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Candi Sorcerer in training Since: Aug, 2012
Sorcerer in training
May 27th 2022 at 11:00:05 PM •••

  • Undercover Blues may be legitimately considered as a series of noodle incidents connected by a script, including several subversions of the trope.

There are a couple noodle incidents mentioned, but it's been a while since I watched it, so I don't remember them. I don't remember if it was explained how the American agents got on the bad guys' helicopter.

The rest of it, the Blues are the ones causing/the target of most of the incidents, so while they may appear noodle incidents to various characters, from the Blues' perspective they're not such.

Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. -Terry Pratchett
Fantomas Since: Dec, 1969
Oct 30th 2011 at 5:26:03 AM •••

Jack Sparrow's list of crimes is a direct steal from The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. Early in the film, just before Tuco is about to be hanged, a similar (nut much, much worse) list of offenses is read out. Of course, he is rescued, Shortly afterwards, he is about to be hanged again in a different town. Another list of the things he's done is read out, but all the offenses are completely different from the first lot, and even worse!

The best part of it is that in the middle of the recitation, the camera veers of to look at what another character is up to, and we stay with him for a couple of minutes, during which constant faint mumbling can be heard in the background. Then we go back to Tuco, and discover that the list of his crimes is STILL being read out!

Of course, that entire trilogy is full of noodle incidents. In A Fistful Of Dollars, the nameless Clint Eastwood character (who is nevertheless referred to several times as "Joe") has an out-of-character change of heart (which ultimately screws up his plans) and helps a damsel in distress because "I once knew somebody like you, and there was no-one there to help." No other explanation is given.

And in The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, both Blondie and Tuco recognize Angel-Eyes the moment they see him in the POW camp, but nothing is revealed about whatever past the three of them share. In fact, Tuco is the only character in the entire trilogy whose background is fully explained by a reliable source (his brother, who has taken holy orders).

Furthermore, in the restored version, in a very strange scene involving a ventriloquist act with a dead chicken, Tuco reveals that he once had three very good amigos. Said amigos promptly descend from the ceiling (seriously, if you haven't seen the extended version, this really happens!), but shortly afterwards, Tuco coldly uses them as cannon-fodder to divert Blondie. So what's his real history with these guys?

Also, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly opens with Tuco shooting three men who were obviously hunting him, one of whom survives and turns up again much later minus an arm. We are never given the slightest hint as to why these three wanted to kill Tuco in the first place. In the second film - For A Few Dollars More - it is eventually revealed that El Indio killed Col, Mortimer's sister (indirectly, but only just), but we are never given any backstory explaining how a halfbreed Mexican bandit came to be madly in love with a Southern gentleman's daughter.

And when the Man With No Name (twice referred to as "Manco", by the way - it's an in-joke that only works in the obscure Italian dialect spoken by the director) beholds Col. Mortimer's "Buntline Special" - a Colt .45 revolver with a detachable rifle stock and an insanely long barrel - and can scarcely believe his eyes, the colonel informs him that "that 'contraption' saved my life more than once", but he never tells us how. Possibly he shot down the Batplane with it?

Indeed, Col. Mortimer's entire armory is a bit of a Noodle Incident. The guns we briefly glimpse when he reveals his portable arsenal just before killing Guy Calloway include a large-bore musket that's at least a century out of date. It would be fascinating to know exactly why this particular combination of weapons, most of which he never uses in the film, are necessary to him. Presumably he must carry a wildly inaccurate antique that shoots a lump of lead the size of a ping-pong ball because at least once he needed to kill something equivalent to an elephant?

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