ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (2-CD Set)


Just as there are Big Fat Books, there are also Big Fat Movies. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) is a 165-minute (2 hours and 45 minutes) epic Spaghetti Western co-written and directed by Sergio Leone. Once Upon a Time in the West stars Henry Fonda as the villain. After Clint Eastwood turned down the role, Charles Bronson was cast as the protagonist. Claudia Cardinale plays a newly widowed homesteader and Jason Robards plays a bandit.

If you love Spaghetti Westerns, you’ll love this one. Vengeance powers this film as grievances get resolved at the barrel of a gun. While Once Upon a Time in the West was a box office hit in Europe, it flopped in the U.S. Some critics at the time complained about the film’s length. Are you a Sergio Leone fan? Do you like long movies? GRADE: A

36 thoughts on “ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (2-CD Set)

  1. Steve Oerkfitz

    This is one of my favorite westerns. Love the opening scene. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was just as long and did well so I don’t think length is the problem. I expect it would have done better with Eastwood. I love Leone’s movies but am not particularly fond of spaghetti westerns as a whole.
    Long movies don’t bother me. Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge On the River Kwai, Once Upon a Time in America, The Godfathers, The Sand Pebbles, The Irishman are all long movies and I wouldn’t shorten any of them.

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    1. george Post author

      Steve, I’m not bothered by long movies but I prefer watching them at home where I can pause them when I have to visit the bathroom. Ah, the Aging Process…

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      1. wolf

        George, same here!
        I remember from many years ago that these long movies used to have an intermission in the German cinemas – and then of course there were queues at the “restrooms”.
        As students we used to watch many Spaghetti Westerns, usually in the late show, 10 p m
        But I don’t remember the different Sergio Leones – in a way they were all very similar.
        OT:
        Afaik the movies were filmed in Spain, not in Italy.

      2. george Post author

        Wolf, the last movies my wife and I saw together that had an intermissions was REDS (1981) and GHANDI (1982). I saw GETTYSBURG (1991) with my son–whose class was studying the Civil War–and it had an intermission…because it was 4 hours and 31 minutes long!!!

  2. Prashant C. Trikannad

    George, I saw this film many years ago. Luckily, a colleague recently lent me the film and I intend to watch it one weekend. I enjoy watching period films, including epics and sagas. Steve mentioned some nice ones though I have yet to see “The Sand Pebbles” and “The Irishman”.

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    1. george Post author

      Prashant, both THE SAND PEBBLES and THE IRISHMAN are worth watching. The novel version of THE SAND PEBBLES by Richard McKenna is worth reading, too.

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  3. Jeff Meyerson

    It depends. There is long and then there is HEAVEN’S GATE. I liked this one, but agree with Steve about Eastwood. I was never a huge fan of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA or DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, but in the latter case it was partly understandable. When we were first dating, our first date was to see WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?! But another early movie was ZHIVAGO, which neither of us had seen when it first came out a year or so earlier. Unfortunately, the showing we went to started at 11:00 pm! I fell asleep somewhere in there. We did later watch it again on HBO on a frigid winter day when the conditions almost matched those in the movie, sometime between 1976 and 1986 (I remember because it was in our second apartment). Other long movies we’ve seen many times include GONE WITH THE WIND and THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. As a rule, in any of these there are sections I really like and others I can happily fast forward through. Others I don’t hesitate to sit through start to finish include the first two GODFATHER movies, SCHINDLER’S LIST, BEN HUR, and THE GREAT ESCAPE.

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    1. george Post author

      Jeff, nice list of long movies. I’m not a fan of DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (I prefer DOCTOR WHO). But the first two GODFATHER movies and THE GREAT ESCAPE are movies I’ve watched multiple times…without fast forwarding!

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  4. Michael Padgett

    I remember liking this a lot, but maybe not quite as much as the three Leone made with Eastwood. Actually, my favorite of Leone’s movies is the great gangster epic, “Once Upon a Time in America”. It seems as if movies longer than two hours are becoming routine, and movies approaching the three hour mark are not rare. One of them, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” ,was my favorite movie of last year. So I don’t mind really long movies if they’re good, although it’s perhaps better to see them at home than in a theater.

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    1. george Post author

      Michael, I need to rewatch ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA. I’m sure you were pleased by Brad Pitt winning the BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Oscar.

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  5. Jeff Meyerson

    My biggest problem with sitting in a theater these days is not in the movies but rather at long plays. Unless you are sitting on the aisle, it is hard to get up in a crowded theater, especially if you don’t want to disturb the people around you. The worst I remember was seeing the seemingly endless LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT in the winter of 1976 – I remember us being weighed down with heavy coats, gloves, scarves, even boots! – at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The play starred Jason Robards, Jr., Zoe Caldwell, Kevin Conway (who just died), Michael Moriarty, and Lindsay Crouse.

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  6. Jeff Meyerson

    Jackie picked GONE WITH THE WIND (of course), BEN HUR, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, and I know she would pick INDEPENDENCE DAY, though we often seem to turn it on halfway through.

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    1. george Post author

      Jeff, I’ve watched INDEPENDENCE DAY a dozen times. I’m not fond of THE SOUND OF MUSIC probably because my mother played the album almost every day as she did her chores.

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      1. Steve Oerkfitz

        I found Independence Day to be quite bad. And I wouldn’t watch Sound of Music again if you paid me. Way too saccharine. Even Christopher Plummer Hates it and he was in it.

      2. george Post author

        Steve, I’m leery of committing to 3-hour movies. Even with TV shows, I will watch 5 episodes and then decide if I want to continue. There’s just too much out there to watch!

  7. Jeff Meyerson

    Speaking of EXODUS, I knew that Eva Marie Saint was still alive (at 95, and looking good!), but I didn’t know that George Maharis was. He’s 91.

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  8. maggie mason

    I agree with George about watching LONG movies at home. When I go to the movies, crowds aren’t usually an issue, but I always get an aisle seat where I can extend my left leg. Though there are really plush theaters with reclining seats and lots of leg room now, and the AMC in La Jolla is one, with low prices for the first showing on Tues IIRC.

    I remember seeing Color Purple in DC and having to make a pit stop in the middle of it.

    I record movies and find myself watching only like 10 -15 minutes at a time until I’m sufficiently interested to finish the movie Some have been waiting for months. Some I watch at once.

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    1. george Post author

      Maggie, I also like to watch movies with the Close Captioning on because the sound varies in a film. And actors seem to like to mumble, too.

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      1. Michael Padgett

        Movie studios today seem to think that if they’re going to spend 200-300 million on a movie that they should provide lots of stuff to watch, but frequently they just provide nearly three hours of crap and think they’ve given you your money’s worth. This seems to be the theory behind all those superhero movies that I avoid.

      2. george Post author

        Michael, with the Super Hero movies, the Hollywood studios are catering to a specific audience. They have a winning formula and they just keep repeating it…and raking in the dough!

  9. Fred Blosser

    George, a lot of us like Spaghettis because they’re so over the top. In today’s world of social media and infotainment, the studio would market OUATITW as a “must see,” offbeat foreign film and probably net several Academy Award nominations. Imagine if PARASITE had been released in 1969.

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  10. Kent Morgan

    While in high school in northern Manitoba, I had a job as a ticket taker in our local theatre, the Lido, that is still in operation. There were two showings each evening starting at 7 and 9 p.m. Usually there was a newsreel and a cartoon before the feature film so I am guessing most features ran approximately 90 minutes in length. They needed a few minutes to clear out the first crowd before the second show started. Every second night the ticket taker had to work late and hang around to sell a ticket to any latecomer and be the only staff person exceot for the projectionist. If you had that shift, that’s when you hated a movie such as some of those historical epics or over-produced musicals that were longer than 90 minutes being booked. You didn’t get paid extra on those evenings and they put a damper on your social life for teen dances and the local hangouts. Ever since then I have hated long movies and never bother to watch any on TV despite the ability to make pit stops.

    Reply

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