"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" is Sergio Leone's magnum opus. An audacious undertaking, it would have flopped miserably in any other director's hands. Only someone so commited to his artistic vision as Leone could have pulled off this bombastic pageantry of human nature in all its facets, its capacity for cynicism, greed, bloodlust, revenge, heroism, redemption and honour.

This movie must be *experienced.* Put the DVD in, turn the stereo all the way up and let it pummel you from the moment the Lardani titles blast onto the screen in a blaze of Technicolor fury. The montage of colour, interspersed by stark black and white visages of Eastwood, Van Cleef and Wallach is a tough act to follow, like Saul Bass' mesmerising titles for Hitchcock's "Vertigo."

The wait is now over! Last year, MGM/UA issued a restored 35mm print, which showed at the Film Forum in Manhattan. First restored in Italian by Cineteca Nazionale, the English-language restoration was spearheaded by Martin Scorsese, whose efforts with the Film Preservation Foundation have helped fund preservation of America's celluloid heritage. Both Eli Wallach and Clint Eastwood returned to the sound studio to dub new dialogue for approximately 20 minutes of restored footage. Both sound a little older and scratchier, but these added scenes help to explain both Tuco's and Angel Eyes' gangs and some plot points that were previously unclear. However, they both sound great! (Van Cleef's voice was dubbed by a professional voiceover artist, and sounds almost on target). The movie now has the true feel of a sprawling epic, one that's earned its right to take its time.

This special edition DVD features the movie restored to its original length in the Italian version, and comes jam packed with interviews with Eastwood, Wallach, producer Alberto Grimaldi and -- most importantly -- Mickey Knox, who wrote the English language dialogue. Knox crafted lines that lived up to the larger than life screenplay. You'd swear the original was in English, the dialogue is so perfectly tailored!

But the vision is singularly Leone's. It starts slowly, as a band of bounty killers home in on their prey, small-time bandit Tuco Ramirez (THE UGLY, played by the venerable Eli Wallach). They pile through a saloon door, then the camera imediately pans away laterally. Suddenly, his body hurtling through the front window in a rain of glass, Tuco bursts onto the street -- in what has to be the most absurd grand entrance in screen history -- revolver in one hand, a chicken leg in the other. It's total chutzpah on Leone's and Wallach's part.

If you think *that* can't be topped, watch Wallach's entire performance. Animated is putting it mildly. More than a performance, Wallach is a one-man band, nay, Army. Never has such a selfish, petty, ratty and shifty little man been played so larger than life. Wallach smirks, scurries, grimaces, chuckles, shouts, bellows and slyly oils his way across the screen in what has got to be the hammiest performance ever by a method actor. Or *any* actor: He makes Orson Welles, Burt Lancaster and Charles Laughton look like the grey and sullen cast of Woody Allen's "Interiors," he's so alive with passion that he literally sweats his performance out through the filthy pores on his stubble-ridden face. And he's wonderful!

If that's a tough act to follow, you haven't met the bad. They don't come any badder than Angel Eyes, Lee Van Cleef's hired killer who's got ice water running through his veins. Van Cleef is ruthless, bold and heartless. Riding out of nowhere onto a doomed man's rancho, Angel Eyes pays a visit, carrying out a murder for hire. The price: $500. But the victim offers him $1000 to look the other way. No dice: Angel Eyes isn't in it for the money. Rather, he's a man who loves his work, and always sees the job through. So, the poor sod dies anyway.

Clint Eastwood is as cool as a cucumber as The Man With No Name (but really one with sort of a name, in this case "Blondie," which is Wallach's moniker for him). It's fun watching the ongoing relationship between Blondie and Tuco as bounty hunter and prey. In another life, they would have been great pals, but in this life ("we're all alone in this world," Tuco confesses to Blondie, half seriously, half cynically) their love of money is thicker than friendship. So, they invent ingenious and cruel ways to exact revenge of each other.

It's during one of Tuco's sadistic plots - in which he marches the pale-skinned Eastwood across 100 miles of scorching desert - that the plot finally comes to a head: A driverless stagecoach full of wounded Confederates happens across their path, and through a twist of fate, Tuco and Blondie each have two halves of a secret which, if put together, will make them a quarter of a million dollars richer. But, without each other the two halves are worthless. Thus does Tuco do a 180 from brutal executioner to Blondie's would-be saviour. Now that he could be rich, he suddenly realizes how valuable their friendship is.

It's not before long that they wind up with Angel Eyes, as they're captured by Union soldiers. At the prisoner of war camp, a deadly game of cat and mouse begins. Van Cleef is now more restrained and less thuggish as he deals with Tuco to extract the secret; his henchman Wallace (Mario Brega, a Leone stalwart), pummels it out of Tuco.

In epic fashion, after a shootout in a deserted town and a bridge demolition that explodes across the screen, Tuco, Blondie and Angel Eyes make their way to the cemetery where the treasure is buried. In a fanfare of brass, percussion and chorus, the three face each other down in the cemetery plaza. It's a gorgeous and cathartic set piece. Credit must go not only to composer Ennio Morricone but also to musical director Bruno Nicolai, who conducts the score con fuoco.

This book was given to me as a gift by a friend, because "you're a conservative, Rob." Indeed, that I am, so it would seem that this was quite an apropos present.

However, I remember a time when conservatives were farther and fewer between, and nascent Generation-X'ers such as I were drawn to the movement by the likes of Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises and William F. Buckley. The sci-fi aficionados among us came to it by way of Robert A. Heinlein and Ayn Rand. Ronald Reagan was seen by us as a politician who had absorbed their ideas and distilled them into a populist message that could speak to the average American. We were proud to be labeled as conservatives, because we were at the forefront of a movement that was both scholarly and intellectual yet passionate and emotional.

Now, a quarter century later, we are being asked to regard this baby faced Bush leaguer (pun intended) as some sort of leader of our movement? It's enough to drive a thinking man's conservative into the Democrat party, just for some sorely needed cerebral stimulation.

Don't get me wrong: I agree with Hannity more often than not. In fact, I agree with him much more often than I agree with his liberal better half, Alan Colmes. However, Hannity brings to his Fox News cable show what he brings to his radio program: The Republican Party Line, presented in schematic form, with all the dots from A to Z connected by Hannity's deftly-wielded Crayola crayon.

And that is what this book basically is, a Chilton's manual of the conservative positions, so un-intellectually argued and reasoned that a half-wit can put them together. Perhaps when this book finds its rightful place in the bargain bin, it may see new life in a reprinting as "Conservatism For Dummies."

From whence did Hannity come? He makes no bones that he was drawn to talk radio by the likes of Rush Limbaugh. But, Limbaugh is a far different breed: The scion of a legal family, surrounded by high-minded dinner table conversation, Limbaugh's first love was Top 40 radio. Put the two together, and you've got an intellectually-based mix of highfalutin ideas as made palatable for the Casey Kasem crowd. Even Bill O'Reilly has a much more analytical background, having paid his dues as an investigative TV reporter for ABC and earning his master's degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

What does Sean Hannity bring to the table? Hannity got into the racket as a caller who so loved calling in to talk radio programs that he figured out the perfect formula to ensconce himself at the other end of the mike. Sort of like how Eve Harrington took over Margot Channing's role in "All About Eve."

But, that is the extent of Hannity's talent and intellect. Whether on radio or TV or in this book, you can guess each and every single statement that will come from Hannity's mouth or pen. All you have to know are what the Republican party talking points are for the day. You can see Hannity coming a mile away. He so predictably telegraphs his positions that he makes the crude and bombastic James Carville come off like a thoughtful and nuanced Christopher Hitchens by comparison.

Hannity's main asset is that he has the courage of convictions. Yet, that is all that's there, are convictions. Read Hannity's prose and you will have a new dictionary definition for "knee jerk reactionary." I challenge lexicographers to top that one.

And, perhaps this is why Hannity is so popular with his doltish audience -- having shorn himself of the duty of having to think his positions through (he leaves that to Colmes, who blows Hannity away in the erudition department) -- because his opinions can be readily grasped, without the laborious and time-consuming process of mental digestion. Hannity's mantra is Soylent Green and Metamucil all rolled into one convenient Fruit Roll-Up.

I must admit that I agree with Hannity's critics who find he's preaching to the choir. The problem, though, is that the homily is not being delivered by a cardinal or even a circus-tent preacher, but a goody two-shoes choir boy whose pre-pubescent voice hasn't even yet broken.

With conservatives pundits like these, who needs liberal nemeses?

"We Lakota people have our giveaways. When something important happens we celebrate by sharing what we have," said the late Chief Mathew King, known as Noble Red Man in Indian Country. "Even the poorest among us share what we have....The more you share the more you're given to share."

Which is precisely what editor Harvey Arden has accomplished with his passion for keeping alive the wisdom of the American Indian. In this book, Arden, a former senior editor for National Geographic, has compiled a comprehensive volume of the thoughts, philosophy, humor and spirit of the great Oglala Lakota (Sioux) chief.

Noble Red Man was born Mathew King in 1902 in Grass Creek, S.D., a small community of Indians from different bands. He died in 1989. In the long stretch of time in between, he absorbed knowledge, wisdom and experiences that molded him into a sage and respected leader.

After three years in military school, his parents enrolled him in the Springfield Indian Seminary to become an ordained Episcopal minister. Hunger, more than faith, was his motivation.

"If you converted you ate better," said Noble Red Man. "To help feed the starving Lakota my father and uncles became missionaries." During training, he concluded that - despite being very spiritual - that the clergy was not his calling. He had misgivings over Christian theology. "I have always believed in the Great Spirit and worshipped Him in my own way," he said. "These people don't seem to want to change my belief in the Great Spirit, but to change my way of talking to Him."

Instead, Noble Red Man set out to do the Great Spirit's work by teaching Indians to "earn their bread by the sweat of their brow," finding work and securing labor rights for thousands of Indians over the years. He became a voice not only for the Lakota people, but American Indians everywhere, taking their case to court, before Congress and even overseas. His passion was fighting to regain South Dakota's Black Hills, sacred land promised the Lakota by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, but swindled from them five years later when gold was discovered.

The federal government belittled the Indians' claim to this revered land in the 1970s by offering them $100 million. Noble Red Man retorted: "The Black Hills aren't for sale. What if we offered you a hundred million dollars for the Vatican, for Jerusalem?" The money still sits in escrow, unclaimed.

Arden first met Noble Red Man in 1983, on the 10th anniversary of the Lakota occupation of Wounded Knee, S.D., a reservation hamlet that was the site of the American Indians' last stand in 1890, as federal troops massacred over 350 Indians. The 1973 occupation - which was met with an FBI siege for 71days - was staged by the American Indian Movement (AIM) in protest over the government's harsh treatment of Indians. He and venerated Chief Frank Fools Crow provided moral support to the occupiers, while placating armed FBI agents.

As Arden attempted to explain to Noble Red Man why he'd come to Pine Ridge, the chief shot back: "I know why you're here! White Man came to this country and forgot his original Instructions. We Indians have never forgotten our Instructions.... I can't tell you what those were, but maybe there are some things that I can explain...."

That is what Arden has done. Culled from his interview notes and tapes, Arden felt that he didn't have enough material to compile the book that was Noble Red Man's unrealized dream. After the chief's death, Arden visited his daughter, Lavon King, who had kept her father's old reel-to-reel tapes in a trunk. In a labor of love, by 1994 Arden finished the job he began 11 years earlier. With this book, he has put into print Noble Red Man's credo, reflections, recollections and hopes.

There is even a good measure of humor, which captures Noble Red Man's keen sense of irony. My favorite anecdote was how he became a smoker at age four (!) by rolling cigarettes for his grandmother, Cane Woman. She "was blind, and I had to guide her around with her cane. People really laughed when they saw us....We must have been quite a sight, the two of us, both smoking Bull Durham cigarettes while I led her around by the elbow."

Reading his words, I was struck by how senseless the gulf between American Indians and the Americans occupying their land is, for they aspire freedom in the truest sense. However, more than any other people, American Indians have been systematically denied that freedom.

Yet, Noble Red Man kept optimistic. He counseled his fellow Indians to stay true to their heritage.

"Only one thing's sadder than remembering you once were free, and that's forgetting you once were free. That would be the saddest thing of all. That's one thing we Indians will never do."

Except among students of history and military buffs, the story of the Navajo code talkers - Marines who were recruited from the Navajo reservations in Arizona and New Mexico - remained relatively unknown until last year's movie, Windtalkers. Unfortunately, the actual history of the code talkers got buried in the shoot-em-up special-effects extravaganza filmed by action director John Woo, who was way out of his league. In that movie, the brave and inventive contributions of the code talkers merely served as a plot device for the white hero's (played by Nicholas Cage) ultimate redemption.

However, those interested in the rarely-told real story need only to open the pages of this informative book.

Author McClain follows the story of the almost 400 Navajos who volunteered for service during World War II and served in all six Marine divisions. These enlistees adapted their native tongue, Dineh, into an unbreakable code that would keep Japanese radio operators and cryptologists entirely baffled during the length of the war.

The obscure origins of the Navajo code talker program date back to World War I. After American entry in that war, the signal corps learned that Central powers were listening in on orders relayed on that new communication tool, the radio. They then engaged Choctaw Indians as radio operators in order to safely transmit information. It worked like a charm.

However, after war's end, the German government sent numerous "scholars" to the United States in order to "study" the lives and societies on many American Indian nation reservations. Actually, the so-called students were intelligence agents there to learn native languages.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the need for a absolutely secret code was vital. Marine Maj. Gen. Clayton B. Vogel and civilian Philip Johnston, a white man who grew up on the Navajo reservation at Leuppe, Ariz., concluded that Navajo would be an ideal code language because many Navajo were educated in English at Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) schools, and especially since no German scholars had been sent to Navajo reservations. This secret code would be instrumental in keeping Corps operations secure and, most importantly, its men alive.

On May 4, 1942, the Marines had recruited 29 Navajos, which formed the 382nd Platoon, a trial unit that would go through the rigors of boot camp at the Marine Depot at San Diego. Although attrition levels for this period were between five to ten per cent, not one Navajo dropped out of the training.

Up until graduation from boot camp, the "first 29" (as they would later be known as) had no idea for what special duty they had been recruited. Upon arrival at Camp Elliott, outside of San Diego, they were informed that their mission was to devise a code for secret and rapid radio transmission based on their native tongue. Code talker Eugene Crawford recalled the irony of the situation: Having been forced to speak only English in the BIA schools he attended, "he could almost taste the harsh brown soap the teachers forced him to use to scrub out his mouth when he was caught speaking Navajo." Now, his government was ordering him and his fellow Marines to use Navajo to defeat the enemy!

Once the code was in place, code talkers were sent to the Pacific and were key in assisting U.S. forces to victory in its island-hopping campaign in battles such as Bougainville, Cape Gloucester, New Britain, Saipan, Guam and Iwo Jima. Because they were all proficient in both English and Navajo, the code talkers lent an element of speed previously unavailable in decoding. Translation from English to Navajo back to English was instant; prior to that, it took hours to decode cryptographic messages and recode the replies. This was a crucial element in the swiftness of battle that left Japanese forces reeling.

Marine cipher specialist Richard Bonham remarked on the Navaho code: "The efficiency that the Navajo developed themselves, to write it down immediately and exactly, was something we marveled at. When you needed an artillery strike, you want it to start now!"

Most importantly, countless American lives were saved by the code talkers. They were regarded as so essential that fellow Marines were assigned as their bodyguards, to keep them out of enemy hands. Strangely, the code talkers were occasionally the targets of their fellow Marines, as they were sometimes mistaken for Japanese soldiers in disguise.

After war's end, the code talkers returned to the reservation heroes, but did not receive a hero's welcome. Yet, they stayed true to their oaths to keep the code secret. Their mission was classified and not until 1969 would they receive public recognition for their exploits. Thanks to the efforts of Congressman Lee Cannon - who had fought at Iwo Jima with the 4th Marine Division - the Navajo code talkers were honored during the 4th Marine Division Association's reunion in Chicago that year. After the last code talker was honored, Cannon lauded them, "these men are quiet; they kept their trust; they are Fourth Division heroes - every one of them!"

Author McClain tells the code talkers' story matter-of-factly, relying on a wealth of information from declassified military documents, valuable oral history from the Doris Duke collection (Duke was the first to systematically interview the Navajo code talkers) and numerous interviews conducted by the author herself. Although the history is recounted somewhat dryly, this is a thoroughgoing and honest effort. She lets the book's heroes do much of the talking: There is a treasure trove of personal anecdotes and first-person eyewitness accounts. Although not the most polished history I've read (often, rank is not cited), it does give the reader that "you are there" feeling.

The spirit of these proud people's exploits can be summed up in the words of code talker Carl Gorman:

"Many people ask me why I fought for my country when the government has treated us pretty bad. But, before the white man came to this country, this whole land was Indian country and we still think it's our land, so we fight for it. I was very proud to serve my country."

Hilary Duff cannot act to save her life. But, so what! As a 38 year-old male who had to drag his sister's kids to the bijou, I had to sit through this ultimately vapid piece of schlock. Nonetheless, I was still fascinated enough not to have to leave, for Miss Duff is rather well-endowed physically. If only someone could put Gwyneth Paltrow's mind in her body, then Duff would be unstoppable.

In the annals of literature, the historical novel has deep roots: There are scores written about the American Civil War alone, most notably Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage (1895) and Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind (1936). Lately, though, a somewhat new category has emerged, "what if" historical fiction, that offers a look of what may have passed had events unfolded differently. Its best example is Robert Harris' Fatherland (1992), which is based on the chilling premise of life in 1960s Germany had the Nazis won World War II. Fatherland represents this genre's best because its themes go beyond the specific turning point of its "what if" plot. It is not important because it's predicated on the Nazis winning D-Day; rather, its significance lies in the story of an SS officer's journey from idealistic soldier to disillusioned father, and how he sacrifices himself in order to teach his son a lesson about fidelity to truth above regimes.

Its significance lies in the historical lessons it illuminates.

Philosopher George Santanyana proclaimed, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Former Speaker of the House and co-author Newt Gingrich has a somewhat more malleable view of history when describing how he and military historian William R. Forstchen (who did most of the writing) approached "Gettysburg": "We...have learned that when you reduce history to passive memorization, you lose people," Gingrich remarks. "We embrace the concept of an active history: 'In a particular situation, what would I have done?'"

Thus does the battle of Gettysburg -- which was fought in the humid and sweltering heat of the Pennsylvania Dutch country in July, 1863 -- unfold anew. Its underlying premises are: "What if Gen. Robert E. Lee fought Gettysburg differently? What if he listened to the counsel of his generals to take a defensive posture, in particular, Gen. James Longstreet? What if the Confederacy won Gettysburg, how would they have done it?"

That's a pretty tall order. Personally, I couldn't imagine the South winning Gettysburg without Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, the brilliant Confederate tactician whose exploits in the Shenandoah Valley campaign alone rank him as the greatest military mind this country ever produced. Unfortunately, that couldn't have happened, since Jackson was wounded by friendly fire at Chancellorsville, and died shortly thereafter of infections that ravaged his body.

Instead, Gingrich and Forstchen serve up quite an audacious alternative version of events: Using the same cast of characters (Generals Lee, Longstreet, Stuart and Pickett for the South; Generals Meade, Reynolds, Hancock and Hunt for the Union), they manage to correct the mistakes from one side (the Confederacy), while maintaining the pecadillos of the other (the Army of the Potomac) in order to turn the tide for the boys in gray.

This is one of the most well-researched historical novels I've read in a long time. Forstchen, Gingrich and their contributing editor, Albert S. Hanser, have culled an amazing amount of factual data about the personages involved, their personal lives, the terrain in the theater of operations, the weaponry, troop movements and various miscellany that give the reader an unmistakable "you are there" feeling. The battle scenes are bloody, brutal, and spare no realistic detail to assuage the squeamish. "Gettysburg" is an engrossing and entertaining read, and I recommend it highly to both Civil War buffs and students of military battle.

Ringing endorsements stop there because, for all the authors' insights into battle, historical minutiae and command leadership, there is little else to intrigue the reader. While it notches the action up to Schwarzenegger levels, its dialogue is stilted, but nevertheless on a Grand Scale. When the leadership (particularly of the Dixie persuasion) stop to think, they do so in Deep, Grave, Philosophically Reflective and Platitudinous thought balloons worthy of the School of Athens, as ornately etched by Michelangelo, or Rembrandt.

And this is the book's major fault: In elevating its Confederate heroes to the level of their legends (and, conversely, in bringing down its Union nemeses to their cynical worst), the authors sweep under the rug their protagonists' human faults and failings (which were the cause of the CSA's defeat). It's easy not to be condemned to repeat history when it's re-enacted by demi-gods, not real men with real limitations.

There is also scant evidence of Gettysburg's implications for the trebling effects on the state of a divided nation. What shall become of slavery? The Constitution? Will the Union be forever split into two? What of Lincoln's fate? "Gettysburg" offers slim pickings for those whose minds might meander away from Devil's Den or Seminary Ridge.

This novel could have been Novel. Instead, the authors kept it at the technique-bound level of an intellectual exercise, sort of like replaying the Bobby Fisher / Boris Spassky chess matches. The most important historical lesson learned from "Gettysburg" is that hindsight is 20/20. Big deal.

Of course, I may be opining too soon, as "Gettysburg" is the first installment of a proposed trilogy. Weightier questions may indeed be answered in future tomes. For the time being, it leaves me -- (after trudging through more than 450 pages of dense prose and stately cogitation) - haunted by Miss Peggy Lee's famous query: "Is That All There Is?"

Among novels of the "what if" genre, this thoroughgoing but ultimately trifling opus brings to mind a constant rejoinder often voiced by Gingrich's pal, Rush Limbaugh (albeit, in different contexts):

"If is for children."

"For a Few Dollars More" is Sergio Leone's best *cinematic* work; But his epic Western "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" is his greatest *work of art.* An audacious undertaking, it would have flopped miserably in any other director's hands. Only someone so commited to his artistic vision as Leone could have pulled off this bombastic pageantry of human nature in all its facets, its capacity for cynicism, greed, bloodlust, revenge, heroism, redemption and honour.

This movie must be *experienced.* Put the DVD in, turn the stereo all the way up and let it pummel you from the moment the Lardani titles blast onto the screen in a blaze of Technicolor fury. The montage of colour, interspersed by stark black and white visages of Eastwood, Van Cleef and Wallach is a tough act to follow, like Saul Bass' mesmerising titles for Hitchcock's "Vertigo."

But, Leone delivers: A pack of killers finally home in on their prey, small-time bandit Tuco Ramirez (THE UGLY, played by the venerable Eli Wallach). They pile through a saloon door, then the camera imediately pans away laterally. Suddenly, his body hurtling through the front window in a rain of glass, Tuco bursts onto the street -- in what has to be the most absurd grand entrance in screen history -- revolver in one hand, a chicken leg in the other. It's total chutzpah on Leone's and Wallach's part.

If you think *that* can't be topped, watch Wallach's entire performance. Animated is putting it mildly. More than a performance, Wallach is a one-man band, nay, Army. Never has such a selfish, petty, ratty and shifty little man been played so larger than life. Wallach smirks, scurries, grimaces, chuckles, shouts, bellows and slyly oils his way across the screen in what has got to be the hammiest performance ever by a method actor. Or *any* actor: He makes Orson Welles, Burt Lancaster and Charles Laughton look like the grey and sullen cast of Woody Allen's "Interiors," he's so alive with passion that he literally sweats his performance out through the filthy pores on his stubble-ridden face. And he's wonderful!

If that's a tough act to follow, you haven't met the bad. They don't come any badder than Angel Eyes, Lee Van Cleef's hired killer who's got ice water running through his veins. Van Cleef is ruthless, bold and heartless. Riding out of nowhere onto a doomed man's rancho, Angel Eyes pays a visit, carrying out a murder for hire. The price: $500. But the victim offers him $1000 to look the other way. No dice: Angel Eyes isn't in it for the money. Rather, he's a man who loves his work, and always sees the job through. So, the poor sod dies anyway.

Clint Eastwood is as cool as a cucumber as The Man With No Name (but really one with sort of a name, in this case "Blondie," which is Wallach's moniker for him). It's fun watching the ongoing relationship between Blondie and Tuco as bounty hunter and prey. In another life, they would have been great pals, but in this life ("we're all alone in this world," Tuco confesses to Blondie, half seriously, half cynically) their love of money is thicker than friendship. So, begrudgingly, they invent ingenious and cruel ways to exact revenge of each other.

It's during one of Tuco's sadistic plots - in which he marches the pale-skinned Eastwood across 100 miles of scorching desert - that the plot finally comes to a head: A driverless stagecoach full of wounded Confederates happens across their path, and through a twist of fate, Tuco and Blondie each have two halves of a secret which, if put together, will make them a quarter of a million dollars richer. But, without each other the two halves are worthless. Thus does Tuco do a 180 from brutal executioner to Blondie's would-be saviour. Now that he could be rich, he suddenly realizes how valuable their friendship is.

It's not before long that they wind up with Angel Eyes, as they're captured by Union soldiers. At the prisoner of war camp, a deadly game of cat and mouse begins. Van Cleef is now more restrained and less thuggish as he deals with Tuco to extract the secret; his henchman Wallace (Mario Brega, a Leone stalwart), pummels it out of Tuco.

In epic fashion, after a shootout in a deserted town and a bridge demolition that explodes across the screen, Tuco, Blondie and Angel Eyes make their way to the cemetery where the treasure is buried. In a fanfare of brass, percussion and chorus, the three face each other down in the cemetery plaza. It's a gorgeous and cathartic set piece. Credit must go not only to composer Ennio Morricone but also to musical director Bruno Nicolai, who conducts the score con fuoco.

To the German viewer who asks about a complete version: This year, MGM/UA issued a restored 35mm print, which just closed at the Film Forum in Manhattan. First restored in Italian by Cineteca Nazionale, the English-language restoration was spearheaded by Martin Scorsese, whose efforts with the Film Preservation Foundation have helped fund preservation of America's celluloid heritage. Both Eli Wallach and Clint Eastwood returned to the sound studio to dub new dialogue for approximately 20 minutes of restored footage. Both sound a little older and scratchier, but these added scenes help to explain both Tuco's and Angel Eyes' gangs and some plot points that were previously unclear. However, they both sound great! (Van Cleef's voice was dubbed by a professional voiceover artist, and sounds almost on target). The movie now has the true feel of a sprawling epic, one that's earned its right to take its time.

The current DVD includes two of the three major scene additions as bonus material, but only in Italian. Hopefully soon, MGM will release a new DVD in all its three-hour splendour. Until then, this is well worth watching, giving the viewer a reference point against which to compare the restoration.

Back in 1982, when I first read this tome, I was enamoured with a Devo album called "Freedom of Choice," the spudboys' anthem to radical libertarianism in a one-size-fits-all world. Thus, were some of my fellow petrochemical rocker friends and I also susceptible to the lilting iconoclastic strains of one Ayn Rand, who with her book "The Fountainhead," carved out her own Nietzsche (pun intended) among uebermensch, one Howard Roark, a prototypical punker before his time.

So, put on your thinking caps, energy domes or plastic pompadours and your anti human-element suits and delve into this pussaint tome by Miss Rand.

You will be doing neck salutes as you read her introductory essay of the same title as the book. After writing four major novels of varying philosophical degrees, Miss Rand finally sticks her toe into the swimming pool of profundity with this essay, and tries to stake out her territory vis-a-vis the writers of the great books (according to the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, at least). Voila! By her own objective analysis, she kicks the pants off of them, and conveniently categorises them into either one of two columns: "Attilas" or "Witch Doctors."

The Attilas (big daddy zeros, in Devo-speak) are the proverbial gang of thugs who stifle thought and proscribe against actions resulting from independent agents. They carry around clubs and grunt like high school football jocks and generally make life miserable for artistic coffee house types who affect an air of bored sophistication.

The Witch Doctors (Mystics of the Mind, the corporate media types of pesudo-intellectuals who pander to the masses in order to control them, sort of like Rod Rooter of Big Entertainment) are basically your monolithic hucksters who lure in otherwise smart people to carry out their evil deeds. Think Josef Goebbels, Jim Jones, Herf Applewhite, the Unibomber and Jerry Falwell here. They mouth slogans like "Duty Now For the Future," and reduce humanity to the level of mental mutants.

The rest of the book is Rand's greatest hits, philosophically-bent speeches from her novels. The best are from "Atlas Shrugged," because the neo-industrialists delivering them always leave their opponents in the dust.

Whip It. Whip it Good!

"Ghost World" is a sad world, a place for eccentric losers, a visual poem composed to those in the so-called "real" world who want to take a permanent detour.

Those denizens of the "real" world will try to make you feel guilty for not being one of them, for not fitting in. You will be laughed at for your unabashed love for music or a movie no one cares about any longer. You are so out of it, you don't even know who won game 3 of the NBA championships.

Seymour is such a personage: His crime is having his own tastes, not dressing in the socially-accepted fashion approved of by his middle-managment bosses, not paddling his canoe with the mainstream, but not against it, either. He's sitting on the shore, reading a book of his own choosing.

His attempts to find love with a woman from the "real" world only end in disaster. Obviously, the fellow needs psychotherapy.

But, Seymour meets Enid, or rather, Enid meets Seymour, through a cruel prank she plays. Enid has long since given up on the "real" world, but occasionally makes the mistake of so shunning humanity that she can't recognise the victims of the "real" world from its movers and shakers. But then, she finds Seymour. Unfortunately, she never finds herself.

The theme of "Ghost World" is so eloquently simple, yet tragically true: There are no happy endings in the "real" world, and the "real" world rears its ugly head into the reality of those who live by their own standards all too intrusively.

Are there happy endings in the Ghost World? Probably not. Some people don't really know what happiness is. They have been cast out, blackballed and discarded.

Such people are only fooling themselves: They have that mark upon them, the mark of earnestness, of discrimination, of taste, of intelligence. They shall be denied happiness. They are easily exposed, and their pretense at happiness is but a sham and sad attempt to salvage defective thoughts and feelings into a jury-rigged, ersatz worldview.

There is only happiness in the mainstream, a ready-made world in which one need not think too much. Ignorance is bliss. Those who are not ignorant are the true fools, and they need counseling. Medication, perhaps.

Then they will join the great mass of humanity. They will thrill to "The Flower that Drank the Moon." They will eagerly tune in to see Katie and Matt on the "Today" show in the morning, and Jennifer and Courteney on "Friends" in the evenings.

Life can be made so comfortable.

If you've ever felt alone.

If you've ever felt different.

Or, if you've felt like a freak, for no reason at all. A rag doll missing a button eye and the stuffing from your left arm, stranded on the Isle of Misfit Toys.

There's a world for you. An imperfect world, but one that takes on reality on its own terms, and foregoes the soma and sacharrine.

That it is better to be alienated and depressed in the Ghost World than it is to be numbly happy in the "real" world is this movie's tragedy.

Or its redemption.

Find out.

Although this book has some pretty graphic drawings reminiscent of Paul Rand, in nice primary colors, I found the characters to be rather one-dimensional. Their development is entirely absent, and even a method actor couldn't find their motivation. For example, why don't the cats and kittens devour the rabbits?

This book is divided into two sections, which do segue into each other nicely. There is the "before bed" first act, and then the denouement, in which the protagonists sharing their cozy middle class abode wish each other "goodnight."

I found Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night" to be a more thought-provoking and cathartic study on a similar theme. However, "Goodnight Moon" is prescient in that it is a harbinger to many of the plots of the 1970s television series, "The Waltons."