DVD 159 min. IMDB 8.8

In verzameling
#246

Western

Henry Fonda	Frank
Charles Bronson	Harmonica
Jason Robards	Cheyenne
Claudia Cardinale	Jill McBain
Gabriele Ferzetti	Morton (railroad baron)
Paolo Stoppa	Sam
Woody Strode	Stony (member of Frank's gang)
Jack Elam	Snaky (member of Frank's gang)
Keenan Wynn	Sheriff (auctioneer)
Frank Wolff	Brett McBain

Regisseur	Sergio Leone
Producent	Fulvio Morsella
Schrijver	Dario Argento; Bernardo Bertolucci

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