Italian director Sergio Leone helms big screen’s best Western

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968)
ITALIAN MOVIE POSTER

By TERRY R. CASSREINO

From the brilliant 20-minute showdown at a train station depicted with almost no dialog to the pitch-perfect performances throughout, “Once Upon a Time in the West” is unlike any other Western ever made.

It’s also the greatest, the product of Italian director Sergio Leone – who had just completed the Clint Eastwood Western trilogy of a “Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More” and “The Good the Bad and the Ugly.”

Leone’s films are distinctively different from Westerns made by American film makers.

While Leone had an obvious love for the genre and was heavily influenced by such classics as “3:10 to Yuma,” “High Noon” and “The Searchers,” his films were nevertheless distinctively different.

For starters, they technically were Italian films, Spaghetti Westerns, filmed and financed on location in Europe with a European crew. The Eastwood trilogy was shot in Italian and dubbed in English for American release; Eastwood was one of the few actors to say his lines in English.

And they were successful, paving the way for Leone to make one more Western in 1968: “C’era Una Volta il West,” his epic masterpiece centered around the development of the railroad. The film that was released in the United States as “Once Upon a Time in the West.”

I won’t give away the plot. But I will say the 20-minute showdown at a train station that opens the film is indicative of what you’ll see – in the acting, the direction, the photography and the deliberate pace of the sequence.

Here and throughout the film, Leone is more interested in the seemingly mundane events that precede sudden bursts of violence. He focuses on creating suspense and tension that steadily builds to one split second of bloodshed. He doesn’t linger on the violence like the slow-motion, exaggerated, extended scenes of mayhem you find in a Sam Peckinpah Western like “The Wild Bunch” or a John Woo Hong Kong police thriller like “Hard Boiled.”

HENRY FONDA IN “ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST”

The great actors Jack Elam and Woody Strode command the screen in the opening sequence topped only by the silent charisma of a young Charles Bronson as “Harmonica,” a role originally offered to Clint Eastwood. Leone films the standoff by alternating extreme close-ups of his actors and their eyes with breathtaking, panoramic long shots.

One short sequence has Elam fighting a restless fly that won’t leave him alone. It may sound trivial, but that short sequence tells you more about Elam’s character than any dialog could ever convey.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one other key performance in a film filled with great acting: Henry Fonda is brilliantly cast against type as the film’s ruthless villain – one of the great Western heavies, a man who will stop at nothing and kill anyone to get exactly what he wants. Also great are Clauda Cardinale and Jason Robards.

Interestingly, future film directors Dario Argento and Bernardo Bertolucci helped craft the film’s story. And the great Ennio Morricone composed the film’s music score (much like he did for all of Leone’s films).

U.S. MOVIE POSTER

“Once Upon a Time in the West” performed poorly at the box office on its initial release, garnering largely negative reviews. Paramount Pictures subsequently cut the film from 165 minutes to 145 minutes, but the movie still failed.

Now, however, the original film uncut and unedited is available on home video. Paramount recently released two versions of the film on high-definition Blue-ray disc: the 165-minute theatrical cut and a 166-minute restored version. Even though just a minute longer, the restored version is the preferred cut of the film. The video transfer is reference quality.

If you already own a standard definition DVD of “Once Upon a Time in the West,” the quality of the remastered and restored high definition Blu-ray version is so remarkable that it is well worth the cost of upgrading. The film has never looked better, probably since it first played in theaters in 1968.

You can buy a Blu-ray version of the film or a standard definition DVD for less than $20 at many retailers. You also can rent the film through Netflix; it is not available for streaming on Netflix.