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.
12 connections found
View:
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.
Advertisement
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.
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.
In the opening scene, Leone parodies High Noon, but he also goes beyond parody into myth and imagination.
Advertisement
Only Sam Peckinpah ("The Wild Bunch," "Major Dundee," "Ride the High Country") did as much to rejuvenate the genre.
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.