The Film Ferret: Once Upon a Time in the West (1969)

Morton: Not bad. Congratulations. Tell me, was it necessary that you kill all of them? I only told you to scare them.

Frank: People scare better when they're dying.

When it comes to Westerns the first person that most probably comes to mind is either John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, and no I’m not referring to the Michael J. Fox’s version of Eastwood in Back to the Future III! Again if someone was to mention Director’s in the Western genre it would likely come down to John Ford or Sergio Leone. These four names go virtually hand in hand with this genre and have produced a string of hits. This time however the only name in the list that is associated with this film is Sergio Leone who had a huge hit on his hands with Clint Eastwood in the Dollar Trilogy, A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and the most famous of them all The Good The Bad and The Ugly. Once Upon a Time in the West is the start of what would end up being another trilogy with the remaining two being Duck, You Sucker (aka A Fistful of Dynamite) and Once Upon a Time in America which is not a Western but more of a 20’s gangster movie.

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In this film we have a wonderful cast being Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Jason Richards and the beautiful Claudia Cardinale. Having a female as one of the main characters was a first for Sergio but it certainly paid off cause the four get on perfectly and complement each other. For those who have seen these characters in other movies, I don’t want to spoil the surprise of who is who except to say that this is generally a story of revenge, land and life. Jill (Claudia Cardinale) comes out to the West by train to meet her husband but finds out that everything has suddenly taken a turn for the worst. At a similar time, one of the male characters (sorry…no spoilers!) also arrives on a train but meets up with some nasty characters who don’t really like him, another escapes from custody and tries to cause a bit of trouble and finally the third character is working for the boss of the railway who wants land to continue laying the tracks. Naturally the paths of these four cross several times and unfold a fantastic story of the West. This would truly be in the top 10 best Westerns of all time.

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The music score is done by Ennio Morricone who has done a range of fantastic hits like the The Good the Bad and the Ugly, The Battle of the Algiers (a fantastic war movie), the superb Two Mules for Sister Sara, The Untouchables and more recently The Hateful Eight. I cannot rave more about the soundtrack, it’s just absolutely brilliant and it really suits the style of film and it’s setting.

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Perhaps I haven’t said enough about this film and to be honest I’m one of those people who really dislikes ruining the story for others so my description is usually kept to a minimum, but this is one that should be on your “Must See” list.

The Bluray used for this review is available locally and can be bought for less than $15 and is well worth the purchase. The image quality is fantastic for a 60’s film and the only lack of sharpness that I can see is due to the original film elements (focusing is off etc), the sound is presented in DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 which is also fantastic with clear dialogue. The following extras are also included on the single disc: