Once Upon A Time In The West

"It doesn't get any better than this"
My title is a cliche but in this case it's the only phrase to use. The version of this movie available now, with its extra disc full of great bonus material, is an example of how to bring DVD format to its highest potential. First of course there's the movie, and its director Sergio Leone. Every Leone movie I've seen--Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good Bad and Ugly, Once Upon a Time in America--is wonderful, but this tops them all. Imagine the year 1969: what a great time to be a western film lover. You had this, and Sam Peckinpah's Wild Bunch in the same year. Incredible. Anyway, it's impossible to list all the great scenes, so I'll stick with the first. If you love the credit sequence you'll love the movie; it's not for everybody, however. So those credits, mostly silent except for a windmill creaking, which Leone somehow makes sinister, and one of the minimal details he uses to establish authentic mood, are the litmus test. You'll either love the movie...

Leone's masterpiece
After having established himself as the Master of the Spaghetti Western, Italian director Sergio Leone set out to make a western epic of very stylish proportions. ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST was the result. Like Sam Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH, which was also released in 1969, O-U-A-T-I-T-W did not receive a particularly warm welcome from either the critics or the audiences. But like Peckinpah's film, it has now come to be seen as a masterpiece among the rise and eventual fall of the West (and maybe the way Hollywood thought of the West).

Claudia Cardinale is the widow of a businessman whose land is being sought out by a ruthless railroad magnate (Gabrielle Ferzetti). The land is well sought because it is the only known place in the desert within a 50-mile radius where there is any water. Defending Cardinale are a cold, calculating gunslinger (Charles Bronson) and an amiable outlaw (Jason Robards). But standing in their way is a ruthless hired gunman named Frank, played by...

One of the very finest Westerns ever made
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST is arguably Sergio Leone's greatest Western, although Clint Eastwood's three films with him remain among my favorites. Actually, Leone had hoped to have Eastwood in this film as Harmonica, but they were unable to work things out. As it is, I think having Charles Bronson in the role is more effective. It was central to Eastwood's persona in those three films that he be both a man with no name and with no past, but Harmonica's character is entirely driven by the past and his need for revenge.

The beginning of this film are among my favorite in the history of film. Leone is arguably the most patient director in the history of film, and is willing to take fifteen minutes for something another director would be loathe to take two. The two great instances of Leone's patience are the scene in the uncut version of ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, where he allows a phone to ring thirty or forty times, and here at the beginning, where he takes fourteen minutes to...

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