Once Upon a Time in the West

Rating:
Summary: WHERE IS THE WIDESCREEN DVD???
Review: This is one of the BEST westerns that was ever produced!!! Please tell the movie producers or whomever does the DVD's, that this HAS got to be put out in NO LESS than 2:35 to 1 widescreen and to remaster the sound, as the music is so beautiful!!! Thank you!!!

Rating:
Summary: Very Poweful
Review: Celebrated as one of the best ever westerns.
Equally celebrated is the score, by the great Ennion Moriconne. It is marvellous.
Underlying them is the decline of the west- Robbards' charming outlaw cannot settle down and dies; Frank (Henry Fonda)'s brutal ways are the destruction of him, and only Bronson is left at the end, having fulfilled his mission of violence, to settle with Cardinale.
Too much has been said about this movie for me to add anything else...except this:
Go and see it.

Rating:
Summary: Stunning and dramatic
Review: I just had a brief comment to make about this film.

This movie had a strangely powerful effect on me, which most movies don't, especially considering it was a western, and I had a couple of ideas on that, so I thought I'd mention them here.

I think one thing Leone did was to transform the players in the movie into almost mythical giants. The characters in the movie, good or bad, are bigger than life, and the emphatic way he shot the close-ups of the actors emphasizes the fact that these characters are terrible bringers of destiny, the way the mythical Greek gods were. In that sense, I think Leone doesn't just over-romanticize the Old West as many before him had done--instead, he sees it as a stage of almost mythical proportions on which the forces of Good and Evil fought life and death battles for supremacy.

I'll just mention one other thing. One brilliant move by Leone was casting Henry Fonda, who normally plays good guys, as the treacherous, cold-blooded, and murderous gunslinger, Frank. All the actors turned in outstanding performances in the move, including Bronson, Cardinale, and Robards, but his choice of Fonda for the lead bad guy was truly inspired, since Fonda did a great job in the role.

Overall a great movie, a great western, and a great testament to Leone's inspired vision of this movie, which is perhaps all the more remarkable in that it was not an American but a foreigner who created it and brought it to us.

Rating:
Summary: Leone's Magnum Opus
Review: If A Fistful of Dollars served as Sergio Leone's witty and frenetic deconstruction (and resurrection) of the American Western, then Once Upon a Time in the West is his self-apotheosis, a transcendence of the old Western's limitations and a simultaneous summation of a new tradition. There is simply no better opening in any Western than Leone's languorous story-within-a-story, as three gunslingers patiently wait for the arrival of the train that will literally become the central vehicle of the film's metaphoric and mythic investigation of the coming of modern capitalism. Through it, Leone is sending an unmistakable message to his audience: this is a film that divulges its narrative only on its own terms and timetable; viewers expecting anything straightforward or clear-cut would do better to search out a Corbucci Western.

As in his two preceding films, Leone structures his story around a disparate group of men (uneasily) united by a shared quest. But whereas the object of desire in his earlier efforts took the form of money (bounty in For a Few Dollars More; gold in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly), here it is displaced onto the central figure of a woman: Jill McBain (played by Claudia Cardinale, with a dubbed voice). This is Leone's brilliant answer to his own complaint about the role of women in American Westerns--that they are always just hazards or impediments to the male heroes, objects that must be avoided or won. Thus, they are never individuals--merely necessary figures in a conventional narrative. But Jill McBain serves simultaneously as the object of desire and an initiator of her own narrative (one that brings about the close of each of the males' narratives). On one level, Jill (like the gold in the other films) is a symbol of the men's needs, a displaced object of desire: for Harmonica (Charles Bronson), she is a tool of vengeance in his quest to confront Frank; for Frank (Henry Fonda), she is a ticket out of gunfighting and into a world of true capitalist wealth; for Cheyenne (Jason Robards), she is a figure to protect, a reminder of his lost mother; and for Mr. Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti) she is an impediment to progress that must be removed at all costs. Of course, to their collective surprise, Jill McBain has her own desires--and the existence of such desires is what subverts the conventional passive role of women in Westerns. In a sense, she represents the inevitability of change--the bittersweet hope of a future.

Many factors beyond Leone's direction make Once Upon a Time in the West a truly rewarding experience for the viewer: Tonino Delli Colli's exquisite photography, Ennio Morricone's haunting score (perhaps his greatest ever), Henry Fonda's unforgettable turn as a cold-blooded killer, and perhaps the most mythic screenplay ever written for a Western (a colloboration including Bernardo Bertolucci, Dario Argento, and Sergio Dontai with Leone). A courageous and flawless masterpiece-and perhaps one of the best films of all time.

Postscript: If you can find a copy of the newly remastered DVD of "Once Upon a Time," it's well worth your viewing. The opening sequence is restored to its FULL length (even longer than the "restored" American version), and several scenes in the film are also slightly lengthened. Of course, the version is only in Italian, without subtitles, and can generally only be found via an Ebay or Marketplace seller, unless you're willing to buy it direct from an Italian distributor. But it's the only DVD version on the market today.

Rating:
Summary: Release the DVD already!
Review: I agree with a fellow reviewer, they release garbage on DVD and this film is not released. Enough already release it!! Maybe throw in Mr Majestyk too?? Come on>

Rating:
Summary: One of the best westers ever made!
Review: This is quite simply one of the best westerns ever made. I don't know why people like to compare this film with other John Ford classics, they don't have anything in common, and they both have very different takes on how a western should be made. Sergio Leone's characters are mythic figures of great proportion, be they heroes, antiheroes or villains. It is true that casting Henry Fonda as the villain was a stroke of genius, and I was amazed at how good Charles Bronson is in this film. But nobody gives enough attention to Jason Robards, I mean he comes this close to stealing the whole film. Robards is now remembered as one of the best of the character actors, but seeing this film I wonder why he never got a leading-man status. He steals every scene and his quiet scenes with Claudia Cardinale are extraordinarily tender and human (rare in a Leone western), his puppy-eyed expression and wis way of delivenring his dialogue accompanied with Morricone's excellent score (one of the best ever for a western) are just pure bliss. The final mythic showdown is also a sight to see and 'experience', Morricone's score adds a lot to the impact of the film. Claudia Cardinale, WHAT A WOMAN, she's an exotic italian voloptous beauty, the kind of girl you'd be more than happy to marry and have kids with. What a pressesnce though. The story is so-so and reality is blown way out of proportions, but one doesn't look for much reality or plausibility in a Spaguetti western. All in all, if you like westerns, you'll love this one, even though there is a lot more attention paid to the characters themselves than to really trying to make a statement on the taming of the west (as John Ford does). Is this the best Leone film? well 'The Good, the bad and the ugly' is also stunning, although not as mythic or overblown as this one and 'Once Upon a Time In America' is also very noteworthy, so it would depend on what you're looking for. I would highly recommend this film, and if you want to buy it, pick up the letterboxed edition because this film was not meant to be seen in it's cropped-up version! All in all, a solid 8.5 out of 10!!!

Rating:
Summary: Once Upon A Time In The West
Review: This movie has to be
seen in letterbox. It is the only way to enjoy the scope of the directors vision. Leone captures the Largeness of Monument Valley just like John Ford did. This is how Westerns should be made. As far as casting Henry Fonda as a bad guy, I think this is his only time, brillant. Shows the ability of Henry to play it to the Hilt, which he Did. I saw this movie in an outdoor theater in Thailand during the Viet Nam war. It was great to watch then. I have it in on laser disc, can't wait to see it on DVD. The guy who saw on the small screen needs to buy a bigger TV and wiew this as it was meant to be seen. This is a great movie in the tradidion of John Ford.
Dwayne Landen

Rating:
Summary: The best. Period.
Review: Without a doubt, this is the best western that has ever been made and will ever be made. If its one thing I can't imagine, its someone making another film that could live up to this one. As everyone knows, the story is about a lone gunman, Harmonica, who is out seeking revenge against Frank, Henry Fonda. Along with this story there is the story of Jill, a recently widowed woman, at the hands of Frank, who must cope with the railroad coming to her house, and with the help of Cheyenne, Jason Robards, Jill gets here station and Harmonica gets his revenge.

The one thing that lingered in my mind after watching this is how beautifully the movie is [filmed]. Not even John Ford could do something as grand as this. The way the characters are filmed, looming above the horizon just mere sillohuetes on the plain, is breathtaking. Just the way the people walk is beautiful, and the music, never before had I heard anything more beautiful in any movie. This movie just outdoes anything the Sergio Leone ever did. When you compare this to his Clint Eastwood trilogy, there is so much difference in the music, the way the scenes are done, and the way the story is, without a doubt, Once Upon a Time in the West outshines the Dollars Trilogy, and anything else produced since then.

The characters are more in-depth than the Dollar's Trilogy. While watching we get so attached to these characters that we do not want the movie to end, we want to see what else happens, and inevitably, these characters pop into our minds every now and then, and they remind us of their lasting impact. There is even a great respect between enemies in this movie. Even though Frank done such a horrible thing to Harmonica, there is still respect between each of the character, like during the scene where Harmonica informs Frank that he will not tell him what he is after until "the point of dying" and Frank respond with a calm "I know." Beautiful, heartbreakingly beautiful.

Rating:
Summary: Very Slow Dance in Spaghettiville
Review: Oddballs who proclaim this the best western of all time must be easy to please. No plot, please, or pacing, or intelligible diologue or character motivation. Just some scenery and half a dozen excruciatingly long and slow set pieces are enough to transport their reviews. Whatever believability this wreck has at all is the work of the American actors Leone tapped. Fonda, Bronson, Robards, Keenan Wynn, Jack Elam and Woody Strode, Lionel Stander all labor to inect some life into the proceedings under the leaden direction of a man who by all accounts couldn't speak a word of English. As in all Leone's western work, most of the Italian players are hopeless, and poor Claudia Cardinale is the most gruesomely miscast of all.The screenwriting credits are shared among six men, but the film can hardly be said to have been written at all. Many of the scenes look exactly as though they had been invented on the spot; inspired I suppose Leone's admirers would say. What plot elements there are have been lifted from this western and that without any noticeable effort to put together a story. Devoid of humor, injected with a truly abominable muscial score and atrociously bad sound work (Bronson's phony harmonica bit is like a recurring toothache), and completely detached from any historical reality, Once Upon a Time in the West is pretty grim evidence of the fact that while other cultures can enjoy westerns they don't really understand and can't replicate them.

Rating:
Summary: Leone's Masterpiece!
Review: I've always been a western movie aficionado and when I first saw Once Upon a Time...I didn't want it to end. I now have the VHS and am anxiously awaiting the DVD. Please! Make it available soon!

I play the soundtrack frequently. It is some of the most beautiful music I've ever listened to; perfectly created for the film.

I doubt we'll ever see in our lifetime a finer western with such star-studded cast. Truly one to see and enjoy again and again!