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«Once Upon a Time in the West» («C'era una volta il West»)

Once Upon a Time in the West is a 1968 Italian epic spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone. The film stars Henry Fonda cast against type as the villain Frank, Charles Bronson as his nemesis "Harmonica", Jason Robards as the bandit Cheyenne and Claudia Cardinale as Jill, a newly-widowed homesteader with a past as a prostitute. The screenplay was written by Leone and Sergio Donati, from a story devised by Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Dario Argento. The widescreen cinematography was by Tonino Delli Colli, and Ennio Morricone provided the film score.

In Europe, the film was a substantial box office success, playing for multiple years in some cities. However, it was greeted with a mostly negative critical response upon its 1969 theatrical release in the United States and was a financial flop. The film is now generally acknowledged as a masterpiece and one of the best western films ever made.

The film opens at an isolated train station in Arizona. The station master is changing the expected arrival time of a train to show that it will be late. Three gunmen (Jack Elam, Woody Strode and Al Mulock) arrive at the station with an ambience of tension and foreboding. They wait, trying to occupy themselves. Eventually, the train arrives, and only a man playing a harmonica (Charles Bronson) disembarks. He asks for Frank, but the three men have been sent instead. A showdown ensues. The man who was playing the harmonica is the only survivor. On the remote farm Sweetwater, Brett McBain (Frank Wolff) and his children prepare a feast for the arrival of his new wife, Jill. Frank (Henry Fonda) and his gang emerge from the desert and kill all four McBains.

Jill (Claudia Cardinale) arrives in Flagstone by train from New Orleans and takes a carriage to the McBain farm. In a roadside establishment along the way, she encounters the bandit Cheyenne (Jason Robards) who enters after a noisy shootout with his prison escort. Seeing the harmonica-player, Cheyenne dubs him "Harmonica". When Cheyenne's men arrive, Harmonica tells of his shootout earlier with three men who wore similar dusters, but Cheyenne denies they were from his gang. Jill arrives at the farm to find her husband and his children dead. The assembled crowd came to be wedding guests, but she tells them she married McBain a month earlier in New Orleans. As the funeral ends, part of a duster is found (fake evidence Frank planted), and the men form a posse to hunt down Cheyenne. Jill stays and searches the house for anything of value, as McBain told her he was rich. She finds only some miniature buildings, including a model train station.

Next morning, Cheyenne arrives to survey the scene of his alleged crime. He has coffee with Jill and departs. Harmonica appears and tears the white lace from Jill's black dress. He dispatches with ease two of Frank's men who have been sent to kill her. Railroad tycoon Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti) chastises his hired gun, Frank, for killing the McBains. Frank has been with him since he started building his railroad in sight of the Atlantic. Crippled and slowly dying, Morton rarely leaves his plush private rail car, but he hopes to reach the Pacific before he dies. Harmonica sneaks aboard Morton's train but is discovered. Frank asks who he is, but Harmonica gives only names of men Frank has murdered. Frank goes to capture Jill himself, leaving three of his men to guard Harmonica. Cheyenne has also sneaked aboard. He kills Frank's men, and he and Harmonica go to rescue Jill.

At the farm, Harmonica tells Cheyenne that McBain knew the railroad would have to come past Sweetwater for its remote source of water, and he procured the rights to operate the depot. Building supplies have arrived and now belong to Jill. The station must be built by the time the tracks get there, and Cheyenne puts his men to work building it.

Frank has his way with his captive Jill. He considers marrying her to get the land but knows he'd be a bad husband. He needs a simpler plan. In the saloon in Flagstone, the sheriff (Keenan Wynn) presides over the auction of Jill's property. Frank plans to buy the farm cheap: his men bid $500 and keep anyone else from bidding. Harmonica arrives just in time to bid $5,000 — he "delivers" the wanted outlaw Cheyenne for a reward in that amount to win the auction. Jill congratulates Harmonica on getting himself a good deal, but he says he doesn't invest in land. Frank asks again who he is, but Harmonica gives only more names of Frank's victims. Frank tries to get the land by intimidating Harmonica but fails. The farm is Jill's. Morton joins a poker game with four of Frank's men who are guarding him in his rail car. He deals large sums of money to buy their loyalty, and one rides into town to tell the others. They lie in wait for Frank as he exits the saloon, but Harmonica keeps them from killing him, explaining to Jill that not letting them kill him isn't the same as saving him. At Morton's train, Frank finds a scene of carnage from a shootout between his and Cheyenne's gangs. While he intends to shoot Morton, seeing him pathetically trying to crawl to a mud puddle (a poor substitute for the Pacific) makes him change his mind and leave him there.

The track-laying crews have reached Sweetwater. Harmonica waits for Frank near Jill's house, but Cheyenne arrives first and goes in to have more coffee with her. Frank finally arrives, and the two men position themselves for a duel. Harmonica's motive for revenge is revealed in a flashback: Long ago, Frank forced Harmonica, then a boy, to stand supporting his older brother, whose neck was in a noose. Frank put a harmonica in the boy's mouth. The brother cursed Frank and kicked the boy out from under him to complete his inevitable own hanging. The boy fell face-first into the dirt. Now he faces Frank in their final showdown. Frank loses. Dying, Frank asks again, "Who are you?" Harmonica puts the old, battered harmonica in Frank's mouth. Frank nods weakly in recognition and dies. Harmonica and Cheyenne say goodbye to Jill. As they ride off, Cheyenne stops and gets down. He shows Harmonica that Morton shot him in the gut. He asks Harmonica not to watch him die, and Harmonica looks away. The work train arrives, and the film ends with Jill taking water out to the rail workers as Harmonica rides off with the body of Cheyenne towards the horizon.

Guinea, 2001, «Once Upon a Time in the West»