Clint Eastwood not please the critics, one writing that "no other performance of his is quite so 'un-Clintlike'." Two months later Eastwood began work on the third "Dollars" film, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", again playing the mysterious Man with No Name. Lee Van Cleef returned as a ruthless fortune seeker, with Eli Wallach portraying the cunning Mexican bandit Tuco Ramirez. The storyline involved the search for a cache of Confederate gold buried in a cemetery. During the filming of a scene in which a bridge was blown up, Eastwood urged Wallach to retreat to a hilltop. "I know about
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly side of my character, I'd be nearer "il Biondo" ("Blondie"): but my most profound sympathy always goes towards the "Tuco" side ... He can be touching with all that tenderness and all that wounded humanity." Film director Alex Cox suggests that the cemetery-buried gold hunted by the protagonists may have been inspired by rumours surrounding the anti-Communist Gladio terrorists, who hid many of their 138 weapons caches in cemeteries. Eastwood received a percentage-based salary, unlike the first two films where he received a straight fee salary. When Lee Van Cleef was again cast for another "Dollars" film, he joked "the