When Sergio Leone's epic-Spaghetti Western The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly was finally released in the U.S. in late 1967 after nearly a year since its December 1966 premiere in Rome, Italy. It was very clear that the Western had finally gotten a new make over while some dismissed the Spaghetti Western genre as another fad. For Leone, he had hoped that The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly would be his last as he aimed for a far more personal project that would eventually become Once Upon a Time in America. Due to his success with the Westerns he made, Paramount offered Leone a chance to make one more Western in order to help fund Once Upon a Time in America. Knowing that he would have a chance to make his dream project, Leone decided to make one more Western and give the genre a final sendoff that eventually became the first part of a new trilogy about America and the events that toughened the country. For the first part, he goes back to the West with Once Upon a Time in the West.

Once Upon a Time in the West is about a woman arriving to meet her new family only to be found dead. With an outlaw and a mysterious man to protect her, she learns that her family is killed by a dark killer-for-hire for a railroad baron. To help Leone tell the story, he hired two then-young unknown aspiring directors for help. One was a film critic named Dario Argento and the other was a filmmaker who had only made a few to his credit in Bernardo Bertolucci. With the help of the two young men, Leone turned to longtime collaborator Sergio Donati to help write the actual screenplay with American translator Mickey Knox doing translation. Starring such film heavyweights as Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, and Jason Robards plus Italian film siren Claudia Cardinale and Italian film icon Gabriele Ferzetti. Once Upon a Time in the West is alone one of Leone's enduring and operatic masterpieces as he leaves the Western with a bang.

It's a quiet day in a railroad station near Flagstone as a trio of men (Jack Elam, Woody Strode, and Al Mulock) are awaiting the arrival of a lone gunslinger. After emptying the station, they wait for the arrival of the mysterious gunslinger who is known as Harmonica (Charles Bronson). Harmonica arrives as a three-on-one gunfight ensues with Harmonica defeating all three men but gets himself wounded in the arm. In another part of the desert far from Flagstone, a man named Brett McBain (Frank Wolff) is getting ready for a dinner with his children including eldest daughter Maureen (Marilu Carteny), Patrick, and a young boy Timmy (Enzo Santaniello). With Patrick set to go to Flagstaff to pick up McBain's new bride named Jill (Claudia Cardinale). It was supposed to be a big day but a group of gunslingers have arrived and killed McBain's family as the young boy Timmy stares in the eye of its leader, a ruthless killer named Frank (Henry Fonda).

In the town of Flagstone, Jill arrives on a train from New Orleans as she sees railroads being built where she waits for the arrival of Patrick. A local named Sam (Paola Stoppa) takes Jill to the home of McBain where they ride through the desert only to stop in a small bar in the middle of the desert. Jill meets the bartender (Lionel Stander) where she hears the playing of a harmonica from the man named Harmonica. Also arriving into the bar after escaping from jail is a half-breed gunslinger named Cheyenne who is accompanied by his gang. Cheyenne notices the presence of Harmonica as a man with a gun tries to pull a gun only to learn that Harmonica is a skilled gunslinger. Jill watches everything unfold as Sam takes her to the home of McBain.

Upon arriving, she finds a group of people where she sees that the entire family has been killed. The Flagstone sheriff (Keenan Wynn) found clothing that belongs to Cheyenne as Jill chose to stay in the McBain home. The incident is spread around town as Harmonica tortures and interrogates a man named Wobbles (Marco Zuanelli) who reveals information about the McBain massacre. The information leads to the involvement of a paralyzed railroad baron named Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti) who learned what Frank had done. He isn't happy about Frank's actions as they hope to own an entire railroad so Morton can gain a legacy. Frank meanwhile, has other plans as they both learn that Jill has arrived.

After being haunted by the harmonica playing that's been playing in her farm, Jill attempts to leave the McBain house as Cheyenne arrives to her home with his men. Jill knows that Cheyenne isn't the killer as she is intrigued by his sensitivity and they immediately struck a conversation about her life in New Orleans and how she met McBain. After Cheyenne departed, she meets the mysterious Harmonica as he reveals the information about the McBain murders. With the knowledge that Morton is involved, Cheyenne and Harmonica hope to find out more until Harmonica sees Frank as there is something known about their connection. They find out about the information from Morton after through some trouble while Jill learns about some purchases McBain had made where she learns in what Morton had wanted.

Frank kidnaps Jill for his own pleasure as he convinces her to sell the McBain land which he hopes to gain for his own reasons. An auction is held for the selling of the McBain land as Frank's plans backfire as Harmonica used the reward money for Cheyenne's capture to buy the land. Jill learns that there is something about Frank and Harmonica as Frank learns that his alliance with Morton has faltered. With an attack on Morton, Frank learns that the plans McBain had with his land is going underway. Cheyenne escapes to the McBain home as they learn that a final shootout between Harmonica and Frank is going to happen. With the plans of McBain's dream underway, Cheyenne knows that the days of the West is about to end.

In Leone's past trilogy of Westerns with Clint Eastwood, he wanted to reveal what was great about the genre while giving it a fresh coat of European sensibility in terms of its violence. For this particular film, Leone clearly wanted it to be not just his best Western but a tribute to the genre itself. Leone aimed for an operatic end of the genre by making the film play as a background where it's the time where the railroad starts to emerge where it's the start of modernization and the end of the West. In some ways, the film is considered to be a political film by Leone since the railroad is where the power is. In many ways, it's Leone's most complex film among his Westerns while the structure and plot is a bit more simple.

The script's structure and timing might seem slow to some viewers but its pacing and observation is deliberate to the way Leone tells his story. The credit for hashing out Leone's script is his co-writers in Sergio Donati and Mickey Knox plus contributions from Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento. What the script reveals is Leone's transition from action-driven, stylized Westerns to more dramatic elements that helped evolve his unique ability as a storyteller. While there's only a few main characters of the film, they're all wonderfully developed and fully realized in their intentions and in the presence they bring. Particularly the way heroes and villains are portrayed as multi-dimensional characters. Cheyenne and Harmonica aren't true good guys since Cheyenne is a fugitive who does bad things but at least has his own morals while Harmonica is a bit more vicious since he's here for far more personal reasons in a vendetta.

Part of Harmonica's story is told in flashback since his objective is to find Frank where it eventually reveals itself in a flashback and how he got the name. The main villain of Frank is truly one of the most chilling villains in the history of cinema. Notably for his lack of remorse as he is willing to kill anyone including women and children without no pretenses and morals. He is a sadist and he doesn't have a care in the world except for money and pride. While another villainous character in Morton is in the story, he's not that much of a villain since he has his own morals and his desire to dream of a legacy. Plus, he’s the brunt of abuse in his already tumultuous business relationship with Frank where all Frank cares for is money and power. The real hero of the film is the most unlikely hero of any of Leone's film and that is in the part of a woman.

In the films prior to this one, the women Leone had were often portrayed as hookers or mothers trying to take care of their children. For this film, his main protagonist is a woman where she ends up becoming an unlikely heroine. Not with shooting or playing cowboy but a woman who isn't playing a just a former hooker, but someone who ends up helping create a lost dream while maintaining her dignity. It's in not just the script of Leone but his wandering direction that allows the characters to connect while making them their own as characters that audiences can care about or totally dislike. In his epic vision, Leone aims for a scope where all the tricks he used in previous films work for him where he goes from a close-up of a house and then have the camera move to show an entire town in one long shot.

Leone's love for conventional Western cliches, notably the shootouts are done with great style while making them unconventional at the same time. He starts off with a near-ten minute opening where for a while, nothing happens until Harmonica arrives playing this haunting, harmonica melody. Then, the film immediately opens with a shootout. Even the final shootout between Harmonica and Frank is done with great complexity about the history that reveals a key point to the film's plot in Harmonica's hatred for Frank. Its his presentation that gives voice to the Western while declaring it dead at the same time. While his love for many Westerns including the ones by John Ford are mentioned, he also breaks them to give the genre a great send-off where we understand some of Frank's motives for not wanting the McBain dream to stay alive. In many ways, what Leone would do for ending the West with Once Upon a Time in the West. Sam Peckinpah would confirm it even more in its ideology a year later for his 1969 masterpiece, The Wild Bunch.

Helping Leone out in his epic, visual-scope is his longtime cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli. Colli's widescreen photography is not very good when its shown on a fullscreen format but on widescreen, the presentation is beautiful. Taking advantage of the light from the sun in many of the film's exterior settings and giving the interior a grungy yet true atmosphere to the genre. The photography in the film is wonderfully authentic in every frame. Two more of Leone's longtime collaborators also do great work in their respective trade. Longtime art director/costume designer Carlo Simi whose presentation of the Western towns and bars is wonderful in its detail while his creation of the Flagstaff town is rumored to be worth more than the entire budget of Leone's first Western in A Fistful of Dollars. Simi's costume work is great while giving Henry Fonda a great look to his villainous persona and doing great work on the clothing of Claudia Cardinale.

Longtime editor Nino Baragli whose iconic cutting style in The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly is used to great form as he does great work in dissolves and transitional cuts to create a wonderful atmosphere and pacing to the film. Helping with the film's sound work are sound designers Fausto Ancillai and Claudio Maielli who help create the atmosphere of the West. Notably, the film's first scene where the sound is amazing from its windmills, creaking chairs, and the noise of a fly. The makeup team of Alberto and Giannetto de Rossi do great work in getting the tanning look to help create the heat of the West along with the red sand of the American West.

The final key collaborator of all of Leone's great films is the work of music composer Ennio Morricone. The score of Morricone is divided into four themes to be played for its main characters. The first is a sweeping, operatic arrangement of strings for the character of Jill while Cheyenne gets a rhythmic, banjo-like guitar accompaniment that plays to the film's humor. The character of Harmonica has a theme to the tune of a haunting harmonica melody while Frank gets a droning, dorbo-like guitar riff when his character arrives. Each arrangement and note Morricone would put would often mix into some of the greatest score work ever assembled which he wrote just before the film was even made. Morricone aims for the same tone of opera and tension, notably in the film's final shootout where the arrangements are sweeping to convey the sense of momentum. In the end, it's one of the best film scores ever composed by the always brilliant Ennio Morricone.

Now we come to the film's amazing, large ensemble cast. While there's some nice, memorable roles from Claudio Mancini as Harmonica's brother and Dino Mele as the young Harmonica in a flashback sequence along with Marilu Carteny and Enzo Santaniello as the McBain children. There's some great performances from veteran Western character actors Jack Elam, Woody Strode, and Al Mulock in the film's opening sequence. Notable small roles like Paola Stoppa, Keenan Wynn, Lionel Stander, and Marco Zuanelli are memorable as is Frank Wolff as the ill-fated McBain. The most memorable supporting role is the role of Morton by Gabriele Ferzetti. Playing a cripple, Ferzetti brings a complexity to his role of a villain who wants to hold on to a final dream as he keeps on hearing and looking at images of the sea. Ferzetti holds his own in many scenes, especially with Henry Fonda as its really two actors just acting with each other while being very comfortable. While he may not be known to Americans, Ferzetti holds a lasting impression.

Claudia Cardinale gives an amazing performance as the hooker with dignity known as Jill. While most of her dialogue was dubbed to cover up her heavy Italian accent, Cardinale still maintains a presence that is matched by her beauty while most of her performance is in reaction shots and observance. It's truly one of the best performances in any Western while she becomes an unlikely heroine despite her past as a hooker. Cardinale has great chemistry with her co-stars but its with Jason Robards that has the greatest impact of sensitivity. The late Jason Robards gives a great performance as the sensitive but dirty Cheyenne whose knowledge of morals and codes of the West brings a man with a lot of integrity despite his criminal background. Robards also plays the moral conscience in the film of sorts despite his deeds while he is the only one to calm someone like Harmonica and bring some good company to Jill. It's a great role from the late actor who also had a great performance in another Western, the often-underrated Sam Peckinpah film, The Ballad of Cable Hogue.

The late Charles Bronson is great in his role as the mysterious Harmonica. Bronson brings a dark, quiet presence to the film where the audience is aware that he's dangerous and he's got something up on his sleeve. His face also carries a sense of pain and mystery as he uses his body language to maintain a performance that is minimalist in its lack of emotions. It's truly an iconic performance from the late actor, who has been an icon in being a bad*ss. The film's most shocking performance goes to none other than the late but legendary Henry Fonda. Throughout his career, especially in films like The Grapes of Wrath and 12 Angry Men, Fonda has played men of struggle and men who just wants to do and do the right thing. In this film, he does the exact opposite. Fonda uses the right look and tone to play a character that is pure evil from every of his intentions for his own gain. Fonda truly captures everything that a villain is needed to the point that he's a villain some can like despite his actions. It's truly one of his many iconic performances.

The 2003, 2-disc Special Edition Region 1 DVD from Paramount is truly one of the best packages of any DVD. Particularly since it's the uncut version of the film where the American release cut 25 minutes from the film in 1968 where in later releases, the scenes that got cut were restored. Presenting the film in the preferred widescreen format that is the only true way to watch a Leone epic. The film looks wonderful in all of its glory while its 16x9 aspect ratio is perfect for TV. With 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound plus restored mono audio in English and French along with English subtitles. The 2-disc set features the first disc presenting the entire film in all of its glory with its only special feature is a huge audio commentary track. The second disc is filled with several documentary shorts plus cast profiles, theatrical trailers, and photo galleries.

The first disc features a full-on audio commentary track with excerpts recorded separately from different places. On the commentary are film historians Sir Christopher Frayling and Dr. Sheldon Hall, film directors John Carpenter, Alex Cox, and John Milius, and from the actual movie, co-writer Bernardo Bertolucci and the film's star Claudia Cardinale. While John Milius and Claudia Cardinale had brief commentary tracks, they're wonderfully informative as Milius talks about his friendship with Sergio Leone. Claudia Cardinale comments on her love scene with Henry Fonda which she thought was a terrible day since she and Fonda were shooting the scene in front of journalists and Fonda's wife at the time. The shooting made things tense as Cardinale recalled though she had a good time with the legendary actor. She also talks about how Leone is compared to the great directors she worked with like Federico Fellini in 8 1/2 and Luchino Visconti.

Alex Cox and John Carpenter provide the more enjoyable commentaries as Cox talks about some of the scenes that got cut in the heavily-edited American version. Carpenter talks in a couple of scenes from a technical standpoint and his enjoyment of Leone's tracking and crane shots along with the editing and pacing style that was inspired the Japanese films of Kurosawa and Ozu. Bernardo Bertolucci also had a couple of cuts where he talked about the writing of the film and how pleased he was with the film's final cut while talking about his love for the Western genre as a kid and how Leone got him to regain his love for the genre after being enamored with the French New Wave. The more informative commentaries come from Dr. Sheldon Hall and most of all, Sir Christopher Frayling where they talk about the scenes that got cut while Frayling describes a lot of the mythology of the film. Plus, the noted references into the many movies of John Ford whom Leone loved among all Western directors while the harmonica playing is a reference to Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar.

The second disc of the DVD features several little documentaries relating to the movie. Three of them is about the film with interviews from Cardinale, Bertolucci, Cox, Carpenter, Milius, and Frayling along with late cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli and Gabriele Ferzetti. The first of the three-part documentary is a 30-minute segment called An Opera of Violence where Frayling discusses Leone's film background where his father was a silent film director and mother was an actress that did the first ever Italian Western. Leone would eventually become an assistant director for Mario Soldati in many Roman-like epics while doing some camera work in other movies like Cleopatra and Ben-Hur where Leone was part of the crew shooting the chariot scene. When Soldati died during production of a film, Leone took over to finish where he got to do his first ever film entitled Colossus of Rhodes in 1961.

Then in the early 60s, the Italian film industry went bust after the era of Roman epics were gone, Cleopatra just bombed while Luchino Visconti's Il Gatopardo also failed commercially. Frayling discusses that the Italian industry was at the time, an industry that will go on one trend and then make films of that same style. While there were films by Visconti, Federico Fellini, Michaelangelo Antonioni, Roberto Rosellini and Vittorio de Sica at the time, they weren't big commercial films. Then came Leone with the trilogy of A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly. The Italian industry went up and running again while Leone was becoming a hero. During the premiere for The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly in December 1966, Leone met with a then-new filmmaker named Bernardo Bertolucci and a local film critic from Rome named Dario Argento. Though Leone had planned to do an epic mob movie that would eventually become Once Upon a Time in America, he didn't want to do another Western.

Paramount from the U.S. convinced Leone thanks to the international buzz of his Western trilogy as he decided to do one more Western with help from Bertolucci and Argento. Bertolucci talked about how he came up with the idea of getting a female protagonist for the film which Leone resisted at first only to be won over by the idea. Claudia Cardinale discusses how she got contacted and how she wanted the part to be more complex and it helped the writing more. The documentary also features rare interview clips from Leone in 1984 when he was finishing Once Upon a Time in America and an old 1975 interview with Henry Fonda talking about taking the role for Once Upon a Time in the West. Part of a trilogy of the events that touched America, Leone wanted to pay homage to the West but also attack the American ideology while Alex Cox talked about the opening scene where there's a legendary story about the stars of The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly playing the part of the three men only to be killed in the first five minutes.

The second doc short for The Wages of Sin is a 20-minute segment where the discussion is on Leone's working style. John Carpenter, Cox, and Delli Colli discusses his precise detail for everything right. They discuss the photography style of Delli Colli as well as the work of the late art director/costume designer Carlo Simi. Frayling talks about while most of the film was shot in Spain with some interiors in Cinecetta studios in Rome. The famous shot of Jill with Sam riding through Monument Valley was one of the few scenes in America. Before shooting, Leone and Delli Colli went to America for a tour group to look at Monument Valley where Leone acted like a kid in a candy store since that's where John Ford shot some of his Westerns. Leone and his crew even went up to get the red sand from Monument Valley to use for the film. The segment also discusses the Leone close-ups and his canvas where Carpenter, Cardinale, and Frayling all feel it's the key to being a great storyteller.

The third and final part of the documentary is an 18-minute segment called Something to Do with Death where they discuss the music of Morricone where in this film, it was the first time he wrote an entire score just before the film was even shot. They discuss the themes he wrote and how Leone got inspired by them. The opening scene of the film originally was supposed to have music but the themes Morricone and Leone tried to use didn't work until Morricone went to a performance art show about a guy making sounds with ladders. There, it gave the idea for the film's opening scene with its array of amplified sounds. This leads to the discussion of the film's release where in Europe, it was a success but in the U.K. and U.S., it wasn't. Especially in America where they cut 20 minutes of the film for length reason, which would be the case for the remainder of his films in the years to come where they would get chopped up in the editing room.

The short six-minute featurette entitled Railroad-Revolutionizing the West is a short doc about the evolution of the railroad and its impact that it had on the West. Especially in its influence on the cinema where Alex Cox reveals that it talks about the process of industrialization where machines came and the beginning of the end of man. Two galleries appear for the DVD. First is a locations gallery to compare and contrast the locations of the film where many of the railway locations from Spain show no railroad but more grass. The McBain house looks more colorful while keeping the wood that was actually taken from a film by Orson Welles. The look of Monument Valley remains insatiable in its red look while the trail don't exist only as a path of sorts. The film photo gallery features black-and-white stills of the cast and crew working including a deleted scene that never made the final cut of Harmonica being assaulted by the town's sheriff.

Also included are the cast bios of the five main actors, French and English subtitles, and the original theatrical trailer for the film. Overall, this is a fantastic DVD though the only flaw is its packaging where both discs are on top of another and if anyone is trying to get the second disc. Get the first one out or you'll cause some scratches.

Though it wasn't a big hit in the U.S., Once Upon a Time in the West still endured after all of those years as it remains a landmark in the Western genre. The film is currently in the top 50 list of Best Films of All-Time by the IMDB while its in the top ten of Westerns with Leone's The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly is at the top. The film's legacy did a lot for some of its cast and crew where today, both Claudia Cardinale and Gabriele Ferzetti remain icons in their native Italy and throughout the international film world. Jason Robards and Henry Fonda continue to make their impact on film until their respective deaths in 2000 and 1982 while Fonda would reunite with Leone in a production of a film called My Name is Nobody in a film where Leone reacts to the spoofs of the Spaghetti Western genre. The late Charles Bronson would gain stardom as he would later become an icon in the Death Wish movies.

The film also helped out the careers of its two young scriptwriters where Dario Argento became an icon in fleshing out Italian horror films. Argento's co-writer Bernardo Bertolucci also became a film icon for directing such films as The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, his Oscar-winning 1987 film The Last Emperor, and more recently The Dreamers. In conclusion, Once Upon a Time in the West is truly one of the greatest Westerns of all-time. Fans of the genre will no doubt find this as an essential film along with fans of Leone. Anyone else interested in where Bernardo Bertolucci got his trade in epic film writing and how Dario Argento got his taste for blood will see where their roots are. In the end, thanks to the wondrous direction of Sergio Leone and his collaborators plus the performances of Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Gabriele Ferzetti, Henry Fonda, and Jason Robards. Once Upon a Time in the West is a true testament to what made the Westerns a great film genre. It's true they don't make films like this anymore, which is what the cinema needs now.

Sergio Leone Films: A Fistful of Dollars - For a Few Dollars More - The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly - Duck, You Sucker! - Once Upon a Time in America

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older