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Once Upon a Time in the West Overview:

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) was a Western - Epic Film directed by Sergio Leone and produced by Bino Cicogna and Fulvio Morsella.

Once Upon a Time in the West was inducted into the National Film Registry in 2009.

Once Upon a Time in the West BlogHub Articles:

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) – Updated

By 4 Star Film Fan on Oct 1, 2015 From 4 Star Films

I’m not well versed in Spaghetti Westerns, but I certainly do not need someone to tell me that Sergio Leone’s film is a sprawling epic. That’s an understatement if there every was one. The cast, the score, the visuals. Everything about it fits together so marvelously. All the movin... Read full article

Review: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Oct 1, 2015 From 4 Star Films

I’m not well versed in Spaghetti Westerns, but I certainly do not need someone to tell me that Sergio Leone’s film is a sprawling epic. That’s an understatement if there every was one. The cast, the score, the visuals. Everything about it fits together so marvelously. All the movin... Read full article

Review: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Oct 1, 2015 From 4 Star Films

I’m not well versed in Spaghetti Westerns, but I certainly do not need someone to tell me that Sergio Leone’s film is a sprawling epic. That’s an understatement if there ever was one. The cast, the score, the visuals. Everything about it fits together so marvelously. All the moving... Read full article

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Aug 25, 2014 From 4 Star Films

Starring Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, and Jason Robards with director Sergio Leone, this is another memorable Italian western. The film follows a recently widowed beauty (Cardinale), the villainous killer who is after her (Fonda), a anti-hero bandit (Robards), and of course the m... Read full article

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Aug 25, 2014 From 4 Star Films

Starring Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, and Jason Robards with director Sergio Leone, this is another memorable Italian western. The film follows a recently widowed beauty (Cardinale), the villainous killer who is after her (Fonda), a anti-hero bandit (Robards), and of course the m... Read full article

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Once Upon a Time in the West Quotes:

Cheyenne: What the hell is this?
Harmonica: [off screen] Can't you see?
[emerges from behind a pile of wood]
Harmonica: It's a station. And all around it a town. Brett McBain's town.
Cheyenne: [starts to laugh] Was he crazy, heh!
Harmonica: Yeah in a very special way. An Irishman.
[starts measuring out a square and hammers wood spikes into the ground]
Harmonica: He knew someday or another that railroad through Flagstone would continue on west. So he looked over all this county here. Until he found this hunk of desert. Nobody wanted it! But he bought it.
[continues with work]
Harmonica: Then he tightened his belt, and for years he waited.
Cheyenne: Waited for what?
Harmonica: For the railroad to reach this point.
Cheyenne: Ah, but how in the hell did he know the railroad would pass through his property?
Harmonica: Them steam engines can't roll without water. And the only water within fifty miles west of Flagstone is right here. Under this land!
Cheyenne: Ah ha, he was no fool, our dead friend, ah?
[chuckles]
Cheyenne: He was gonna sell this piece of desert for his weight in gold, wasn't he?
Harmonica: [looks at Cheyenne] You don't sell the dream of a lifetime! Brett McBain wanted his station: he got the rights to build it.
Cheyenne: How do you know all this?
Harmonica: I saw a document. It was all in order, seals, signatures, everything! One thing though, in very small print, there is a short clause. Which says that McBain or his heirs lose all rights, if by the time the railroad reaches this point...
[turns to Cheyenne again]
Harmonica: ...the station ain't built yet.
Harmonica: The reward for this man is 5000 dollars, is that right?
Cheyenne: Judas was content for 4970 dollars less.
Harmonica: There were no dollars in them days.
Cheyenne: But sons of bitches... yeah.
Cheyenne: Make believe it's nothing.
Frank: You've made a big mistake, Morton. When you're not on that train, you look like a turtle out of its shell. Just funny. Poor cripple talking big so nobody'll know how scared you are.
Cheyenne: [to Jill] You know what? If I was you, I'd go down there and give those boys a drink. Can't imagine how happy it makes a man to see a woman like you. Just to look at her. And if one of them should pat your behind, just make believe it's nothing. They earned it.
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Once Upon a Time in the West Facts
The sheriff was originally to be portrayed by Robert Ryan.
The final duel between Frank and Harmonica is shot almost exactly like the one in Robert Aldrich's The Last Sunset between Rock Hudson and Kirk Douglas, a film that Bernardo Bertolucci was a huge fan of.
Sergio Leone:  [close-up]  in most gun-fight scenes.
The Indian woman who flees from the train station in the opening sequence was actually played by a Hawaiian princess, Luukialuana (Luana) Kalaeloa (aka Luana Strode). She was the wife of actor Woody Strode.
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) 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. McQueen referred to this unique weapon as a "Mare's Leg".
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