He had the face of a true villain, chiseled to perfection. Director Sergio Leone, best-known for "The Man With No Name" spaghetti western trilogy, once described Van Cleef as having the face of a hawk; actor Eli Wallach called it "wonderfully alive" and full of wickedness. As an actor, Van Cleef portrayed some of the best movie villains of all time-Angel Eyes in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and Frank Talby in Day of Anger. Although more than twenty years have passed since his premature death in 1989, Lee Van Cleef remains a cinematic icon for millions of film fans worldwide, and his legacy as the "Best of the Bad" is set in granite. Lee Van Cleef: Best of the Bad explores the life and career of this great actor, a man with unbounded talent and a heart of finely-polished gold. Through interviews and numerous sources, Best of the Bad reveals the real Lee Van Cleef and discusses his roles in For A Few Dollars More, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and Day of Anger, along with chapters on mythic archetypes and historical gunfighters and bounty hunters. Also included is a foreword by Mike Malloy, author of Lee Van Cleef: A Biographical, Film, and Television Reference.
The book is only 81 pages so thankfully the price was not expensive. Regrettably, it's nothing more than a collection of essays, many of them critical. The only saving piece about this book is the fact that is explores the actor's personal life, which few people have done. Most of the time people write about his movies, not about his career as a father, an interview with Luciano Vencenzon, and a section about the guns Cleef wore in the movies (with little illustrations). Critical essays about Westerns is welcome but only when books are thick and ripe. This one gives you the impression it's a collection of magazine articles and essays slapped together into a book.
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