Angel Eyes

You can tell that Angel Eyes is the villain the moment he appears on screen in Sergio Leone's classic Spaghetti Western, THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY. The black gaucho hat and the moustache are early tells, but in this film all of the three titular characters are criminal. There are a number of clear factors that make Angel Eyes the true villain amongst this motley of gunslinging thieves.

Angel Eyes is a bounty hunter who is working his own angle. When we first meet him, he is questioning a man names Stevens about his ultimate quarry, 'Bill Carson'--a soldier who has absconded with a fortune in gold. Angel Eyes accepts a mission from Stevens to kill his own employer, Baker--and then he kills Stevens, and then Stevens' oldest son. Then he goes and kills Baker, too, collecting payment from both sides. This is not some twisted sense of honour at work; he just doesn't like to leave loose ends. Angel Eyes is thorough.

Angel Eyes works for a living, but he is his own man--and like most good villains, he is the character who seizes the initiative. Blondie (Clint Eastwood, "The Good") and Tuco (Eli Wallach, "The Bad") mostly react to their surroundings. Quick wits, luck and naked greed propel them through the story, but Angel Eyes has a plan. Blondie and Tuco discover the secret of Bill Carson's gold purely by chance; Angel Eyes is the one who goes looking for it. Left to his own devices, Blondie returns to his original petty scam. Tuco works himself into a tizzy wanting the gold, but without any real idea of how he's going to get it once he finds Blondie. Angel Eyes takes the strategic view: he installs himself as an officer at a nearby Union army stockade so that he can monitor who comes and goes through the area.

The chaos of the Civil War is a big part of this movie. For Blondie and Tuco it's just part of the environment that they have to contend with while they engage in their criminal pursuits: a stray cannonball saves Blondie when he is captive in a hotel; a Union patrol mistakes them for Confederates and captures them. Angel Eyes, however, is smarter and more imaginative: he makes the army work for him.

Angel Eyes is the very model of a smart criminal: he knows immediately that he can torture information out of Tuco, but not Blondie--so he forms a partnership with him. Angel Eyes is reasonable. He's long-sighted and expedient; a leader of men who is yet more than capable of doing his own dirtywork.

Lee Van Cleef plays his character with a restraint that's rare in the gallery of fulminating, cackling, cape-swirling villains. In the screenplay, Angel Eyes is named "Sentenza" -which means "Verdict" in Italian - and with good reason. He is patient, calm, and quietly good humoured... but one look in those angel eyes and you can tell that he's judging whether your life or death will bring him greater profit.