The Handsome, the Ugly and the Stupid (1967)

Franco Franchi is The Ugly and Ciccio Ingrassia is The Stupid, and they’ve developed quite the little scheme for making money.

Franco plays bounty hunter, repeatedly capturing Ciccio and turning him in for a reward, then shooting the rope when it’s time for the hanging so they can do it all over again.

But Ciccio is getting tired of putting his life on the line, especially since Franco’s aim isn’t always dead on.

His concern proves well founded. One day Franco suffers a tremor just as he’s about the shoot the rope. Ciccio hangs; their partnership is over.

Franco, flush with all the money from that bounty, heads to a saloon where he’s very lucky at cards and very unlucky in romance.

A pretty saloon girl named Fabienne agrees to take him to her room, then promptly robs him of all his winnings.

Pretty soon, The Ugly finds himself penniless. And then The Stupid shows up, alive and well thanks to a device he was wearing that kept him from hanging.

He’s determined to get retribution by marching The Ugly through the scorching desert until he dies of thirst.

But before that can happen, the two stumble upon a dying Rebel soldier, his backside full of Indian arrows.

He whispers to The Stupid about a cemetery where a caches of gold is buried. And while The Stupid is off fetching a canteen, he whispers the name of the grave where the gold is buried to The Ugly.

And, just like that, they’re partners again.

But they’ll have company in the search for the gold. The Handsome (Mimmo Palmara) has heard of it too. And the scheming Fabienne is still lurking about.

Review:

Most of the Franco and Ciccio comedy Westerns had titles that were takeoffs on other popular Spaghetti films, but plots that went their own way.

This is much lazier in terms of plotting, a complete retelling of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” as a comedy for anyone who felt the need for such a film.

Count me among those who didn’t.

Oh, the segment where our “heroes” are captured by the Confderates and an enforcer is sent in (Bud Spencer style) to encourage them to spill their secrets on The Handsome’s behalf is quite humorous. And there are a couple of twists once all the lead characters reach the cemetery.

But with Brigitt Petry’s Fabienne seldom on screen and The Handsome showing up only periodically, this if pretty much the Franco and Ciccio show.

So we have a scene in which poker-playing Franco wriggles an egg out of his sleeve, distracting all his fellow players while he slips aces out of the other sleeve.

And on the march through the desert, Ciccio’s belly swells like he’s pregnant as he gourges himself with water while Franco suffers from thirst. Until Ciccio pisses a river and his belly is no longer swollen. Ha-ha, ho-hum.

Directed by:
Giovanni Grimaldi

Cast:
Franco Franchi … The Ugly
Ciccio Ingrassia … The Stupid
Mimmo Palmara … The Handsome
Brigitt Petry … Fabienne
Lother Gunther … Capt. Imbriatella
as Lotar Guntcner
Pietro Ceccarelli … Bullying sergeant
as Peter Jacob
Giovanni Ivan Scratuglia … Sinning sergeant

Also with: Bruno Scipioni, Eugenio Galadini, Gino Buzzanca (bookmaker), Lanfranco Ceccarelli, Enzo Andronico, Artemio Antonini, Mara Krupp, Angelo Casadei, Piero Vida, Enrico Chiappafreddo, Romano Milani, Fortunato Arena, Omero Capanna, Mario Del Vago, Alberigo Donadeo, Pietro Torrisi, Alfredo Adami

Runtime: 92 min.

aka:
Il bello, il brutto, il cretino
The Beautiful, the Bad and the Idiotic

Music: Lallo Gori

Memorable lines:

Sorry, I watched a non-English version of this film.

Trivia:

* German-born actress Brigitt Petry appeared in just this movie and three TV shows before dying at age 28 in a traffic accident in Germany in 1971.

* Giovanni Grimaldi started his directing career making more serious Spaghetti Westerns, including “In a Colt’s Shadow” (1965) and “Starblack” (1966). This was one of four Franco and Ciccio films he helmed.

* Mimmo Palmara almost always appeared under the pseudonym Dick Palmer in his Spaghetti Westerns appearances — and he appeared in more than a dozen of them — but avoided it here. He died in 2016 at age 87.

Franco Franchi as The Ugly, excited over the poker hand he’s drawn in The Handsome, the Ugly and the Stupid (1967)

Ciccio Ingrassia as The Stupid, confident he’ll escape the noose around his neck in The Handsome, the Ugly and the Stupid (1967)