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Once Upon a Time in the West

Once Upon a Time in the West (Italian title: C'Era una Volta il West) is a 1968 epic spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone. The film stars Henry Fonda unusually cast as the villain Frank, Charles Bronson as his nemesis "Harmonica", Jason Robards as the generally benign 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 classic and one of the best western films ever made.

It is the first part of a loose trilogy of epics called Once Upon a Time Trilogy, followed by 1971's A Fistful of Dynamite (known alternatively as Once Upon a Time... the Revolution or Duck, You Sucker) and 1984's Once Upon a Time in America.

Plot

Three outlaws (Jack Elam, Woody Strode and Al Mulock) take over an isolated train station in Arizona. A train stops and leaves behind a man playing a harmonica (Charles Bronson). He asks for Frank, but Frank has sent the three men in his place. One of them admits they're "shy one horse." Bronson says, "You brought two too many." A showdown ensues. Bronson shoots his would-be killers but is wounded.

On the remote McBain farm, "Sweetwater," Brett McBain (Frank Wolff) and his family are preparing a feast for the arrival of his new wife, Jill. They are shot and killed by Frank (Henry Fonda) and his gang, who leave part of a leather duster like those worn by the gang of the bandit Cheyenne to pin the blame on him.

Jill (Claudia Cardinale) arrives in Flagstone by train from New Orleans and takes a carriage to the McBain farm. Along the way, the driver stops at a roadside establishment, and Jill follows him inside. Cheyenne (Jason Robards) enters after a noisy shootout (heard but not seen) with his prison escort. The man with the harmonica is there, and Cheyenne calls him simply "Harmonica." Cheyenne helps himself to Harmonica's gun to force a patron to shoot apart the chain between his shackled wrists. His men arrive too late to help. Harmonica takes note of their dusters and tells of his own shootout earlier with the three men who wore similar dusters, but Cheyenne is certain they were not any of his men.

As Jill nears the McBain farm, she sees people standing outside. She is heartbroken to see her dead husband and his children. The crowd came to be wedding guests, but Jill says she married McBain a month earlier in New Orleans. The funeral is ending when the fake evidence Frank planted is found, 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.

The next morning, Cheyenne arrives. The posse chased him all night until he eluded them in the desert. He has come to see the scene of his alleged crime. He asks for coffee, and Jill complies. He helps make the fire for the coffee, and she sees he's not as ruthless as people say. After his departure, Harmonica appears and tears the white lace from Jill's black dress. At the well outside, he protects her from two of Frank's men who have been sent to kill her. He dispatches them with ease, and Cheyenne, watching from a distance, sees that Harmonica is an excellent shooter.

Frank is taken to task by railroad tycoon Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti), for whom he works as a hired gun. Morton wanted Frank to scare the McBains, not kill them. Crippled and slowly dying of tuberculosis of the spine (Pott's disease), Morton only rarely leaves his plush private rail car. Frank has been with him since he started building his railroad in sight of the Atlantic, and Morton hopes to reach the Pacific before he dies. Frank has ambitions to become a businessman himself – maybe take control of Morton's empire – but Morton tells him, "You'll never succeed in becoming like me." Frank doesn't understand that money is the only weapon more powerful than a gun.

Jill comes to town to ask Wobbles, the laundry proprietor, to arrange a meeting with Frank. Harmonica follows Wobbles to Morton's train and sneaks aboard but is soon discovered. Frank demands to know who he is, but he gives only names of men Frank has murdered. Frank kills Wobbles and has his men tie up Harmonica. He goes to capture Jill himself, leaving three of his men behind to guard Harmonica. Cheyenne has also sneaked aboard. He kills Frank's men but spares Morton. He and Harmonica team up to go rescue Jill.

At the farm, supplies sufficient to construct eight buildings have arrived. Harmonica tells Cheyenne that McBain knew the railroad would have to come past Sweetwater to access its remote source of water. McBain bought the materials needed to turn his farm into a small town and procured the rights to operate the depot. He paid for the supplies with cash, so they now belong to Jill. The contract specifies that the station be built by the time the tracks get there, and Cheyenne puts his men to work building it.

That night, Frank has his way with the captured Jill. He has learned via telegraph that she was a prostitute in New Orleans before marrying McBain. She gives herself to him to escape certain execution. He says he might be a little sorry killing her. He considers marrying her to get the land but knows he would be a bad husband. He needs a simpler plan.

In the large saloon in Flagstone, Brett McBain's property is to be sold at auction. Jill is present, and the sheriff (Keenan Wynn) presides. Frank's plan is to buy the McBain farm cheap: his men bid $500 and intimidate anyone else who tries to bid. But Harmonica and Cheyenne have a plan of their own. Harmonica bids $5,000 and "delivers" the wanted outlaw Cheyenne for a reward in that amount to win the auction.

The sheriff puts Cheyenne on the train to the new prison at Yuma, but two of Cheyenne's men also board. Back in the saloon, Jill congratulates Harmonica on getting himself a good deal, but he says he doesn't invest in land. Frank arrives and Jill goes upstairs to take a bath. Frank asks again who he is, but Harmonica gives only more names of Frank's victims. Frank says, "You paid $5,000 for somethin' belongs to me" (he had the auction rigged, after all). Offering Harmonica $5,001, he lays out the cash and tries to intimidate him. In response, Harmonica plops the lone silver dollar into his own empty glass to pay for his drink. The farm is Jill's.

Morton has had it with Frank's butcher tactics, and he sees his dream of reaching the Pacific slipping away. Stopped away from town on his train, he asks to join a poker game with four of Frank's men who are now guarding him. Instead of cards he deals large sums of money to buy their loyalty. One rides into town to inform the others, and they lie in wait for Frank when he exits the saloon. Harmonica keeps the gunmen from killing Frank and lets him get away. This angers Jill, who wants Frank dead, but Harmonica explains that not letting them kill him isn't the same as saving him. Frank arrives at Morton's train to find a scene of carnage from a big shootout between his and Cheyenne's gangs. Morton is wounded and dying. Frank is about to finish him off but changes his mind. Morton dies trying to crawl to a mud puddle.

The track-laying crews have arrived at Sweetwater, and workers are completing the station and building the town. Harmonica waits for Frank at the gate to Jill's house, but Cheyenne arrives first and goes inside to have more coffee with her. He advises her to take water to the workers and let them enjoy the sight of a beautiful woman. He tells her that men like him and Harmonica are not right for her. People like that have something inside, he says, "something to do with death."

Frank finally arrives at the gate. Harmonica speaks of an ancient race (theirs) being killed off by the coming of the modern age, arriving next to them as they speak. They position themselves for a duel. Harmonica's motive for revenge is revealed in a flashback. Long ago, Frank hanged Harmonica's older brother. Harmonica, then a boy, was forced to stand under his brother, who stood on the boy's shoulders with his neck in a noose. Their hands were bound behind their backs. Frank told the boy to "keep your lovin' brother happy" and put a harmonica in his mouth. The brother kicked the boy out from under him to hasten the inevitable. The boy fell face-first into the dust. Now he faces Frank in their final showdown. Harmonica makes his move; the men draw and fire. Frank loses. As he's dying Frank asks again, "Who are you?" In answer, Harmonica pulls the old, battered harmonica from its lanyard and puts it in Frank's mouth. It brings back Frank's memory of the hanging, and he nods weakly in recognition before dying.

Harmonica comes into the house to get his gear. Jill says she hopes he'll come back to Sweetwater someday, and he responds, "Someday." Cheyenne leaves too. As they ride off, Cheyenne stops, gets off his horse and drops to the ground. Harmonica goes back to him and learns he was shot in the gut by Morton. Cheyenne asks Harmonica not to look at him while he's dying, and Harmonica looks away until he hears him fall. Harmonica takes the body away, draped over Cheyenne's horse. The work train arrives on the newly laid tracks, and Jill takes jugs of water out to the rail workers.

Cast

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

Henry 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 ordered brown contacts to darken his naturally blue eyes. Fonda felt having dark eyes 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 them from his eyes upon viewing; Leone felt that Fonda's blue eyes best reflected the cold, icy nature of the killer.

Fonda later went on to claim that his role as Frank was his personal favourite.

Sergio Leone originally offered the role of Harmonica to Clint Eastwood; when he turned it down, Charles Bronson was hired. James Coburn was also approached for Harmonica but demanded too much money.

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.

Production

Origins

After making his stunning 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 "Harry Grey" (a pseudonym), 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). However, Leone 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 this 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.

Style

With Once Upon a Time in the West, Leone chose a different path to styling the film, and this can be distinguished from 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, 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.

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.

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.

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 stirring music contributes to the film's mythic or operatic 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.

Acclaim

Though not as popular as the "Dollars Trilogy" which preceded it, Once Upon a Time in the West is a highly acclaimed film. The movie 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. It is highly acclaimed by modern critics. 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.

Releases

American release

The film was a huge hit in Europe and quickly developed a cult following. (In France it was titled Il Etait Une Fois dans l'Ouest.) 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.

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. This version has gained a large cult following in America.

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.

German language release

The German-language release has been titled Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod (play me the song of death). The line "Keep your lovin' brother happy" during the lynch scene is overdubbed with the title line. This stresses Harmonica's story and his reason for revenge. 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.

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, 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.

Movie references

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. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 .
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.
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.
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.

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.