted with the look, feel and overall stunning quality of your purchase. We offer a full refund of your money if you are not fully satisfied! Buy with confidence from Moviestore.

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George of the Jungle

• Deep in the heart of the African jungle, a baby named George, the sole survivor of a plane crash, is raised by gorillas. George grows up to be a buff and lovable klutz who has a rain forest full of animal friends-like Tookie, his big-beaked messenger, Ape, a talking gorilla whos smarter than your average rocket scientist, and Shep, a gray-haired peanut-loving pooch of an elephant. When poachers me

Disney presents the smash hit comedy that families and critics everywhere went bananas over! Deep in the heart of the African jungle, a baby named George, the sole survivor of a plane crash, is raised by gorillas. George grows up to be a buff and lovable klutz (ENCINO MAN'S Brendan Fraser) who has a rain forest full of animal friends -- like Tookie, his big-beaked messenger, Ape, a talking gorilla who's smarter than your average rocket scientist, and Shep, a gray-haired peanut-loving pooch of an ele! phant! When poachers mess with George's pals, the King Of Swing swings into action. But before you can say, "Watch out for that tree," George comes face-to-bark with a few vine-covered obstacles! You'll go wild for this "wonderfully wacky comedy" that People Magazine calls "impossible to resist!"Not even the executives at Disney could have predicted the runaway success of this live-action movie inspired by Jay Ward's goofy 1960s cartoon character. Not only did George make a killing at the box office, but Disney's marketing wizards turned it into one of their best-selling videos. It's hard to begrudge the movie's success, even if this is the kind of mindless entertainment that caters to the lowest common denominator. In any case, it's obvious that kids love this movie, in which the idiotic George (Brendan Fraser) repeatedly swings into trees and attracts the attention of a lovely jungle explorer (Leslie Mann) who decides to call off her engagement to a wealthy snob (T! homas Hayden Church) in favor of the vine-swinging hunk with a! n elepha nt named Shep (that thinks it's a dog) and an ape named Ape (with a proper Brit voice provided by John Cleese). Filled with slapstick gags and some funny special effects, the movie can be a bit of a trial for adults, but it's a hilarious treat for its intended audience. --Jeff Shannon

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The Human Centipede

• HUMAN CENTIPEDE, THE (DVD MOVIE)

100% Medically accurate.
The compelling simplicity of Saw. The stylish dread of Eraserhead. The black humor of A Nightmare On Elm Street. Those are the benchmarks of horror that the outrageous Dutch film The Human Centipede matches. The plot is diabolically simple: two stranded American tourists are given shelter by a famed German doctor (a maniacally intense Dieter Laser) who made his fortune surgically separating conjoined twins. Now his mad genius is pushing the doctor to do the reverse. He tells the women that they will be surgically attached to a Japanese businessman mouth to buttocks, one after the other and thus will be born a new creature: the human centipede! Compellingly perverse, hilarious, and shockingly straightforward, Dutch director Tom Six s new film is hands-down the most memorable horror film of the year.Equal parts Cronenbergian body hor! ror, perverse fetish film, and E.C. Comics-style gross-out, The Human Centipede is Dutch director Tom Six's uniquely macabre endurance test for fans of modern fright fare. What's surprising about the picture isn't the premise--its story, about a madder-than-mad doctor (German actor Dieter Laser) who unites two American tourists (Ashley C. Williams and Ashlynn Yennie) and a Japanese counterpart (Akihiro Kitamura) in a hideous surgical procedure that creates the title monstrosity, was broadcast in detail across the Internet prior to its international theatrical screenings--but rather, the degree of reserve Six applies to depicting every excruciating detail. That's not to say that Human Centipede is a bloodless affair, but Six relies more on the physical endurance and talent of his actors to present the mortal terror of their predicament, which in turn offers a more terrifying experience for the viewer than anything dreamed up by a special effects team. The appro! ach also makes up for some of the more crassly exploitive mome! nts in t he film, like the doctor's relentless abuse of his creation, which is largely clad only in filthy underwear, and Laser's occasional overacting, which at its most heated, suggests an unholy, highly medicated hybrid of Klaus Kinski, Lance Henriksen, and the late Howard Vernon's awful Dr. Orlof. Obviously, this is not for the casual horror fan, and most definitely not for the squeamish; more hard-core types should find their nerves thoroughly rattled by the time the film reaches its darker-than-dark conclusion. A final, disturbing note: the complete title is The Human Centipede (First Sequence); a planned sequel reportedly promises a 12-segment (gulp) creation. --Paul Gaita

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Four Christmases

• Every Christmas happily unmarried Brad and Kate escape divorced parents and exasperating relatives by getting on a plane. This year a fog rolls in, the airport shuts down and the couple is forced to celebrate four family Christmases in one hectic, hilarious day. Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon lead an all-star cast in a comedy brimming with good cheer and great laughs -- as well as the answer t

A couple struggles to visit all four of their divorced parents on christmas day. Studio: New Line Home Video Release Date: 11/24/2009 Starring: Reese Witherspoon Robert Duvall Run time: 120 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: Seth GordonWhen your significant other tells you you both need an exit "safe word" before you enter his dad's Christmas gathering, you know you're not in Bedford Falls. But while Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon may not be It's a Wonderful Life's George and Mary Baile! y, Four Christmases is a modern holiday classic in its own right. For one thing, every family neurosis and dysfunction have taken root in the four families of Vaughn and Witherspoon's characters, Brad and Kate--and the sleek yuppie façade each has built with the other is about to come tumbling down. There are real belly laughs as the couple unexpectedly has to spend holidays with their four extended family groups. "I don't want to speak ill of your mother on Christmas," growls Howard (Robert Duvall) to son Brad, while Brad's bullnecked ultimate-fighter brothers are rassling everything in sight, "but she's nothing but a common street whore." Brad may cringe, but Kate's own family is about to mortify her in abundant ways, from her randy "Gram-Gram" and about-to-pounce cougar mom Mary Steenburgen ("I feel like a Saudi prince in here," marvels Brad as all of Kate's female relatives drape themselves over him), to the revelation to Brad that Kate used to be--how to put th! is--a bit on the chubby side. If the plot isn't full of surpri! ses, the quips are nonstop and the acting believable and charming. The supporting cast also includes Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight, Jon Favreau and Dwight Yoakam in a memorable turn as the mega-church pastor Steenburgen's character is involved with. It's a comic Christmas blessing, and there'll be no need to say "mistletoe"--at least not till the viewers are home with their own families. --A.T. Hurley

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The Man with No Name Trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars / For a Few Dollars More / The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly) [Blu-ray]

• Condition: New
• Format: Blu-ray
• AC-3; Box set; Color; Dolby; DTS Surround Sound; Dubbed; Full Screen; Restored; Subtitled; Widescree

Sergio Leone “spaghetti westerns” did not simply add a new chapter to the genre…they reinvented it. From his shockingly violent and stylized breakthrough, A Fistful of Dollars, to the film Quentin Tarantino calls “the best-directed movie of all time,” The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Leone’s vision did for westerns what talkies did for all movies back in the 1920s: it elevated them to an entirely new art form. Fully restored, presented in high definition with their best-ever audio, and including audio commentaries, featurettes and more, these films are much more than the definitive Leone collection...they are the most ambitious and influential westerns ever made.

A Fistfull Of Dollars
Clint Eastwood’s legendary “M! an With No Name” makes his powerful debut in this thrilling, action-packed classic in which he manipulates two rival bands of smugglers and sets in motion a plan to destroy both in a series of brilliantly orchestrated setups, showdowns and deadly confrontations.

For A Few Dollars More
Oscar® Winner Clint Eastwood** continues his trademark role in this second installment of the trilogy, this time squaring off with Indio, the territory’s most treacherous bandit. But his ruthless rival, Colonel Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef, High Noon), is determined to bring Indio in first...dead or alive!

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
The invincible “Man With No Name” (Eastwood) aligns himself with two gunslingers (Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach) to pursue a fortune in stolen gold. But teamwork doesn’t come naturally to such strong-willed outlaws, and they soon discover that their greatest challenge may be to stay focused â€" and stay alive â€" in a! country ravaged by war.Review for A Fistful of Do! llars:
A Fistful of Dollars launched the spaghetti Western and catapulted Clint Eastwood to stardom. Based on Akira Kurosawa's 1961 samurai picture Yojimbo, it scored a resounding success (in Italy in 1964 and the U.S. in 1967), as did its sequels, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The advertising campaign promoted Eastwood's character--laconic, amoral, dangerous--as the Man with No Name (though in the film he's clearly referred to as Joe), and audiences loved the movie's refreshing new take on the Western genre. Gone are the pieties about making the streets safe for women and children. Instead it's every man for himself. Striking, too, was a new emphasis on violence, with stylized, almost balletic gunfights and baroque touches such as Eastwood's armored breastplate. The Dollars films had a marked influence on the Hollywood Western--for example, Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch--but their most enduring legacy is Clint Eastwood himse! lf. --Edward Buscombe

Review for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:
If you think of A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More as the tasty appetizers in Sergio Leone's celebrated "Dollars" trilogy of Italian "Spaghetti" Westerns, then The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is a lavish full-course feast. Readily identified by the popular themes of its innovative score by Ennio Morricone (one of the bestselling soundtracks of all time), this cinematic milestone eclipsed its influential predecessors with a $1.2 million budget (considered extravagant in the mid-1960s), greater production values to accommodate Leone's epic vision of greed and betrayal, and a three-hour running time for its wide-ranging plot about the titular trio of mercenaries ("Good" Blondie played by rising star Clint Eastwood, "Bad" Angel Eyes played by Lee Van Cleef, and "Ugly" Tuco played by Eli Wallach) in a ruthless Civil War-era! quest for $200,000 worth of buried Confederate gold. Virtuall! y all of Leone's stylistic attributes can be found here in full fruition, from the constant inclusion of Roman Catholic iconography to a climactic circular shoot-out, along with Leone's trademark use of surreal landscapes, brilliant widescreen compositions and extreme close-ups of actors so intimate that they burn into the viewer's memory. And while some Leone fans may favor the more scaled-down action of For a Few Dollars More or the masterful grandiosity of Once Upon a Time in the West, it was The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly that cemented Leone's reputation as a world-class director with a singular vision. --Jeff Shannon

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