Customer Reviews

Once Upon a Time in the West

5 star:		(160)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

If you have never been scared of Henry Fonda, this is the movie that will do it for you. The scene in the beginning, right after the whole family is killed is so eerie as the gunmen just appear silently from the brush. Henry Fonda's cold, killer eyes staring down the little child before he shoots him. Wow.

This is a very well made film, nothing like is has been made in years. Every scene takes its time to build up the right mood. This is a movie to watch when you have alot of time and nobody is around to bother you. The DVD transfer is nothing short of amazing, the color and quality of this 35 year old film will leave you speechless.

Claudia Cardinale is an absolutely stunning beauty, Charles Bronson is perfect as the vengeful quiet loner. I didnt expect Jason Robards to work well but he is very effective.

Definitly a movie to buy, not just rent. Something to give to someone who really appreciates epic movies the way they used to make them.

Ordered this movie because I heard the restored blu-ray was good. Took about 10 days to ship to Newfoundland, and when it arrived the packaging was perfect!! Not a scratch on the disc, and the case was in perfect condition! Movie was good, not as good as The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly though. Restoration on this film was superb. Great order!

Marvelous, Simply Marvelous. Watching Henry Fonda in this movie blew me away when I saw it years ago. I realized then what a great actor can do with a role that go against any type casting from previous film roles. Viewing it again in the DVD format is stunning. Sergio Leone is in my Hall of Fame as a movie director.
You can easily see Sergio Leone influence in all of Clint Eastwood work. This is a must see movie for all us old cowboy movie fans.

My title is a cliche but in this case it's the only phrase to use. The version of this movie available now, with its extra disc full of great bonus material, is an example of how to bring DVD format to its highest potential. First of course there's the movie, and its director Sergio Leone. Every Leone movie I've seen--Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good Bad and Ugly, Once Upon a Time in America--is wonderful, but this tops them all. Imagine the year 1969: what a great time to be a western film lover. You had this, and Sam Peckinpah's Wild Bunch in the same year. Incredible. Anyway, it's impossible to list all the great scenes, so I'll stick with the first. If you love the credit sequence you'll love the movie; it's not for everybody, however. So those credits, mostly silent except for a windmill creaking, which Leone somehow makes sinister, and one of the minimal details he uses to establish authentic mood, are the litmus test. You'll either love the movie or hate it. The scene is built on a genius contradiction: it's so tense that you want it to end, but it's so beautifully done, so built on image and gesture and glance, that you also hope it never ends. The whole movie is that delicious. And the cast--wow. Everyone is at top form, but check out Henry Fonda as the leanest meanest bastard imaginable, but also someone you can't avoid enjoying because it is the GREAT Mr. Fonda, with Leone getting maximum mileage out of close ups of Fonda's ice-blue eyes, as unforgiving as a western sky, generally acting like the amiable stalwart figure he always plays, until he shoots little kids and fat lackeys whom he doesn't trust because they wear both suspenders and belts: and as Fonda says, how can you trust a man who can't even trust his own pants? As the heroine, Claudia Cardinale isn't just gorgeous she's luscious, lust-us. And tough. Watch for the scene where she looks at herself in the mirror when she's all alone in her house. whose previous residents, her family, have been killed by Fonda and his thugs. Charles Bronson--what an underrated actor. Dangerous yet entirely sympathetic here. He finds wit in his role, knows exactly what the unique Leone's up to and gets in sync with the vision. Jason Robards is incapable of giving a performance less than brilliant, and this is another highlight in the film. As Cheyenne he is funny and tough and smart, maybe the most complex performance in the movie. There's so much more, too--the finest Ennio Morricone soundtrack, killer dialogue, extraordinary cinematography. This DVD is put together so well it's even a pleasure to look at the menus--you'll see what I mean. And all this for under FIFTEEN U.S. DOLLARS. What are you waiting for?

Leone went to America and started his second trilogy with this Western. Then came A fithful of dynamite and finally Once upon a time in America. The title for the second movie in France was Once upon a time the Revolution. This second trilogy had this in common, titles started with the same words. Leone was once again majestious choosing the right characters, Fonda for an unusual role in a depictable character and Bronson as the guy who doesn't talk much, like Eastwood in previous movies. The music accompanies the image in a beautiful way like when Cardinale arrived at the train station and the camera goes up to reveal the entire city with the music taking off with the choirs. The dust, the shootings, the rocks of Monument vallee, everything reminds of the wild west. The first scene is perfect with these 3 men with their own story, the fly, the water drop etc...Leone wanted Eastwood, Wallach and Van Cleef to play these 3 guys. It would be have a nice cameo after the Good the bad and the ugly. Eastwood didn't want to be remember in Leone's movie as a guy who gets killed. This shows how much characters are important, how much actors got involved in these movies. Bronson plays perfectly the guy who remembers how his brother was killed. Almost all violent scenes are not shown, just suggested, like the massacre, we only see dead bodies. This movies was made like a Greek drama, very slowly, without a lot of dialogues, and in a very theatratical and solennal way. This is a must see for western lovers.

Once upon a time in the west; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; The Wild Bunch have no equals in the annals of wild west cinematography. If you don't have these 3 in your library you don't know what you're missing.

Leone aimait bien jouer avec les codes cinématographiques et ce film en est la brillante démonstration. Le film vieilli très bien et est agréable à visionner sur cette bonne copie blu-ray.

Leave all preconceived notions about Spaghetti Westerns at the door when you pop this one in, as this is Leone's most artistic work, even more so than Once Upon a Time in America. I wasn't crazy about this movie the first time I watched it and I was disappointed that it was such a departure from the Dollars Trilogy. However, I had purchased the film so I watched it again a few nights later and had a much different experience. On second viewing, I was able to relax and not strain to follow the plot (which is a little daunting on first viewing) and simply enjoy the masterful direction and music. This isn't a movie I'd reccommend to any of my friends for fear of receiving a lashing the next time I saw them, but if you're interested then by all means watch this movie, preferably twice.

Italian western classic ... what s more to say ? Compared to today s story pacing, these movies are very slow moving, but that is why I love them so much...they take their sweet time. You get to really know the characters and you feel more for them when things happen to them. Sergio Leone + Ennio Morricone = cinematic art.

This review is done from a psychological/mythological perspective and highlights symbolic material in the tradition of Jungian research into the collective unconscious.

The opening shot of the film shows a rickety shambles of a door which slowly creaks open. An elderly man turns to look at the door and sees a tall, lean, hollow-faced gunman--the gun and bullets are framed first in the shot and as the camera pans up to the gunman's face a ghostly rush of wind is heard. The elderly man turns to look and sees two other men framed in the other two doors. This opening moment sets the symbolic tone for the film, which is about the moment when someone transcends their normal life and becomes someone exceptional. In this film the exceptional usually means an exceptional killer.

The multiple doorways in this opening scene foreshadow the unholy gateway pictured toward the end of the film, where we learn the story behind the creation of the deadly character, Harmonica, played by Charles Bronson. This gateway to horror is like a demonic mandala with a suffering, agonized man and child in the middle, two ominous guards standing at the sides and the Monument Valley in the background.

Once a man has gone through that gateway of sublime disregard for human life and feeling, he becomes the gunslinger as visualized by Sergio Leone--a ghost of a man with eyes of ice and no human feeling. Satisfaction for this man is in death and brutality; moments of ecstasy are emphasized in the mysterious soundtrack which swells to a crescendo of fulfillment and joy at the moment of confrontation with death. Of particular note is Henry Fonda's performance. He plays an evil man with eerie sensitivity and achieves expressions of sadistic intimacy at the moment of supreme cruelty.

The final shot of the film closes the cycle; a woman dispensing water to numerous men of all races who are building a new town. The giving of water by the female symbolizes restoration of the soul and the busy working men show renewed productive activity in the psyche as opposed to the stagnation and chilled repetition of violence in the beginning of the film.

This film is one of the controversial yet classic westerns created by the master Sergio Leone. The pace is quite slow; Leone loves to show the long stare. The sets are beautiful and authentic. The acting is excellent if slightly marred by the somewhat off lip-synch--it was originally filmed in parts in Italian. The screenplay is typical Leone with psychological twists such as child abuse and oppression of women as crucial to character development.

There is some of the signature 60's look to the film such as orange tans for the men, thick false eyelashes and mascara for the ladies. But despite these miniscule stylistic distractions, this is one of the great Western movies, to be watched and savored.