Clint Eastwood in the 1960s already becoming very popular in France, labelled as the "new Gary Cooper". In Paris, he met Pierre Rissient and had an affair with actress Catherine Deneuve. Two months later Eastwood began working on "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", the final film of the Dollars trilogy, in which he again played the mysterious Man With No Name character. Lee Van Cleef was brought in again to play a ruthless fortune seeker, while Eli Wallach, a character actor noted for his appearance in "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), was hired to play the cunning Mexican bandit "Tuco", although the role was
Clint Eastwood in the 1960s all three were generally given bad reviews by critics (despite select American critics, who had seen the films in Italy, previously having positive outlooks) and marked the beginning of Eastwood's battle to win the respect of American film critics. Judith Crist described "A Fistful of Dollars" as "cheapjack" while "Newsweek" described "For a Few Dollars More" as "excruciatingly dopey". "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" was similarly panned by most critics upon US release. Renata Adler of "The New York Times" describing it as "the most expensive, pious and repellent movie in the history of its peculiar genre". "Variety"