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