"God's Not On Our Side Because He Hates Idiots Also..."

The final member of  Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (Il buono, Il brutto, Il cattivo, 1966) cast, "Blonde" aka. the infamous Man With No Name (Though he's called "Joe" in Fistful by the coffin maker, and "Manco"("The Monk") by one of the lawmen in For a Few...), Clint Eastwood.

"Even a Filthy Beggar Like that Has Got a Protecting Angel..."

Continuing in reverse order: Lee Van Cleef as "Angel Eyes"/Sentenza whose icy cool badness is, to me, the only thing  Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (Il buono, Il brutto, Il cattivo, 1966) needed more of.

"One B@stard Goes In, and Another Comes Out!"

In keeping with the Western theme, I had nearly forgotten that I'd been commissioned to do a series based on Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (Il buono, Il brutto, Il cattivo, 1966)  as a Chrismas gift.  We're going in reverse order, starting with Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez ("...also known as The Rat") played by all-time great Eli Wallach.

"Here We Go, Mama..."

Our final Once Upon a Time in the West gunfighter is the great Woody Strode. Strode's career in the limelight began as a world class college athlete in track and field and football at UCLA. He would go on to play some professional football before an injury would lead to a brief stint in professional wrestling.  Strode's early screen time as an extra soon turned to small roles before he landed two of his most memorable roles: Sergeant Rutledge in the John Ford Western of the same name, and as Draba the gladiator in Kubrick's Spartacus. But in Europe, Leone had given him his first close-ups on screen, and actively helped Strode build a very successful career in European films. On a trivia note, the Native American woman at the train station in the opening sequence with Strode was played by his wife, Hawaiian princess Luukialuana "Luana" Kalaeloa.

"...Looks like We're Shy One Horse."

This week's second facial landscape belongs to one of the Hollywood's most recognizable character actors, Jack Elam. Elam had a fifty year career in front of the camera, and is probably best known for his appearance in a wide variety of Western films and television shows. His trademark was a wonky left eye which he was blind in that was the result of a childhood fight. As Once Upon a Time in the West was the closest Leone ever came to a Hollywood western, it would make sense why he'd hire Elam, already a 20+ year acting veteran,  to play the leader of the men who meet Harmonica at the film's opening.

Waiting for a Man with a Harmonica...

One of Sergio Leone's trademarks was using faces as landscapes, and so this week, I decided to do some up-close portraits in that tradition using the three men from the opening to Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West, 1968).

First up was Canadian actor Al Mulock.  Mulock was used twice in the extreme close-up category by Leone. In the The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, 1966), Mulock's is the first face that swims into view against a deserted landscape.  Unfortunately, in Once Upon a Time, Mulock did not finish his part of the opening as he committed suicide before the shoot was over, and is covered by a double in many of the wide shots.

"You got to look on the bright side, even if there ain't one."

This week's series is fellas you don't get to see all that often: authors.  I picked a few that I'm fond of who I don't really ever recall being displayed pictorially.

We kick things off with Samuel Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) whose Sam Spade became one of the most influential private detective characters in literature despite only being the protagonist of one novel, The Maltese Falcon (1930), and a couple of minor short stories.  My first run-in with Dashiell was Red Harvest, a gritty crime story of racketeers and corruption that featured the surly and stocky Continental Op.  The book was one of the progenitors of the "servant of two masters" plot-line that led to such films as Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961) and a Leone's Fistful of Dollars (1964).

"...also known as the Rat."

For fun, for Fathers' Day, I went back and did a little revision on my portrait of Eli Wallach as Tuco from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.

"People With Ropes Around Their Necks Don't Always Hang..."

Ok, I had to slip in one more Lee. This was meant to a stylized portrait quickie of Van Cleef as Setenza, the aptly labeled Bad.

"When You Have to Shoot, Shoot, Don't Talk..."

It's been said that Clint Eastwood broke off his working relationship with Sergio Leone when he realized that the stories were steadily moving away from him. In many ways, it can truly be said that The Good, The Bad and The Ugly belongs to the Ugly, Tuco (Eli Wallach). In many respects he's the only human character in the film, and I think, one of the best characters in cinema history. The Good is an almost ethereal angelic figure who pops in and out, and The Bad is an almost purely demonic presence. Tuco, on the other hand, is grimy and gritty, and though thoroughly despicable, one can't help but root for him. I narrowly missed getting to meet Eli when Walter Hill tried to cast him in Undisputed, but at 87 years of age, Eli was in the midst of working a Broadway play.

This is Agua Caliente...

This was merely a digression from my embarkation into the world of marble. It was a new paper. It was a new time. I was going for something else. This quickie was taken from a still of Indio (the late great Gian Maria Volonté) from Sergio Leone's For A Few Dollars More. Anyone who manages to share the screen with Klaus Kinski, and somehow out crazy him deserved the recognition of my pen.

Per un Pugno...of sketches

A pair of li'l quickies. Quick brush pen sketch of directing great Sergio Leone. Then a parallel pen of Mark Damon. I was just trying some quick technique things out, and figured some spaghetti would do the trick.