The Good The Bad And The Ugly is one of my all-time favourite movies.

Sergio Leone’s masterpiece (the culmination of the ‘Dollars’ trilogy starring Clint Eastwood) has it all – great performances, iconic lines, beautifully choreographed set pieces and, of course, Ennio Morricone’s famous score.

I first saw it in a small art cinema in Nottingham back in the 80s. I remember one guy in the audience was definitely not the arthouse type and kept whooping and hollering whenever Clint blew a baddie away. At the time I found this very irritating, but with hindsight its one of those movies that can be enjoyed on multiple levels by all-comers.

So its hardly any surprise that I would want to own some art for this movie. I’m underwhelmed by both the UK quad and the US one-sheet however. The best art for TGTBTU IMHO is the French ‘grande’ by artist Jean Mascii above. This is one of the most collectible of all French posters, and regularly goes for €400+ at auction, My copy is from a 70s re-release and I got at  fraction of that price. I would like to get my hands on a 1968 first release (the only difference is the printer’s details), but these are rarer and of course even more expensive.

I do also have a first release of the French ‘moyenne’ poster. Its not such impressive art, but I got it framed nonetheless. I thought at first the mark on Eli Wallach’s face was a printing error, but he is in fact chewing a flower!