Once Upon a Time in the West (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition)
by Sergio Leone
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Gabriele Ferzetti, Henry Fonda, Jason RobardsDirector: Sergio Leone
Brand: FONDA,HENRY
Writer: Sergio Leone
Producer: Bino Cicogna
Producer: Fulvio Morsella
Writer: Bernardo Bertolucci
Writer: Dario Argento
Writer: Mickey Knox
Writer: Sergio Donati
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 175 minutes
Published: 2003-11-01
DVD Release Date: 2003-11-18
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Paramount
Movie Reviews of Once Upon a Time in the West (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition)
Movie Review: Something about death....
Summary: 5 Stars
Note: This review contains spoilers; please do not read if you do not wish to find out important plot points before viewing the film.
This movie has so much---stunning scenery, a great cast, tight writing, economic plot, and haunting music---and it takes its time to unfold its tale of stark vengeance and redemption. This is unmistakably and indelibly a Sergio Leone vision. One could imagine that Clint Eastwood was first offered the role of Harmonica, the avenger, and then it went to Charles Bronson. However it worked out, Bronson was superb as the Everyman hero/possible avenging angel character; he projected a subtle sorrow in his piercing eyes, even his body language, that made him perfect for the role.
The plot is multilayered, revolving around a lovely widow (Claudia Cardinale) of a shrewd man named Brett McBain, who is brutally murdered along with his children by the railroad's hired guns while she is enroute to join them at their home in Sweetwater. Her property is what is coveted and it becomes Harmonica's bait to settle an old score with the chief hired gun, Frank, who is shockingly revealed to be played by wholesome Henry Fonda. His clear blue eyes, so apparently innocent-looking, become frightening in their lack of human emotions. Frank kills without remorse whatever it befalls him to kill as casually as flicking a leaf off his sleeve. Human life is meaningless to him, even more so than to his tubercular cancer-ridden boss Morton. At least he has a motive (greed) to explain his hubris; Frank evidently needs no such excuse and kills because it's what he was born to do.
Another character is brought into the tense mix, a bountied outlaw named Cheyenne, appealingly played by Jason Robards. He is also a killer, but one with a sense of humor and a kind streak, as well as a soft spot in his heart for pretty women. When both he and Harmonica are hired by Jill McBain to get revenge on her husband's killers, they form a strange alliance against Frank and the railroad, which Cheyenne sees as a threat to his way of outlaw life. Over time, he becomes friendly with the widow Jill, who in turn is oddly drawn to Harmonica. When Cheyenne realizes this, he utters his famous line: "There's something inside a man like that... something about death." Everything hinges on McBain's property, which is substantial, and his plans to build a railroad station. He had everything legally in place to build the station but if it isn't finished by the time the railroad reaches Sweetwater, his heir forfeits the right to build it and even to keep the land. Harmonica uncovers the motive for McBain's murder and will prevent his dream from failing.
Frank, who is usually so icily carefree about death and those who stalk him, grows more obsessed with finding out who Harmonica is, since every time he asks him, the enigmatic drifter keeps answering by naming off men that Frank has killed. Everything comes apart for Morton and Frank as the killer begins to slowly but relentlessly unravel, with vague flashbacks rising as to who Harmonica might be. These, however, keep his past shrouded sufficiently so that Frank cannot quite close this maddening chapter in his life by just gunning down Harmonica and being done with him.
At last, Frank is mortally wounded in the climatic gun duel by Harmonica, who strangely is less fazed by what should also be a mortal wound, leading to the speculation that Harmonica is someone other than who he appears to be. Placing his harmonica to Frank's dying lips where his weakening breath wheezes out a few ragged discordant notes, Harmonica watches as his motive is finally realized by Frank. He had sadistically stood a man upon his younger brother's shoulders with a noose around his victim's neck, then shoved a harmonica into the boy's lips. Easing back to watch for the moment when the younger man's legs would finally give out and his brother would hang, Frank is smiling with cold pleasure at his handiwork. It is at that point that the older brother cursed his killer and kicked the boy out from under him, thus alleviating the responsibility placed on Harmonica to keep him alive.
But this sequence, though gratifying from a vengeance point, does not answer the question about Harmonica's mysterious knowledge about Frank's victims or his apparent ability to shake off a serious wound with little effect. That combined with Harmonica's penchant to be in the right place at the right time, to stand outside of events while at times controlling them, gives his character a dimension that disconnects him from temporal events. He becomes at those moments like a mysterious angel of death.
Every actor was wonderful in his role, from Claudia Cardinale to Jason Robards, but the two principals were outstanding. Fonda, renowned for playing good guys, turned his reputation as an actor completely around with his flawless portrayal of the vicious and heartless killer, Frank. His foil, played to understated perfection by Charles Bronson, was the reluctant vigilante, the man consumed with revenge for his brother's murder, and yet not merely that. Bronson projected from Harmonica a deep and inexplicable sadness that permeated his words, appearance and actions.
This was not Leone's choice for a movie. He had abandoned the spaghetti Western concept after the Clint Eastwood films, but was persuaded to take on this project. It did not fare well at the box office, which is no surprise considering its length of almost three hours. A great pity, as it is sometimes overlooked by fans of the spaghetti Western genre for both its lack of commercial success, and for committing the unforgivable sin of not having Eastwood in the lead. It is a great film and works on many levels; in some ways, it is the distillation and the perfection of the SW genre even as it closed it out for good.
Summary of Once Upon a Time in the West (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition)
Now, for the first time, Sergio Leone's original uncut version of this monumental epic can be seen. The picture itself is as big as its Monument Valley locations, as grand as its fine, distinguished cast, as tough and bawdy as every kid imagines the Old West. Henry Fonda plays the blackest character of his long career, and he's utterly convincing as Frank, the ruthless murderous psychopath who suffers no conscience pangs after annihilating an entire family. Jason Robards is the half-breed falsely accused of the terrible slaughter. Charles Bronson plays The Man, who remembers how his brother was savagely tortured. Brilliantly directed by Sergio Leone, this glorious picture re-established the Western'' significance to cinema art."The so-called spaghetti Western achieved its apotheosis inSergio Leone's magnificently mythic (and utterly outlandish) Once upon a Time in the West. After a series of international hits starring Clint Eastwood (from A Fistful of Dollars to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly), Leone outdid himself with this spectacular, larger-than-life, horse-operatic epic about how the West was won. (And make no mistake: this is the wide, wide West, folks--so the widescreen/letterboxed version is strongly recommended.) The unholy trinity of Italian cinema--Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Dario Argento--concocted the story about a woman (Claudia Cardinale) hanging onto her land in hopes that the transcontinental railroad would reach her before a steely-eyed, black-hearted killer (Fonda) does. (The film's advertising slogan was: "There were three men in her life. One to take her ... one to love her ... and one to kill her.") Meanwhile, Leone shoots his stars' faces as if they were expansive Western landscapes, and their towering bodies as if they were looming rock formations in John Ford's Monument Valley. --Jim Emerson
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