Once Upon a Time in the West
Short description
Jill, a young widow, arrives in the town of Flagstone with plans to build a new life, while railroad construction pushes across the Arizona desert toward the sea. Her farm stands in the path of the railway, and the businessman behind the project, Morton, wants the land. He brings in Frank, a gunman, to remove her. Against them stand Cheyenne, an outlaw, and a mysterious drifter known as Harmonica, whose interest in Frank runs deeper than the land dispute. The film's central conflict sets the three men on a collision course over the widow and the railroad's advance.
Sergio Leone directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Sergio Donati. It was his fifth feature, following The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and preceding Duck, You Sucker. Claudia Cardinale plays Jill, with Henry Fonda as Frank, Jason Robards as Cheyenne and Charles Bronson as Harmonica. Gabriele Ferzetti and Paolo Stoppa appear as Morton and Sam. The production, made in Italy and the United States, cost about 5 million dollars and took in roughly the same amount worldwide at the time.
On IMDb the film holds 8.5 out of 10 from 383,000 votes, and on TMDB 8.3 out of 10 from 5,057 votes. A film critics' rating stands at 9.2 out of 10 from 67 reviews, above both audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Jill McBain's house served as a set for Orson Welles’ film "The Chimes" (1965) shortly before this.
- John Landis, a future famous director, was one of the stuntmen on the film.
- Actor Al Mullock, who played in the opening shootout scene, jumped out of his hotel window the same day, still wearing the same costume. He died on the way to the hospital.
- The Native American woman who fled the station at the beginning of the film was played by Hawaiian princess Luana Kalaeloa. She was the wife of actor Woody Strode.
- The idea was for Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach (stars of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1966)) to play the three bandits waiting for Harmonica at the station at the beginning of the film. However, when it became clear that Eastwood would not be filming, the idea had to be abandoned.
- Henry Fonda initially refused to star in the film. Sergio Leone personally went to America to persuade him. Fonda asked: “Why do you want to film me?” Leone replied: “Imagine: the camera slowly pans up the figure of a bandit, from the bottom up, to his gun, which he draws and shoots at a running child. Then the camera rises to the bandit’s face… and it’s Henry Fonda.”
- Claudio Mancini, the film's production manager, plays the unlucky brother Harmonica.
- Henry Fonda specifically ordered a pair of brown contact lenses for the role. Leone made him take them off – he needed the piercing gaze of Fonda’s blue eyes.
- Jason Robards (Cheyenne) got drunk on the very first day of filming. Leone threatened to fire him, and Robards did not repeat this behavior. However, when Robert F. Kennedy was killed in June 1968, Robards got drunk again. Leone understood the situation and even halted filming for a day.
- This is the last film by Sergio Leone to feature opening credits lasting more than ten minutes.
- Bernardo Bertolucci, co-author of the screenplay, claimed that the idea of introducing a woman into the story was his. Leone initially hesitated, but then, when he agreed, he had the idea to show Jill McBain from an angle that would immediately reveal she wasn't wearing underwear. He later abandoned this idea, and Claudia Cardinale said that if she had known about Leone’s whim at the time, she wouldn't have agreed to star in the film.
- After the "dollar" trilogy, Leone no longer wanted to make Westerns. He had been considering the project "Once Upon a Time in America" as early as the 1960s. However, American producers refused to finance the project until he made another Western for them.
- The characters of Claudia Cardinale and Paolo Stoppa made the longest stagecoach journey in the history of cinema. It began in Spain and continued through Monument Valley in the USA.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
