Once Upon a Time in the West | 
| Director: Sergio Leone
Actors: Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Gabriele Ferzetti
Studio: Paramount
Category: DVD
List Price: $9.98
Buy Used: $2.89
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Rating:  356 reviews
Sales Rank: 1076
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dvd, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 2
Running Time: 175 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 1
MPN: PARD068304D
ISBN: 0792172728
UPC: 097360683042
EAN: 9780792172727
ASIN: B0000AUHPG
Theatrical Release Date: 1968
Release Date: November 18, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti), the power-hungry owner of a railroad company, hires Frank (Henry Fonda, playing against type), a gunfighter without a conscience, to kill anyone who stands in the way of the completion of the railroad. After Frank murders land owner Brett McBain (Frank Wolff), McBain's widow (Claudia Cardinale) hires two killers of her own to protect her and gain revenge: a mysterious, harmonica-playing desperado (Charles Bronson) and his rogue sidekick (Jason Robards). Using techniques previously unseen in the genre, Sergio Leone utilizes close-ups, color, and Ennio Morricone's trademark score to create a tense and somber meditation on death which is widely considered to be one of the best westerns in cinematic history. Soon-to-be legendary Italian directors Dario Argento (SUSPIRIA) and Bernardo Bertolucci (THE LAST EMPEROR) collaborated with Leone on the screenplay.
Amazon.com essential video
The so-called spaghetti Western achieved its apotheosis in Sergio 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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| Customer Reviews: Read 351 more reviews...
 You brought two too many June 21, 2009
Utah Blaine (Somewhere on Trexalon in District 268)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Once Upon a Time in the West is a great western film, it just isn't the all time masterpiece that some claim it is in my view. A widow, two bandits, and a mysterious loner battle in a small western town for love, power, and money. This story is considerably more complex than most Westerns, and it takes awhile for the story to develop and the layers to be revealed. As the film opens, the widows family is gunned down by one of the bandits, and he tries to make it look like the other did it. The themes are pretty common, love, money, and power, but the story is complex and compelling.
The strength of this film is the casting and the acting of the four primary actors in this film. This has to be one of Henry Fonda's greatest roles. He is so sinister and evil in this film, he just feels like a bad guy. A real cold hearted [...]! Charles Bronson plays the quiet loner (the Clint Eastwood like role in the earlier Man with No Name films) to a T (he reminded me of Chato - a character from a film CB was to make a few years later), and Jason Robards the rough but basically good hearted bandit. Finally, Claudia Cardinale is more than window dressing in the role of the tough minded widow. She was, in my opinion, able to display a range of emotions to convincingly carry her role. Second, the sets are so well made, there is a real gritty feel to the whole film, you really feel transported to the old west. There is so much attention to detail in the sets, in the costumes, in the characters. Even the back of the neck of Jason Robards was unshaven to give him a real scruffy, live-in-the-wild look. Charles Bronson also has a GREAT line in the opening of the film. He gets off a train and three bad guys (including Jack Elam and Woody Strode) are waiting to gun him down. Bronson asks if they brought a horse for him and Jack Elam replies that they don't have an extra horse. Bronson then quips that in fact the brought two too many horses. The title of my review is Bronson's quip.
The problem with this films are significant. First, the film is too long and the plot too slow. I'm not at all against long films when the time is well spent (compare this film with Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev in which every minute of the film is important for creating the overall impact), but this film could have been significantly edited for content. The film takes a long time to get to the point, and when it finally does we learn that this is a pretty simple revenge story. The big gunfight at the end is somewhat anti-climactic. Additionally, there are some bizarre jumps in time and space in the film. The transitions between scenes could have been done better. For example, in one scene Claudia Cardinale is Frank's prisoner, then she is suddenly selling her land at an auction. Not quite sure what happened in between. Finally, I found the music to be a bit annoying. The idea of using the sounds of water dropping, etc. at the beginning of the film rather than an opening score was brilliant, but the rest of the music was rather timorous in my view and became annoying after nearly 3+ hours. Finally, some of the spaghetti western cinematographic tricks (like close ups of eyes as they shift back and forth to express emotion) seem, in this film, a bit worn.
Bottom line is that this is an outstanding film, but I think that Leone's earlier films with Clint Eastwood (particularly the last two in the No Name series) were better. There are easily a dozen other Westerns better than this one as well. A great, if far from perfect, film and worth watching many times. Still rates 5 stars.
The daddy of all Westerns June 15, 2009
Bt (Parts unknown)
Definitely the best all-time western ever produced. Naturally it would be made by a European. Sergi Leone blows his excellent "Trilogy" series out of the water with a movie so broad in scope that to watch it a couple of times is the only way to appreciate what you have here. I'll say like John Carpenter after watching this for the first time, "What is this?"
 ...an air of authenticity ! April 10, 2009
J. Bevan (Mansfield, TX USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Just a couple of notes: I did not see this film in 1968 (though I could have). I saw it recently. A couple of things made me smile: the scenes in Monument Valley which made it the only Leone Western that was filmed (if only in part) in the West. AND, unlike John Ford who almost owned Monument Valley in films, Leone actually made the locale of his film Arizona. Monument Valley is partially in Utah and partially in Arizona. John Ford always wanted us to believe it was in Texas (over and over again). Having lived in Texas for 9 years, I have found the state to be topographically challenged. There is nothing as awesome as Monument Valley or 5 other National Parks in Southern Utah.
And.... something European directors of Westerns never seemed to get right: there's no sagebrush in their European settings !
As to the movie -- very interesting. The cinematography and pace keep it out of the normal Action & Adventure category. There's practically no dialogue for the first 10 minutes. But the camera shots are infinitely interesting. I liked the whole thing much better than I thought I would and wish I had seen it in the movie palaces of the '60's -- on a really big screen.
One Needs Patience To Appreciate This Film March 31, 2009
Craig Connell (Lockport, NY USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This was a unique western, one in which sometimes the action moves excruciatingly slow, which can either be fascinating or boring. Take your pick. I've watched this film several times over the years and found it both. It's odd in that regard but I believe patience wins out here and is rewarded.
The movie is filled with gaps of silence while closeups of the main characters' faces are shown. That's director Sergio Leone's trademark, and I believe he does it more in this film than in any of his others. When you get closeups of chiseled faces like Henry Fonda's or Charles Bronson's, it quite interesting but most of the movie feels like slow motion. At 165 minutes, this movie takes a lot of patience.
At any rate, the action scenes are a decent and not bloody and the characters are quite real, meaning believable. I liked Fonda in here the most with his against-type villain role of "Frank," which was excellent. I read where he said this was his favorite role. I'm glad to hear that. The best character in the film, though, was "Cheyenne," played by Jason Robards.
The opening credits - spaced out over 11 minutes (which was rare in "classic movie" days) - are considered by many as the most famous ever, in any genre. The music in this film is different, too. It's not as memorable as the score from "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly," however, done by the same composer, but it has its moments. Early in the film we see some shots of Monument Valley which are the prettiest I've ever seen. I wish there had been more of that.
started it all for me! March 19, 2009
G.W. Brown (Jackson, MS)
First I heard the soundtrack, then I saw the film. It is all quite breathtaking. The special features are fantastic. Who knew they edited the film to the soundtrack? Not surprising, I was obsessed with it before I even saw the film. Now I am addicted to westerns.
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