Once Upon a Time in the West

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Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West)
Theatrical film poster by Frank McCarthy.
Directed by	Sergio Leone
Produced by	Fulvio Mosella Bino Cicogna (executive)
Written by	Screenplay: Sergio Leone Sergio Donati Story: Sergio Leone Dario Argento Bernardo Bertolucci
Starring	Charles Bronson Claudia Cardinale Jason Robards Henry Fonda
Music by	Ennio Morricone
Cinematography	Tonino Delli Colli
Distributed by	Paramount
Release date(s)	Italy: December 21, 1968 United States: May 28, 1969
Running time	Theatrical Cut: 145 minutes Restored Cut: 165 minutes Extended Cut: 175 minutes
Country	Italy
Language	Italian English

Once Upon a Time in the West (Italian: C'era una volta il West) is a 1968 epic spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone. The film stars Henry Fonda cast against type as the villain Frank, Charles Bronson as his nemesis "Harmonica", Jason Robards as the bandit Cheyenne and Claudia Cardinale as Jill, a newly-widowed homesteader with a past as a prostitute. The screenplay was written by Leone and Sergio Donati, from a story devised by Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Dario Argento. The widescreen cinematography was by Tonino Delli Colli, and Ennio Morricone provided the film score.

In Europe, the film was a substantial box office success, playing for multiple years in some cities. However, it was greeted with a mostly negative critical response upon its 1969 theatrical release in the United States and was a financial flop. The film is now generally acknowledged as a masterpiece and one of the best western films ever made.^[1][2]

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Production 3.1 Origins 3.2 Style 3.3 Themes and motifs 3.4 Pacing 3.5 Casting 3.6 Music 4 Reputation 5 Releases 5.1 American release 5.2 1984 re-release 5.3 Extended versions 5.4 German language release 5.5 DVD release 6 Movie references 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Plot

The film opens at an isolated train station in Arizona. The station master is changing the expected arrival time of a train to show that it will be late. Three gunmen (Jack Elam, Woody Strode and Al Mulock) arrive at the station with an ambience of tension and foreboding. They wait, trying to occupy themselves. Eventually, the train arrives, and only a man playing a harmonica (Charles Bronson) disembarks. He asks for Frank, but the three men have been sent instead. A showdown ensues. The man who was playing the harmonica is the only survivor. On the remote farm Sweetwater, Brett McBain (Frank Wolff) and his children prepare a feast for the arrival of his new wife, Jill. Frank (Henry Fonda) and his gang emerge from the desert and kill all four McBains.

Jill (Claudia Cardinale) arrives in Flagstone by train from New Orleans and takes a carriage to the McBain farm. In a roadside establishment along the way, she encounters the bandit Cheyenne (Jason Robards) who enters after a noisy shootout with his prison escort. Seeing the harmonica-player, Cheyenne dubs him "Harmonica". When Cheyenne's men arrive, Harmonica tells of his shootout earlier with three men who wore similar dusters, but Cheyenne denies they were from his gang. Jill arrives at the farm to find her husband and his children dead. The assembled crowd came to be wedding guests, but she tells them she married McBain a month earlier in New Orleans. As the funeral ends, part of a duster is found (fake evidence Frank planted), and the men form a posse to hunt down Cheyenne. Jill stays and searches the house for anything of value, as McBain told her he was rich. She finds only some miniature buildings, including a model train station.

Next morning, Cheyenne arrives to survey the scene of his alleged crime. He has coffee with Jill and departs. Harmonica appears and tears the white lace from Jill's black dress. He dispatches with ease two of Frank's men who have been sent to kill her. Railroad tycoon Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti) chastises his hired gun, Frank, for killing the McBains. Frank has been with him since he started building his railroad in sight of the Atlantic. Crippled and slowly dying, Morton rarely leaves his plush private rail car, but he hopes to reach the Pacific before he dies. Harmonica sneaks aboard Morton's train but is discovered. Frank asks who he is, but Harmonica gives only names of men Frank has murdered. Frank goes to capture Jill himself, leaving three of his men to guard Harmonica. Cheyenne has also sneaked aboard. He kills Frank's men, and he and Harmonica go to rescue Jill.

At the farm, Harmonica tells Cheyenne that McBain knew the railroad would have to come past Sweetwater for its remote source of water, and he procured the rights to operate the depot. Building supplies have arrived and now belong to Jill. The station must be built by the time the tracks get there, and Cheyenne puts his men to work building it.

Frank has his way with his captive Jill. He considers marrying her to get the land but knows he'd be a bad husband. He needs a simpler plan. In the saloon in Flagstone, the sheriff (Keenan Wynn) presides over the auction of Jill's property. Frank plans to buy the farm cheap: his men bid $500 and keep anyone else from bidding. Harmonica arrives just in time to bid $5,000 — he "delivers" the wanted outlaw Cheyenne for a reward in that amount to win the auction. Jill congratulates Harmonica on getting himself a good deal, but he says he doesn't invest in land. Frank asks again who he is, but Harmonica gives only more names of Frank's victims. Frank tries to get the land by intimidating Harmonica but fails. The farm is Jill's. Morton joins a poker game with four of Frank's men who are guarding him in his rail car. He deals large sums of money to buy their loyalty, and one rides into town to tell the others. They lie in wait for Frank as he exits the saloon, but Harmonica keeps them from killing him, explaining to Jill that not letting them kill him isn't the same as saving him. At Morton's train, Frank finds a scene of carnage from a shootout between his and Cheyenne's gangs. Morton dies trying to crawl to a mud puddle (a poor substitute for the Pacific).

The track-laying crews have reached Sweetwater. Harmonica waits for Frank near Jill's house, but Cheyenne arrives first and goes in to have more coffee with her. Frank finally arrives, and the two men position themselves for a duel. Harmonica's motive for revenge is revealed in a flashback: Long ago, Frank forced Harmonica, then a boy, to stand supporting his older brother, whose neck was in a noose. Frank put a harmonica in the boy's mouth. The brother cursed Frank and kicked the boy out from under him to complete his own hanging. The boy fell face-first into the dirt. Now he faces Frank in their final showdown. Frank loses. Dying, Frank asks again, "Who are you?" Harmonica puts the old, battered harmonica in Frank's mouth. Frank nods weakly in recognition and dies. Harmonica and Cheyenne say goodbye to Jill. As they ride off, Cheyenne stops and gets down. He shows Harmonica that Morton shot him in the gut. He asks Harmonica not to watch him die, and Harmonica looks away. The work train arrives, and the film ends as Jill takes water out to the rail workers.

[edit] Cast

• Claudia Cardinale as Jill McBain
• Charles Bronson as Harmonica
• Jason Robards as Cheyenne
• Henry Fonda as Frank
• Gabriele Ferzetti as Morton
• Paolo Stoppa as Sam
• Woody Strode as Stony
• Jack Elam as Snaky
• Keenan Wynn as Sheriff
• Frank Wolff as Brett McBain
• Lionel Stander as Barman

[edit] Production

[edit] Origins

After making his American Civil War epic The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Leone had intended to retire from making Westerns, believing he had said all he wanted to say. He had come across the novel The Hoods by the pseudonymous 'Harry Grey', an autobiographical book based on the author's own experiences as a Jewish hood during Prohibition, and planned to adapt it into a film (this would eventually, seventeen years later, become his final film, Once Upon a Time in America). Leone though was offered only Westerns by the Hollywood studios. United Artists (who had produced the Dollars Trilogy) offered him the opportunity to make a film starring Charlton Heston, Kirk Douglas and Rock Hudson, but Leone refused. However, when Paramount offered Leone a generous budget along with access to Henry Fonda, his favorite actor with whom he had wanted to work for virtually all of his career, Leone accepted the offer.

Leone commissioned Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento – film critics, who later became directors – to help him develop the film in late 1966. The men spent much of the following year watching and discussing numerous classic Westerns such as High Noon, The Iron Horse, The Comancheros, and The Searchers at Leone's house, and constructed a story made up almost entirely of "references" to American Westerns.

Ever since The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, which originally ran for three hours, Leone's films were usually cut (often quite dramatically) for box office release. Leone was very conscious of the length of Once Upon a Time in the West during filming and later commissioned Sergio Donati, who had worked on several of Leone's other films, to help him refine the screenplay, largely to curb the length of the film towards the end of production. Many of the film's most memorable lines of dialogue came from Donati, or from the film's English dialogue director, expatriate American actor Mickey Knox.^[3]

[edit] Style

For Once Upon a Time in the West, Leone changed his approach over his earlier westerns. Whereas the "Dollars" films were quirky and up-tempo, a celebratory yet tongue-in-cheek parody of the icons of the wild west, Once upon a Time in the West is much slower in pace and sombre in theme. Leone's distinctive style, which is very different from, but very much influenced by, Akira Kurosawa's Sanshiro Sugata (1943), is still present but has been modified for the beginning of Leone's second, the so-called "Once Upon a Time", trilogy. The characters in this film are also beginning to change markedly over their predecessors in the "Dollars" westerns. They are not quite as defined and, unusually for Leone characters up to this point, they begin to change (or at least attempt to) over the course of the story. This signals the start of the second phase of Leone's style, which would be further developed in A Fistful of Dynamite and Once Upon a Time in America.

[edit] Themes and motifs

A major motif of the film is the railroad; its advent heralds the arrival of civilization and culture, marking the death of the mythic Old West. This captures in miniature the dying-off of the old cultural heroes in the wake of the modern world, where it is the ordinary man who is important. The West was seen by Leone as the last environment of the old-style hero, and one can understand the film as a nostalgic examination and exploration of the past. Running parallel to this is Leone's sadness at the demise of the mythical Wild West as told by cinema, and the film is his way of laying to rest the old Hollywood-style western heroes and legends, as the film's title suggests. The climactic duel between Harmonica (Bronson) and Frank (Fonda) brings these messages into focus. Harmonica often acts as the thematic voice of the film and has been waiting for Frank (who has been trying to become a businessman throughout the story) to show his irrepressible true colors as a figure of the "ancient race" and engage him in a fated gun duel. Another major theme is water. The transformation of the central character Jill (Cardinale) all takes place due to the water on her land, and there are several scenes involving water being drunk or served. A well and its water have a central role in the plot as the fuel that nourishes the New West, and the Pacific Ocean plays prominently in Morton's motivational dream to build a trans-American railroad.

[edit] Pacing

The film features long, slow scenes in which there is very little dialogue and little happens, broken by brief and sudden violence. Leone was far more interested in the rituals preceding violence than in the violence itself. The tone of the film is consistent with the arid semi-desert in which the story unfolds, and imbues it with a feeling of realism that contrasts with the elaborately choreographed gunplay.

[edit] Casting

Fonda did not accept Leone's first offer to play Frank, so Leone flew to New York to convince him, telling him: "Picture this: the camera shows a gunman from the waist down pulling his gun and shooting a running child. The camera tilts up to the gunman's face and...it's Henry Fonda." After meeting with Leone, Fonda called his friend Eli Wallach, who advised him to do the film, as "You will have the time of your life."

When he accepted the role, Fonda came to the set with brown contacts and facial hair. Fonda felt having dark eyes and facial hair would blend well with his character's evil and also help the audience to accept this "new" Fonda as the bad guy. Leone immediately told him to remove the contacts and facial hair upon viewing; Leone felt that Fonda's blue eyes best reflected the cold, icy nature of the killer. Fonda later claimed his role as Frank was his personal favorite.^{[citation needed]}

Leone originally offered the role of Harmonica to Clint Eastwood; when he turned it down, Leone hired Charles Bronson who had originally been offered and turned down the part of The Man with No Name in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. As a matter of fact, the director, Sergio Leone, once called Bronson "the greatest actor I ever worked with", and had wanted to cast Bronson for the lead in all three of his previous westerns. James Coburn was also approached for Harmonica but demanded too much money.

Robert Ryan was offered the role of the Sheriff played by Keenan Wynn. Ryan initially accepted but backed out after being given a larger role in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch.

Enrico Maria Salerno and Robert Hossein were both offered the role of Morton before Gabriele Ferzetti was cast; Hossein had accepted. but had to drop out for a theatre commitment. Ferzetti, who considers it one of his best roles, referred to his casting as "Fate, Destiny" in an interview for the DVD release.

Actor Al Mulock (featured in the opening train sequence as well as in Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) committed suicide during shooting of the film by leaping from his hotel room in full costume. Frank Wolff, the actor who plays McBain, also committed suicide in a Rome hotel in 1971.

[edit] Music

The music was written by composer Ennio Morricone, Leone's regular collaborator, who wrote the score under Leone's direction before filming began. As in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the haunting music contributes to the film's grandeur and, like the music for The Good the Bad and the Ugly, is considered one of Morricone's greatest compositions.

The film features leitmotifs that relate to each of the main characters (each with their own unique theme music) as well as to the spirit of the American West. It was Leone's desire to have the music available and played during filming. Leone had Morricone compose the score before shooting started and would play the music in the background for the actors on set.

[edit] Reputation

Though less popular in the US than the earlier "Dollars Trilogy", Once Upon a Time in the West has gained an ardent cult following around the world, particularly among cineastes and film makers. Once Upon a Time in the West can be found on numerous film polls. It is usually in the top 20 of the IMDB's top 250 and is listed as one of the best all time films by Time magazine. Film critic Kim Newman claimed it was the best Western ever made, as did film historian Christopher Frayling, who wrote two books about the film's legacy.

[edit] Releases

[edit] American release

In the U.S., however, it had a rather poor opening reception, gaining largely negative or indifferent reviews in its complete form (165 minutes). Paramount edited the film to about 145 minutes for the wide release, but the film tanked at the box office. The following scenes were cut for the American release:

• The entire scene at Lionel Stander's trading post. Cheyenne (Robards) was not introduced in the American release until his arrival at the McBain ranch later in the film. (Interestingly, Stander remained in the credits, even though he did not appear in this version at all.)
• The scene in which Morton and Frank discuss what to do with Jill at the Navajo Cliffs. This scene was important because it established the growing rift between Morton and Frank — a key reason why Morton decides later on in the film to have Frank killed.
• Morton's death scene was edited considerably.
• Cheyenne's death scene was completely excised.

On the other hand one scene was slightly longer in the U.S. version than in the international movie release: After the opening duel where all protagonists are hit and fall down, Charles Bronson's character stands up again showing that he had only been shot in the arm. This part of the scene had been originally cut by Director Sergio Leone for the worldwide movie theatre release. It was added again for the U.S. market because the American distributers feared American viewers would not understand the story otherwise, especially since Harmonica's arm wound is originally shown for the first time in the scene at the trading post which was cut for the shorter U.S. version.

[edit] 1984 re-release

The English language version was restored to approximately 165 minutes for a re-release in 1984, and for its video release the following year.

[edit] Extended versions

A slightly longer, 168 minute version exists in Italy which features several scenes augmented with additional material, though no complete scenes are present that are missing. The longest known cut is 171 minutes long and is only unofficially available as a bootleg copy on various file sharing platforms.

[edit] German language release

The German-language release has been titled Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod ("Play to me the Song of Death"). In the original (english) version, Frank says "Keep your lovin' brother happy" when he shoves the harmonica in young Harmonica's mouth as he stands supporting his brother; this line is overdubbed with Na komm' - spiel mir das Lied vom Tod ("Come - play to me the Song of Death"). While Harmonica silently puts the instrument between Frank's teeth as he is dying after their climactic duel, in the German edition his voice (while Bronson's character is off-screen and the camera is focused on Fonda's face) says Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod, Frank!. This stresses Harmonica's story and his reason for seeking revenge, and strongly emphasizes Harmonica's theme and its sinister origin and meaning to the point of tilting the focus of the entire movie to this theme.

Since the original line is the only mention of Harmonica's brother, many German viewers of the movie believe that the lynched man is Harmonica's father. There are some other additions to the original text as well, most notably a line Frank says to Morton — "Pacific Ocean, hm?" — as Morton is dying in a mud puddle.

[edit] DVD release

After years of public requests, Paramount Pictures released a 2-Disc "Special Collector's Edition" of Once Upon a Time in the West on November 18, 2003. With a running time of 165-minutes(158-minutes in other regions), this edition is the color 2.35:1 aspect ratio version in anamorphic wide-screen, closed captioned and Dolby. The commentary includes commentary from film experts and historians such as John Carpenter, John Milius, Alex Cox, film historian and Leone biographer Sir Christopher Frayling, Dr. Sheldon Hall, as well as actors Claudia Cardinale and Gabriele Ferzetti, and director Bernardo Bertolucci, a co-writer of the film.

The second disc has special features, including three recent documentaries on several aspects of the film:

• An Opera of Violence
• The Wages of Sin
• Something to Do with Death

There is a Railroads: Revolutionizing the West featurette, location and production galleries, cast profiles, as well as the original trailer.

[edit] Movie references

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (November 2008)

Leone's intent was to take the stock conventions of the American Westerns of John Ford, Howard Hawks and others, and rework them in an ironic fashion, essentially reversing their intended meaning in their original sources to create a darker connotation.^[4] The most obvious example of this is the casting of veteran movie good guy Henry Fonda as the villainous Frank, but there are also many other, more subtle reversals throughout the film. According to film critic and historian Christopher Frayling, the film quotes from as many as 30 classic American Westerns. (See this discussion, which lists many references confirmed by Frayling, Leone and others, as well as speculative ones.)

Some of the major films used as references for the movie include:

• High Noon. The opening sequence is similar to the opening High Noon, in which three bad guys (Lee Van Cleef, Sheb Wooley and Robert J. Wilke) wait at a station for the arrival of their gang leader (also named Frank, played by Ian MacDonald) on the noon train. In the opening of Once Upon a Time in the West, three bad guys (Jack Elam, who appeared in a small part in High Noon, Woody Strode, and Al Mulock) wait at a station. However, the period of waiting is depicted in a lengthy eight-minute sequence, the train arrives several hours after noon, and its passenger is the film's hero (Charles Bronson) rather than its villain. The scene is famous for its use of natural sounds: a squeaky windmill, knuckles cracking, and Jack Elam's character trying to shoo off a fly. According to rumor, Leone offered the parts of the three bad guys to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly stars Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach.^[5]
• 3:10 to Yuma. This cult Western by Delmer Daves may have had considerable influence on the film. The most obvious reference is a brief exchange between Keenan Wynn's Sheriff and Cheyenne, in which they discuss sending the latter to Yuma prison. In addition, as in West the main villain is played by an actor (Glenn Ford) who normally played good guys. The film also features diegetic music (Ford at one point whistles the film's theme song just as Harmonica provides music in West). And the scene in which Van Heflin's character escorts Ford to the railroad station while avoiding an ambush by his gang may have inspired the ambush of Frank by his own men in Leone's film.
• The Comancheros. The name McBain and the name of the town Sweetwater come from this movie.
• Johnny Guitar. The character of Jill McBain is supposedly based on Joan Crawford's character Vienna, and Harmonica may be influenced by Sterling Hayden's title character. Some of the basic plot (settlers vs. the railroad) may be recycled from this film. ^[6]
• The Iron Horse. West may contain several subtle references to this film, including a low angle shot of a shrieking train rushing towards the screen in the opening scene, and the shot of the train pulling into the Sweetwater station at the end of the film. ^[6]
• Shane. The massacre scene in West features young Timmy McBain hunting with his father, just as Joey hunts with his father in Shane. The funeral of the McBains is borrowed almost shot-for-shot from Shane. ^[6]
• The Searchers. Leone admitted that during the massacre of the McBain family, the rustling bushes, the stopping of the cicada chirps, and the fluttering pheasants to suggest a menace approaching the farmhouse, were all taken from The Searchers. The ending of the film — where Western nomads Harmonica and Cheyenne are forced to move on rather than join modern society — also echoes the famous ending of Ford's film. ^[6]
• Warlock. At the end of this film, Henry Fonda's character wears clothing very similar to his costume throughout West. In addition, Warlock features a discussion about mothers between Fonda and Dorothy Malone that is similar to those between Cheyenne and Jill in West. Finally, Warlock contains a sequence in which Fonda's character kicks a crippled man off his crutches, as he does to Mr. Morton in West.
• The Magnificent Seven. In this film, Charles Bronson's character whittles a piece of wood. In West, he does the same, although in a different context.
• Winchester '73. It has been claimed that the scenes in West at the trading post are based on those in Winchester '73, but the resemblance is slight. ^[6]
• The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The dusters (long coats) worn by Frank and his men in the opening massacre resemble those worn by Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) and his henchmen when they are introduced in this film. In addition, the auction scene in West was intended to recall the election scene in Liberty Valance ^[6].
• The Last Sunset. The final duel between Frank and Harmonica is shot almost identically to the duel between Kirk Douglas and Rock Hudson in this film. ^[6]
• Duel in the Sun. The character of Morton, the crippled railroad baron in West, was based on the character played by Lionel Barrymore in this film. ^[6]
• Sergeant Rutledge (with Woody Strode as the title character). In this John Ford Western, there is a scene in which Constance Towers' character falls asleep in a chair with a rifle in her lap, looking out for hostile Apache, just as Jill McBain does in Leone's film.
• My Darling Clementine. A deleted scene in West featured Frank getting a shave with perfume in a barber's shop, much like Fonda's Wyatt Earp in this film.

There are other, smaller references, to various non-Westerns, most notably Luchino Visconti's The Leopard.

Contrary to popular belief, the name of the town "Sweetwater" was not taken from The Wind, Victor Sjöström's silent epic. Bernardo Bertolucci has stated that he looked at a map of the southwestern United States, found the name of the town in Arizona, and decided to incorporate it into the film. However, a "Sweetwater" — along with a character named McBain — also appeared in a John Wayne Western, The Comancheros, which Leone admired. ^[6]

[edit] See also

• A Fistful of Dynamite
• Once Upon a Time in America
• Once Upon a Time Trilogy
• Spaghetti Western

[edit] References

• Fawell, John (2005). The art of Sergio Leone's Once upon a time in the West : a critical appreciation. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-2092-8. 

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Once Upon a Time in the West

• Once Upon a Time in the West at the Internet Movie Database
• Once Upon a Time in the West at the Spaghetti Western Database

v • d • e Films directed by Sergio Leone 1960s The Colossus of Rhodes (1961) • A Fistful of Dollars (1964) • For a Few Dollars More (1965) • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) • Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) 1970s A Fistful of Dynamite (1971) 1980s Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

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