ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST
Originally:- C'era una volta il West
DIRECTED BY SERGIO LEONE
PRODUCED BY BINO CICOGNA and FULVIO MORSELL
PARAMOUNT PICTURES
Photo with the courtesy of Gorch
Information From IMDb
Plot Summary
Story of a young woman, Mrs. McBain, who moves from New Orleans to frontier Utah, on the very edge of the American West. She arrives to find her new husband and family slaughtered, but by who? The prime suspect, coffee-lover Cheyenne, befriends her and offers to go after the real killer, assassin gang leader Frank, in her honor. He is accompanied by Harmonica on his quest to get even. Get-rich-quick subplots and intricate character histories intertwine with such artistic flair that this could in fact be the movie-to-end-all-movies.
Written by DrGoodBeat
Cast
Henry Fonda ... Frank
Claudia Cardinale ... Jill McBain
Jason Robards ... Cheyenne
Charles Bronson ... Harmonica
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
Lionel Stander ... Barman
And many others, including some of Leone's family
Writing credits
Dario Argento (story) &
Bernardo Bertolucci (story) &
Sergio Leone (story)
Sergio Leone (screenplay) &
Sergio Donati (screenplay)
Mickey Knox (dialogue: English version)
Original Music
Ennio Morricone
Filming locations
Arizona, USA
Cinecittà Studios, Cinecittà, Rome, Lazio, Italy
(studio)
La Calahorra, Granada, Andalucía, Spain
Moab, Utah, USA
Monument Valley, Arizona, USA (exteriors)
Tabernas, Almería, Andalucía, Spain
Utah, USA
Trivia
* Al Mulock, who played one of the three gunmen in the opening sequence, committed suicide by jumping from his hotel window in full costume after a day's shooting. Production manager Claudio Mancini and screenwriter Mickey Knox, who were sitting in a room in the hotel, witnessed Mulock's body pass by their window. Knox recalled in an interview that while Mancini put Mulock in his car to drive him to the hospital, director Sergio Leone said to Mancini, "Get the costume! We need the costume!" Mulock, who had appeared as the one-armed bounty hunter in Leone's "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly", was wearing the costume he wore in the movie when he made his fatal leap.
* Body count: 29
* Henry Fonda originally turned down a role in the picture. Director Sergio Leone flew to the United States and met with Fonda, who asked why he was wanted for the movie. Sergio replied, "Picture this: the camera shows a gunman from the waist down pulling his gun and shooting a running child. The camera pans up to the gunman's face and... it's Henry Fonda." (Until then, and with one exception, Fonda had only been cast in "good guy" roles. Leone wanted the audience to be shocked.)
* After completing the Dollars trilogy (Per un pugno di dollari (1964), Per qualche dollaro in più (1965), and Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966)), Sergio Leone didn't want to do another western and began working on Once Upon a Time in America (1984). However, after the huge success of the Dollars Trilogy in the States in 1967 Leone wanted to produce films in the United States and he began selling the idea for Once Upon a Time in America, but studios wouldn't let him do it until he made another Western for them. After thinking about it, Leone concluded that he should do another trilogy which begins with C'era una volta il West (1968), develops into Giù la testa (1971), and ends with Once Upon a Time in America (1984). "Three historical periods which toughened America."
* The Flagstone set reportedly cost as much as the entire budget for Leone's Per un pugno di dollari (1964).
* The main selling point to producers for the use of the Techniscope process was the savings in camera negative. But, another advantage was being able derive the 2.35:1 aspect ratio while shooting with spherical lenses which avoided the distortion created by anamorphics during certain camera moves and extreme close-ups (such as those used by Sergio Leone). This film, together with Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966) (also directed by Leone and shot by Tonino Delli Colli) are now considered masterpieces in the use of the Techniscope system.
* Director Trademark: [Sergio Leone] Music is by Ennio Morricone.
* Co-writer Bernardo Bertolucci says on the film's DVD that when he first suggested to director Sergio Leone that the film's central character be a woman, Leone was hesitant. Leone first budged on this subject by suggesting the introductory shot of Jill would be from below the train platform so the camera could see under Jill's dress and show she wasn't wearing any undergarments. Claudia Cardinale says she was never told this idea and says she probably wouldn't have agreed to be in the movie if it required this shot (suggesting that Leone, mercifully, gave up on the idea in the writing process).
* Director Trademark: [Sergio Leone] [close-up] in most gun-fight scenes.
* Leone originally intended to reunite the three stars of Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966) (Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach) in cameo roles as the three gunmen waiting for Harmonica at the start of the film, but when Eastwood was unavailable the idea was scrapped.
* The sheriff was originally to be portrayed by Robert Ryan.
* For this film Claudia Cardinale and Paolo Stoppa take the longest buggy ride in movie history. It begins in Spain and goes through Monument Valley.
* The Indian woman who flees from the train station in the opening sequence was actually played by an Hawaiian princess, Luukialuana (Luana) Kalaeloa (aka Luana Strode. She was the wife of actor Woody Strode.
* The McBain house was built of solid logs that remained following production of the Orson Welles' movie Campanadas a medianoche (1965)
* Harmonica's unfortunate brother is played by the production manager Claudio Mancini.
* French actor Robert Hossein, who was a good friend of Leone's, was originally to play Morton, but due to scheduling he was unable to take the part, and Gabriele Ferzetti was cast instead.
* John Landis was one of the stunt men on this film.
* The first draft of the script was 436 pages long.
* The credits, concluding with Director Sergio Leone, last over ten minutes into the start of the film.
* Director Trademark: [Sergio Leone] [theme] Harmonica, Frank, and Cheyenne.
* When Henry Fonda was trying to decide whether to be in this film, he asked his friend Eli Wallach, who had just made Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966) with Sergio Leone, if he should take the part of Frank. Wallach said that he had to do it and told Fonda, "You will have the time of your life."
* Henry Fonda prepared for his role as the villain "Frank" by arriving in Italy with a pair of brown colored contact lenses. When Sergio Leone saw them, he ordered them removed. Leone had planned an important close-up shot of Fonda and wanted those blue eyes.
* Ennio Morricone composed the musical score to the original screenplay by Sergio Leone and Bernardo Bertolucci. The plot was subsequently changed, and in many places, Leone directed the film to the existing musical score.
* The original intent for the opening scene was to use music already composed by composer Ennio Morricone. However, the attempted blend didn't seem to fit well. The decision was made to drop Morricone's score from the opening train station sequence and record the ambient sounds relating to the scenes (including the squeaking windmill and individual footsteps) after Morricone experienced a musical performance created by using only the sounds of a metal ladder. This created an exaggerated version of what had come to be known as "spaghetti sound".
* For the opening sequence where the three dusters waited for the train, filmmakers lightly coated the face of Jack Elam with jam and began filming close-ups while letting a fly out of a jar filled with flies, attempting to get Elam's reaction as one would light on his cheek.
* Sergio Leone made hundreds of references to films that influenced him. Some were quite obvious (like three men waiting for the train as in High Noon (1952)) and some were very subtle (like the choice of Woody Strode's sawed-off Winchester rifle, similar to the weapon Steve McQueen carried in the TV series "Wanted: Dead or Alive" (1958). McQueen referred to this unique weapon as a "Mare's Leg".
* The final duel between Frank and Harmonica is shot almost exactly like the one in Robert Aldrich's The Last Sunset (1961) between Rock Hudson and Kirk Douglas, a film that Bernardo Bertolucci was a huge fan of.
* Although Lionel Stander's establishment is located in Monument Valley, the interiors were actually shot at Cinecitta. Cheyenne's men enter with a cloud of red dust. The red dust was actually dust imported from the Monument Valley location.
* This marked the first of the last three films to be fully directed by Sergio Leone. All three of his last films would be edited for U.S. distribution resulting in box office failure in the U.S. although the uncut international versions would be successful in other countries.
* The character name of "Brett McBain" was derived from two famous U.S. mystery writers, Brett Halliday and Ed McBain (Evan Hunter).
* Jason Robards showed up at the set completely drunk on the first day of filming, and Leone threatened to fire him if he ever did that again. Robards was generally well-behaved thereafter, though in June 1968, after receiving word of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Robards broke down and refused to perform until the day was over, and Leone decided to stop filming for the day.
Goofs
* Continuity: During The Man's flashback which explains how he came to possess the harmonica, the harmonica changes from undamaged to damaged and back.
* Continuity: When "Harmonica" shoots Franks, Cheyenne cuts his right cheek just below his eye with a razor because he jumps to the sound of the gunfire. The next time we see his face, there is no cut or bleeding.
* Continuity: The shadows change direction between cuts throughout the gunfight scene between Frank and Harmonica.
* Factual errors: Spanish railways have a broader gauge (1,674 mm) than the American railways, which are mostly built in standard gauge (1,435 mm). In some scenes of the film it can be clearly seen, that the "Morton Railroad" has been erected in the broad Spanish gauge. Also, European locomotives are outside-frame designs, while US locomotives are generally inside-frame.
* Continuity: In the opening scene, the black man is drinking water from his hat. Later, when the three shooters are standing across from Harmonica, his hat is covered with dust.
* Anachronisms: While preparing for the wedding feast, Brett's daughter sings a few lines of "Danny Boy". The words to this song were written in 1910.
* Continuity: During the duel between Frank and Harmonica, Cheyenne shaves his beard (mostly his sideburns); however, his large whiskers under his ears have grown back before he dies (ten minutes later).
* Continuity: During Harmonica's confrontation with Frank towards the end of the movie, his hair appears to have grown significantly from earlier in the film. However, when he enters the house to talk to Jill, his hair is short again.
* Revealing mistakes: When Cheyenne shoots the man who's guarding Harmonica through the train window, there is no blood on the chair the man was sitting in, despite the fact that he was shot at pointblank range.
* Continuity: Claudia's baggage is picked up by two men as she gets off the train and is deposited in front of her/them as they are seated on the station bench. In the next scene, we see them picking up the baggage again from alongside the train.
* Revealing mistakes: During Harmonica's flashback, you can see quite clearly two ropes around his brother. While one is on his neck, the other goes through his shirt.
* Anachronisms: When Harmonica climbs down the ladder, only to meet Frank at the other end of a '45, we clearly see that the ladder is electro-welded to the wagon and the steps are also electro-welded to the legs of the ladder. A rather lousy welding job, by the way! The movie takes place around 1870. Electro-welding started during the '90s, but the method got practicable only in the 1920s - and began to be commonly used in the late 1930s when the great navies (except for the Royal Navy) started to use the method for their first-line ships. The great leap forward came during WW2, when Liberty ships and many other vessels was electro-welded.
* Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Bronson tells Cheyenne during their first encounter, "In the dusters were three men. In the men were three bullets." However, Woody Strode was not wearing a duster when he and the others faced off against Bronson.
Prvious discussion:-
Once Upon A Time In The West
