open/close all folders
Main Trio
Manco
See this page for more information.
Colonel Douglas Mortimer
Portrayed by: Lee Van Cleef
Voiced by: Emilio Cigoli (Italian), Lee Van Cleef (English)
- Actor Allusion: Lee Van Cleef had played bandits and such in the earlier part of his career before this role redefined his type. Early on, when making a deposit, he makes a point of putting himself in a bandit's shoes and asking the bank teller what the hardest bank for him to rob would be, so that he'll know the absolute safest place for him to deposit his money.
- Anti-Hero: Pragmatic Hero. He's willing to stalk Indio across the country and kill many men if it means avenging his sister's honor.
- Arch-Enemy: El Indio.
- Badass Longcoat: His long, black duster, which includes an attached Inverness cape.
- Bounty Hunter: He's been made redundant from the military and has honed his skills as this in order to find and kill El Indio.
- Cold Sniper: Besides carrying a Colt Buntline Special with a 10 inch barrel and attachable stock, his horse is stocked with an impressive array of rifles.
- Colonel Badass: He's a former Confederate Army colonel from the damned American Civil War who carries a veritable arsenal with him wherever he goes, and has a personal score with El Indio.
- Cool Old Guy: He may be old, but he's just as badass as Manco or Indio.
- Dark Is Not Evil: He dresses in a stylish black suit, with a matching hat and duster. But his motivations actually turn out to be quite noble.
- Deadpan Snarker: Exchanges snark with Manco regularly. His wit also helps work him into Indio's good graces when posing as a lock picker.
- Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe: He smokes a very nice one.
- Face Death with Dignity: Ultimately subverted. When Indio disarms him before their duel, Mortimer is saddened that he won't get to avenge his sister, but he doesn't break down or anything; he simply stands there with a resigned look on his face, waiting for the inevitable. Luckily, Manco arrives just in time to set things straight.
- Good Is Not Nice: He doesn't hesitate to kill his opponents, although they are criminals and often murderers.
- Good with Numbers: Tries to trick Manco into settling for Indio's reward money while he can have the rewards offered for the rest of the gang for himself, but Manco sees through it. Turns out it was never about the money for him.
- The Gunslinger: Though he's more of a calculating and methodical sniper type, rather than the quick draw type Manco is. He does have a quick-draw to rival Manco, as shown during the final duel.
- This is even lampshaded in the novelization, where Manco and Mortimer have a brief conversation when Manco gives him his gun belt to even the odds during his final duel with Indio. Manco says that drawing from the hip won't be as fast as what Colonel Mortimer is used to, since he typically wears his gun in a crossdraw fashion. Mortimer doesn't bat an eye, merely saying that he makes it a point to keep in practice both ways.
- Hand Cannon: He wields a Buntline Special that may be cumbersome on the draw, but can pack one hell of a punch with deadly accuracy. He unfolds a pack on his horse to reveal that among his many weapons, he carries an even longer-barreled pistol as well.
- The Hero: Within the setting of the story and compared to Manco he is this; and he definitely isn't in it for the money.
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: He was a war hero, but now he's just a bounty hunter.
- Identical Stranger: He has a Criminal Doppelgänger named Angel Eyes who Manco encountered many years ago. Despite this, Manco never mentions the resemblance.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: His accuracy is deadly and he's very good at long-distance shots, notably thanks to his Buntline Special with a 10-inch barrel on which he often attaches a stock. This allows him to shoot his enemies while they can't touch him because he's out of their range. He's also deliberately able to shoot Manco at close range in a manner that leaves a convincing, yet not inconveniencing wound on his neck.
- It's Personal: Killing Indio had always been about avenging his sister's honor, never about the money; so much so that once that's done, he lets Manco have all $27,000 dollars of the reward.
- Long-Range Fighter: In contrast to Manco, his shooting style is methodical and best done from a distance, given the length of his pistol's barrel. He keeps a number of rifles on his horse for shooting at even greater distances, though for extreme close ranges, he has a derringer.
- Mangst: He's made of this trope so much that it's not until the Dénouement that Manco figures out that he has any Mangst at all.
- Master of Unlocking: He cracks the El Paso safe and Indio's money chest with ease.
- Nothing Up My Sleeve: Carries a derringer in his right sleeve, which he uses against Wild in the bar at Agua Calinte.
- Religious Bruiser: He is intently reading a Bible when he is first seen. It's worth noting that his mission of vengeance for his sister is specifically accounted for in the Bible
. - Revenge: To Indio. The bandit killed Mortimer's brother-in-law and raped Mortimer's sister, causing her to commit suicide.
- Scarily Competent Tracker: Though they try to throw curve balls at him, Mortimer never loses track of Manco and El Indio.
- Smoking Is Cool: Smokes a Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe throughout the film and looks cool doing it.
- Tragic Keepsake: His pocket watch, which contains a picture of his sister. He retrieves the other from Indio's body after killing him.
- Unorthodox Holstering: While having a cross-draw isn't all that unorthodox, it's how the old man identifies him and is able to tell Manco who he really is.
El Indio
Portrayed by: Gian Maria Volonté
Voiced by: Nando Gazzolo (Italian), Bernie Grant (English), Henry Djanik (European French), Gian Maria Volonté (English, scratch track and some lines)
- Arch-Enemy: To The Man with No Name (Manco) and Mortimer.
- Ax-Crazy: El Indio is pretty much what would happen if you dropped The Joker into The Wild West. The man rapes, murders and robs without any remorse or pity, commits violent acts spontaneously and enthusiastically For the Evulz, is an Straw Nihilist, and laughs all the way through.
- Bad Boss: Sets up his Mooks to be killed by Manco and Mortimer so that he can keep their shares of the loot.
- Bandito: Takes the worst traits of the bandito up to eleven. A drug-addicted Large Ham who stalks women, murders families, rigs duels, and takes trophies from his victims, he spends most of the film in an opium-induced haze, while plotting to use Monco and Colonel Mortimer to do his dirty work, wiping out his gang and leaving all the money from his robberies for him. In a departure from some of the stereotypes of the time, he's easily as smart, or smarter, than the film's protagonists.
- Beard of Evil: A vicious Bandito with a full beard.
- Big Bad: Of the film. His crimes are what motivates the protagonists to act. He raped Mortimer's sister and robbed so many banks that it got him a price on his head big enough to attract Manco's attention.
- Boisterous Bruiser: Arguably a deconstruction of this trope. He laughs all the time, hugs his friends a lot, is enthusiastic and boisterous and runs a band of plucky outlaws out to rob an impenetrable bank against all the odds — but he's a depraved child-murdering, stalking rapist and his band are all implied to be similarly bad. His happy laughing face gets on his "Wanted!" Poster, but he also has a much more evil, violent side to him which causes him to turn on his own men. Lastly, his good moods seem almost maniacal, and are probably induced with drugs.
- The Chessmaster: His plan for the bank robbery is quite clever. Everything else though doesn't quite work out.
- The Dreaded: A crazy, paranoid bandit who no-one's in a hurry to meet. Unless they're Bounty Hunters.
- Evil Laugh: He does this a lot. His 'wanted' poster portrays him as laughing.
- Faux Affably Evil: He seems jovial and likeable at first, but quickly proves himself to be completely devoid of morality or compassion.
- For the Evulz: Much of his actions have no solid motivation and he seems to simply enjoy being evil.
- Functional Addict: Spends the entire film in an opium-induced haze. While it definitely affects his personality, it doesn't seem to impair his planning, and he remains an efficient, competent, and frightening villain, who stays one step ahead of Manco and Colonel Mortimer until the final act of the movie.
- Hate Sink: He's a sadistic, psychopathic and a disgusting bandit, him slaughtering someone's family and forces him to watch it and raping someone's sister which causes her to commit suicide just shows how horrible and unsympathetic he is.
- Hypocrite: He killed Tomaso, a former member of his gang for selling him out. He later tries to betray his own gang to keep all the money for himself.
- Identical Stranger: He resembles Ramon Rojo, who is a criminal in the town of San Miguel.
- Karmic Death: Killed by the brother of the young woman he raped, with the pocket watch he used so often counting down.
- Kick the Dog: When he orders his minions to kill Tomaso's family, to add a properly sadistic touch, he forces the man to watch. Gets another when he kills Cucchilo (one of his own minions). Then there's the flashback scene.
- Light Is Not Good: He sometimes wears white clothes and he always carries a gold watch that provides a melodic tune whenever it's flipped open, but this does not mean that he is a good person.
- Manipulative Bastard: His scheme to set Manco and Mortimer against his gang seems foolproof. If Manco and Mortimer win, his gang's dead and he and Niño get all the money. If they kill Manco and Mortimer, no harm and no foul. Unfortunately, he's Out-Gambitted by Groggy who's smart enough to figure out what's going on, and by Manco and Mortimer being even better than he expected.
- Oh, Crap!: Has a non-verbal one when he hears the chimes begin again just before he can carry out his rigged duel with Colonel Mortimer... and sees Manco holding the second music necklace. Especially upon the realization that he is being forced to partake in a fair duel with Mortimer, who hopelessly outclasses him, and even on the outside chance Indio did prevail, Manco would almost certainly just gun him down anyways to collect the sizable bounty on his head.
- Practically Joker: Probably an unintentional example, but El Indio is what you'd get if you took The Joker and dropped him into The Wild West. He's a deranged, sadistic, sociopathic, nihilistic and capricious Giggling Villain, has a Mysterious Past, and his nemesis wears black.
- Revenge by Proxy: He does this early on in the movie to a guy who took money to put him behind bars. The guy had used the money to start a family, and so Indio feels that the family is "partly his." He forces him to watch as his men take the guy's wife and baby boy outside and shoot them both to death, just before sadistically setting up a duel between them using the pocketwatch that he'd made him listen to during the whole thing.
- Sadist: Cackling madly as he commits murders and tortures victims.
- The Sociopath: He has no empathy or remorse whatsoever. Not even for his own Mooks.
- Taking You with Me: Attempted. After being shot by Mortimer, he attempts to shoot him, but just slumps over dead.
- Villainous BSoD: Every time he uses his pocket watch for a kill, which brings back memories of his encounter with Col. Mortimer's sister. Invariably, this sends him into a funk that requires some hash to break out of.
- Villainous Crush: Seems like he had one for Col. Mortimer's sister.
- Would Hurt a Child: Ordering his men to kill a baby sets the tone for how depraved he really is.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Does this to his cellmate after he is told about the El Paso safe, which is made to resemble a cabinet.
Other Characters
Indio's Gang
Groggy
Portrayed by: Luigi Pistilli
Voiced by: Vittorio Sanipoli (Italian), Lloyd Battista (English)
- Butt-Monkey: Gets punched around the most by the rest of the gang. Even during the No-Holds-Barred Beatdown scene, he winds up hurting himself (there's a shot of him shaking his wrists after punching Mortimer).
- Dragon Their Feet: The last enemy to be killed, even after El Indio.
- Enemy Mine: Even after El Indio betrayed the rest of the gang, he still sides with him during the last battle with Manco and Mortimer, as it's his best chance to survive.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Has one offscreen when he realizes what Indio and Niño have planned for the rest of the gang.
- Evil Genius: He's the one who realizes what Indio has planned for the gang and is responsible for some of the "technical assignments," such as taking out the telegraph wires to El Paso.
- Ironic Nickname: He's the sharpest mind in the gang.
- Post-Climax Confrontation: Albeit a very brief one, as he tries to kill Manco after the end of Mortimer's and Indio's climactic duel.
- Spanner in the Works:
- Realizes Indio's plan and prevents it from coming to fruition.
- Had he not taken part in the final fight, therefore ending up distracting Mortimer at a crucial moment, El Indio wouldn't have been able to take the Colonel by surprise and disarm him before the beginning of their duel.
- The Starscream: Realises something's not quite right and foils Indio's plan to have Manco and Mortimer kill the rest of the gang. Then again, he's already shown questionable loyalty; when Indio's in prison, Groggy's implied to have run off and formed his own gang with Paco and Chico, but comes back to join El Indio after Indio kills Tomaso.
Niño
Portrayed by: Mario Brega
Voiced by: Renato Turi (Italian), Ray Owens (English)
- Affably Evil: At least compared to El Indio. Tellingly, he has a different voice actor in the English dub than the Brega roles in the other two films of the trilogy.
- Badass Bandolier: It stretches over both shoulders.
- Breaking Out the Boss: His first scene is him leading four other gang members, including Cuchillo and Luke, in breaking out El Indio.
- The Big Guy: The largest of Indio's men.
- The Brute: Stands 6'4', weighs 250 pounds, and throws a lot of the punches in the No-Holds-Barred Beatdown scene.
- The Caretaker: Seems to be this for Indio. He supplies him with marijuana and is shown covering him with a blanket or coat while he sleeps.
- Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Serves this role to Wild when they, Groggy, and Cuchillo encounter Mortimer in the El Paso bar, trying to hold Wild back from shooting Mortimer as they don't want to attract any unwanted attention before pulling off the heist.
- The Dragon: The only one Indio shares his true scheme with.
- Genius Bruiser: A subtle example, but he makes and carries out a successful plan to break Indio out.
- Giant Mook: Portrayed by the 6 foot 4, 250 pound Mario Brega. Brega portrayed similar thugs in A Fistful of Dollars, as Chico, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as Corporal Wallace.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Niño has an extended, bloody one on the right side of his face and his right eye is swollen shut.
- In the Back: Stabbed from behind by Groggy when the latter figures out what Indio has planned for the rest of the gang.
- Ironic Name: Niño means "little child" in Spanish.
- Non-Standard Character Design: Most of Indio's men are dressed in shades of tan, brown and indigo. Niño is dressed primarily in purple and olive green.
- Undying Loyalty: To El Indio.
- Villainous Friendship: The one-way sort with El Indio. Niño is loyal enough to El Indio to break him out of jail, but Indio cares nothing for him.
Juan Wild
Portrayed by: Klaus Kinski
Voiced by: Bruno Persa (Italian), Gilbert Mack (English)
- Arch-Enemy: Sees Colonel Mortimer as this.
- Ax-Crazy: Heavily implied, especially given that he's played by Klaus Kinski.
- Boom, Headshot!:Shot in the head by Mortimer in the Agua Caliente bar.
- Butt-Monkey: His first prominent scene has Mortimer striking a match on his brace—and he can't challenge him back because the gang can't afford to allow itself to be noticed. The next time he encounters Mortimer, the colonel shrugs off his challenges...which infuriates him even more. And then Mortimer outguns him.
- Character Tics: Shows a facial tic when nervous.
- Evil Cripple: A hunchback.
- Green and Mean: A vicious bandit who wears a green shirt.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Just look at his face when Mortimer uses his cigarette to light his pipe and the hand reaching for his gun.
- The Napoleon: One of the shortest of the gang and one of the most vicious.
- Psycho for Hire: Heavily implied.
- Red Right Hand: He's a hunchback and the most psychotic of Indio's gang (which is really saying something given what Indio's like).
- A Sinister Clue: Since the hunch is on the right side of his body, Wild draws left-handed.
- Twitchy Eye: He has a tic that affects the entire left side of his face. It's especially dwelt-on in the scene where Mortimer insults him by striking a match off his hump and it's clear that Wild is working very hard to contain his desire to retaliate.
Cuchillo
Portrayed by: Aldo Sambrell
Voiced by: Pino Locchi (Italian), Bernie Grant (English)
- Bald of Evil: The hair's thinning on the top of his head and he's a bad guy.
- Beard of Evil: He's got a beard and is an Elite Mook.
- Breaking Out the Boss: Helps Niño free Indio at the beginning of the film.
- Frame-Up: Framed by Indio and Niño for Slim's death (Niño takes Cuchillo's knife while the latter sleeps and stabs Slim, who was guarding Manco and Mortimer) and the bounty hunters' escape. Despite Cuchillo's protests, Indio kills him.
- Killed Off for Real:Shot by Indio as part of framing him for Slim's death.
- Mauve Shirt: Appears in almost every scene involving the gang, and has a death scene involving the pocket watch. He's also the "dueling marshal" when Wild challenges Mortimer in the Agua Caliente bar.
- Psycho Knife Nut: Uses a knife as his primary weapon, which he uses to kill a couple guards when the gang comes to free El Indio. This winds up biting him in the ass when Niño steals his knife and stabs Slim with it.
- Meaningful Name: Cuchillo's a Psycho Knife Nut.
Luke 'Hughie'
Portrayed by: Benito Stefanelli
Voiced by: Sergio Graziani (Italian), Ray Owens (English)
- Breaking Out the Boss: Helps Niño free Indio at the beginning of the film.
- Character Death:Shot by Mortimer in a barn during the town shootout.
- Mauve Shirt: Like Cuchillo, appears in every major scene involving the gang, except for Mortimer challenging Wild in El Paso's bar. Apparently, he's also responsible for executions, since Indio gives him the order to murder Tomaso's wife and child.
- Sudden Name Change: Luke is either known as Luke, Hughie or Yuri (the latter appears on subtitles sometimes).
- Would Hurt a Child: Murders Tomaso's wife and child when Indio's gang tracks Tomaso down after Indio escapes from prison. Indio may have ordered their deaths, but Luke actually shot them.
Other Characters
The Prophet
Portrayed by: Josef Egger
Voiced by: Lauro Gazzolo (Italian), Robert Dryden (English)
- Cloud Cuckoolander: And all because of the damn trains!! His memory, however, seems to remain intact.
- The Informant
- Known Only by Their Nickname
- The New Rock & Roll: The Prophet believes the industrial boom of trains has made it so that people he knew in his past are now "in too much of a damn hurry," and the ease of travel is one of the reasons a war hero like Col. Mortimer is now a lowly bounty killer. Though most of the animosity comes from train tycoons placing train tracks near his home against his wishes whether he chose to cooperate with them for compensation or not.
Mortimer's Sister
Portrayed by: Rosemary Dexter
A young woman whose face appears in a pocket watch El Indio carries. Many years ago, Indio came to her home while she sat in bed with her lover, possibly her husband. Indio murdered the young man and raped the woman. As he raped her, she drew his pistol and shot herself. There are actually two pocket watches; the other belongs to Colonel Mortimer, her brother.
- Driven to Suicide: Shoots herself while Indio rapes her.
- Neutral Female: She might well have survived if she'd shot El Indio instead of herself, in spite of the feelings of shame and violation felt after the rape, as well as watching her boyfriend/husband being murdered in front of her by El Indio.
- No Name Given: Only ever known as Mortimer's sister.
- Posthumous Character: Been dead for some time. Her suicide is seen in the second of Indio's flashbacks.
- The Voiceless: She has no lines.
