A railroad tycoon named Morton who’s suffering from a debilitating disease wants to see the Pacific Ocean from his passenger car before he dies, and he has a hired gunman named Frank (Henry Fonda) to remove obstacles from the tracks.

Right now, the biggest obstacle is Brett McBain, who owns the only property, with water within 50 miles west of the town of Flagstone. Frank and his henchmen take care of McBain and his three children, gunning them down only to discover there’s a Mrs. McBain, a woman named Jill (Claudia Cardinale) that he secretly married months earlier in New Orleans.

Removing her from the tracks won’t be as easy because she’s acquired two protectors, a mysterious gunman named Harmonica (Charles Bronson) and a local outlaw named Cheyenne (Jason Robards).

Harmonica has an old score to settle with Frank. Cheyenne is being blamed and chased for the death of the McBains because Frank planted false evidence at the McBain homestead.

And Jill, Cheyenne and Harmonica have all figured out just why Frank is so interested in the McBain property.

Charles Bronson as Harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Henry Fonda as Frank in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Jason Robards as Cheyenne in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Review:

Through the three films of his Dollars triology (“Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), Sergio Leone’s films got more complex, more ambitious and more stylish with each outing. He reached the pinnacle of his film-making success with his fourth Spaghetti Western.

Take a brilliant script. Add a masterful score. Toss in beautiful camera work. Mix in stellar performances by four stars. Top it off with Leone’s deliberate style. It all adds up to – hands down — the best Western ever made.

Leone takes three common Western themes – the fight over a piece of land, the coming of the railroad and a hero’s search for revenge – themes that had become tired and trite in the hands of American filmmakers and turned them into something we’d never seen before in a Western.

And it helps that, for the first time in his Westerns, Leone added a female character in Jill, the whore from New Orleans hoping “to do something” with her life in the West, only to have that future threatened by Frank. After “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” in which no character was truly good, there’s someone to root for in this film. Multiple characters in fact, though we’re not sure exactly why we’re rooting for Harmonica until the last 10 minutes or so of the film.

The one guy no one would root for would be Frank, with all-American hero Henry Fonda cast as one of the coldest villains you’ll find in a Western. In his very first scene, he guns down a young boy, smiling all the while.

This Western should make you smile. It’s proof a Western can be a great piece of film-making. But you’ll probably need to watch it more than once to appreciate just what Leone and company accomplished back in 1968.

Charles Bronson as Harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Henry Fonda as Frank in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Jason Robards as Cheyenne in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Directed by:
Sergio Leone

Cast:
Charles Bronson … Harmonica
Henry Fonda … Frank
Jason Robards … Cheyenne
Claudia Cardinale … Jill McBain
Gabriele Ferzetti … Morton
Paolo Stoppa … Sam
Woody Strobe … Stony
Jack Elam … Snaky
Al Murlock … Knuckles
Keenan Wynn … Sheriff / auctioneer
Frank Wolff … Brett McBain
Lionel Stander … Bartender
Claudio Mancini … Harmonica’s brother
Dino Mele … Harmonica as a boy
Aldo Sambrell … Cheyenne’s lieutenant
Enzo Santaniello … Timmy McBain
Simonetta Santaniello … Maureen McBain
Stefano Imparato … Patrick McBain
Marco Zuanelli … Wobbles