Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Directed by Sergio Leone
As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.
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12 films that influenced Once Upon a Time in the West
What critics say influenced Once Upon a Time in the West
Brimming with homages to just about every memorable western imaginable, particularly John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) and Nicholas Ray’s Johnny Guitar (1954), Once Upon a Time in the West is a brilliant metafilm that plays as both a stirring melodrama and a film geek’s cornucopia of in-jokes and movie references.
It's easy to trainspot the picture's references (and it was probably even easier back in the late sixties, when a film like Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar was little more than a decade old), but imperative that you not begrudge the movie its homages.
Argento and Bertolucci included references or quotations to several American Westerns, including High Noon (in the opening scene), The Searchers (in the closing scene), Shane (again, in the closing scene), as well as 3:10 to Yuma (in a line of dialogue), John Ford�s cavalry trilogy (brief shots in Monument Valley), and numerous others, in effect making Once Upon a Time in the West the first post-modern Western.
Shane would never do this, although Wilson (Jack Palance) might have in Leone's universe.
Brimming with homages to just about every memorable western imaginable, particularly John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) and Nicholas Ray’s Johnny Guitar (1954), Once Upon a Time in the West is a brilliant metafilm that plays as both a stirring melodrama and a film geek’s cornucopia of in-jokes and movie references.
Argento and Bertolucci included references or quotations to several American Westerns, including High Noon (in the opening scene), The Searchers (in the closing scene), Shane (again, in the closing scene), as well as 3:10 to Yuma (in a line of dialogue), John Ford�s cavalry trilogy (brief shots in Monument Valley), and numerous others, in effect making Once Upon a Time in the West the first post-modern Western.
For years, the top-rated western ever made has been Ford's The Searchers (1956).
His role is so shockingly memorable not because it’s simply “Henry Fonda being a bad guy,” but because, as Alfred Hitchcock did with James Stewart in Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958), Leone unearthes a dark mirror image of Fonda’s morally upright persona; the good we associate with his previous roles intermingles with Frank’s unmitigated badness, making him a disturbingly complex villain.
His role is so shockingly memorable not because it’s simply “Henry Fonda being a bad guy,” but because, as Alfred Hitchcock did with James Stewart in Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958), Leone unearthes a dark mirror image of Fonda’s morally upright persona; the good we associate with his previous roles intermingles with Frank’s unmitigated badness, making him a disturbingly complex villain.
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The film was directed by Sergio Leone, a longtime veteran of the Italian film industry who saw the commercial potential (oddly enough through Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo) of making European versions of the Western.
Only Sam Peckinpah ("The Wild Bunch," "Major Dundee," "Ride the High Country") did as much to rejuvenate the genre.
Only Sam Peckinpah ("The Wild Bunch," "Major Dundee," "Ride the High Country") did as much to rejuvenate the genre.
In the opening scene, Leone parodies High Noon, but he also goes beyond parody into myth and imagination.
Series lynchpin Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) isn't even the central figure; that would be Sir Charles Litton (David Niven), a playboy plotting to steal the coveted Pink Panther diamond by ingratiating himself with its owner, Dala ( Once Upon a Time in the West 's Claudia Cardinale), a pampered princess decompressing at a ski chalet in Cortina.
Series lynchpin Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) isn't even the central figure; that would be Sir Charles Litton (David Niven), a playboy plotting to steal the coveted Pink Panther diamond by ingratiating himself with its owner, Dala ( Once Upon a Time in the West 's Claudia Cardinale), a disenfranchised princess decompressing at a ski chalet in Cortina.
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After completing the �Man With No Name� trilogy ("The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," "For a Few Dollars More," "A Fistful of Dollars"), Leone embarked on the definitive Western, a grand summation of the themes and ideas (visual and narrative) that drove an Italian filmmaker to write and direct films in an American-focused genre.
After Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone's success with the Spaghetti Westerns "A Fistful of Dollars," "For a Few Dollars More," and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," he wanted to do a few big-budget films in the United States, but not necessarily another Western.
He didn’t want to make another western, having just finished his Dollars trilogy with Clint Eastwood--A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)--but U.S. financiers would only give him money if he made another one, so he took their offer and made one of the greatest westerns ever.
Leone's first two "spaghetti Westerns" ("A Fistful of Dollars," " For a Few Dollars More ") were made with small budgets.
Through his Dollars trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars; For a Few Dollars More; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), he remade the Old West as a gritty, primal and instinctive world filled with anti-heroes, edgy characters and cold-hearted villains, free from the clean-cut moralism that pervaded its American predecessors.
Through his Dollars trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars; For a Few Dollars More; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), he remade the Old West as a gritty, primal and instinctive world filled with anti-heroes, edgy characters and cold-hearted villains, free from the clean-cut moralism that pervaded its American predecessors.
Leone's first two "spaghetti Westerns" ("A Fistful of Dollars," " For a Few Dollars More ") were made with small budgets.
"For a Few Dollars More" and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" made Leone a fortune, Clint Eastwood a first-class movie star, and created what was, in effect, a new movie genre.
Harmonica survives, but only after he is given a backstory at the end of the film and thus reabsorbed, as it were, into the film's more grounded reality, much as Lee Van Cleef's character in For a Few Dollars More , with his own grounded backstory, is the only "real" character in that film.
After Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone's success with the Spaghetti Westerns "A Fistful of Dollars," "For a Few Dollars More," and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," he wanted to do a few big-budget films in the United States, but not necessarily another Western.