Sergio Leone had to be persuaded to return to the Western for Once Upon a Time in the West after the success of his "Dollars" trilogy. The result is a masterpiece that expands the vision of the earlier movies in every way. It could as easily have been called The Good, the Bad, the Ugly and the Blonde as Charles Bronson steps into the No-Name role as the harmonica-playing vengeance seeker, Henry Fonda trashes his Wyatt Earp image as a dead-faced, blue-eyed killer who has sold out to the rapacious railroad; Jason Robards provides humanitarian footnotes as a life-loving but doomed bandit and the astonishingly beautiful Claudia Cardinale shows that all these grown-up little boys are less fit to make a country than one determined widow-mother-whore-angel-everywoman. The opening sequence--Woody Strode, Al Mulock and Jack Elam waiting for a train and bothered by a fly and dripping water--is masterful bravura, homing in on tiny details for a fascinating but eventless length of time before Bronson arrives for the lightning-fast shoot-out. With striking widescreen compositions and epic running time, this picture truly wins points for length and width.

On the DVD: Once Upon a Time in the West on disc is the transfer fans have been waiting for: the longest available version of the film in shimmering widescreen (enhanced for 16:9 TVs) which lends full impact to Leone's long shots of Monument Valley scenery or bustling crowds of activity, but also highlights his ultra-close images as Bronson's beady eyes or Cardinale's luscious pout fill the entire screen. A commentary track is mostly by expert Sir Christopher Frayling, with input from other academics, participants and enthusiasts--it's good on the detail, and Alex Cox winningly points out that one scene bizarrely can't be reconciled with what happens before or after it.

Disc 2 has four featurettes which, taken together, add up to a feature-length documentary on the film, and though overlapping the commentary slightly offer a wealth of further good stuff, plus the elegant Cardinale's undiminished smile. Also included is the trailer, notes on the cast, menu screens with generous selections from Ennio Morricone's score, stills gallery, comparison shots from the film and contemporary snapshots of the locations. --Kim Newman

The greatest western movie ever..or a good candidate anyway: it gives epic and credibility, and you feel history in its making...
But how can Amazon dare sell an edition with only English language??? No Italian language (wasn't it shot in Italian?), not even subtitles: it's chauvinism at its most. Like many other Amazon titles (see f.i. the Leone cycle of 'Spaghetti western').

I am quite fed up with people calling this the best western ever made. Get it right, this is the BEST FILM EVER MADE. Never has sound and vision been used so effectively to convey a directors vision. I won't add a lot more as the brilliance of this film is covered so well in so many 5 star reviews. However a brief comment on the special features is worth mentioning. The commentary track contains a really stupid error which some one should have sorted out. Alex Cox goes on about a scene which has been re inserted incorrectly as it places Frank and Claudia back in the ranch house bedroom when they are supposed to be up in the hills. Check out the scene again Alex and you will see they are actually in a cave, the bed suspended from the roof by ropes. You're a good film maker but give Leone some credit please.

Sergio Leone is unique in his field, and particularly in the western genre. He was in his fourth year of spaghetti western, let's say in full swing, in this film. You know it is Sergio Leone by several elements that do not tell a lie. The music always has the same texture, the same taste, the same sonorities, with the eternal harmonica. Then the landscape, the sunshine, the light, the vegetation and of course practically no fauna, and in this one, not even a snake. Hardly a few horses, a couple of partridges, or whatever, and a pair of chickens. Nothing to brag about. Sergio Leone is concentrating anyway on the human animal and there the menagerie is by far diverse and grotesque enough. Then the economy of the dialogue is also typical because Sergio Leone never uses one word too many when he can do without any word at all. The silences are long and so meaningful that you must be blind not to hear the resounding sense of that emptiness. Then the few words that are actually pronounced become so powerful in their scarcity and rarity that you definitely have to be deaf not to see the subtlety of that sound track. Those are the most significant traits of Sergio Leone's style. And this film is the acme of that style. The plot itself innovates in the subject, that is to say in who the thieves are. In this case some railroad contractor who wants to get rid of some settler who has bought a big chunk of land on the very way where the railroad has to go and who has a contract that allows the railroad to go through for nothing if the station is built before the train can come. You can then imagine the intricacies of the action between several gangs and tribes and bands of good and bad men, bad and good beings, and all the nuances, hues and shades in between. The best detail of course comes at the end when the main bad guy realizes who the one who has just destroyed him is. Don't expect me to tell you. You have to watch the film till the very last five minutes to finally understand. Enjoy it. And if you get the collector's edition you will also enjoy the complementary features on railroads and their advance in and through the west.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

This is quite simply one of the greatest western's ever made.Brilliantly directed by Sergio Leone and with a fantastic soundtrack from Ennio Morricone,'Once Upon A Time In The West' seems to get better with each viewing.It is at times brutal,moving and comical and a tribute to the vision of Leone.Almost every scene involves something memorable.The fantastic opening sequence,Cheyenne sliding the lamp to illuminate Harmonica's face,the slaughter of the family by Frank,the list is endless.

Then there is the cast.Charles Bronson,Claudia Cardinale,Jason Robards and most memorably of all Henry Fonda.Each and every one of them excels in their respective roles and give depth to this wonderful movie.It runs at almost three hours and not one minute is wasted.Funnily enough,the first time I watched it I wasn't too sure what the fuss was.Now I regard this movie as being a work of art,almost poetic in places.

This two disc special edition contains several interesting extras which go towards making this an absolute must.Five stars and each and every one of them richly deserved.

Fifteen to twenty years ago it would be unheard of for 'Once Upon a Time in the West' to be popularly titled 'The Greatest Western Ever Made'. This recent crowning is something I wholly support, but I feel the reward is for the wrong reasons. Yes, it's one of the first 'post-modern' movies, reverting alot of the Western cliches. Yes, it has a woman in a central role and, yes, it has progressive politics in a genre of republican ideology. But this is not why I believe Leone's movie to be the masterpiece it is.

Firstly, above everything else, this is probably the most beautifully shot film of the 60s. It's stark close-ups coupled with the widest wide-shots is gorgeous, not to mention the flawless character placement, make-up, sets and the unforgettable soundtrack by Ennio Morricone.

Secondly, 'Once Upon a Time...' has, in my opinion, the most interesting character in Western history with Cheyenne. He and Jill are caught inbetween the typical good guy (Charles Bronson) and the typical bad guy (Henry Fonda) and have much commonality. Jill, it is said, is the 'whore with a heart of gold', and in a sense Cheyenne is a bad guy with a heart of gold. Yes he does bad things, but he also has huge sympathy. Think of the scene between him and Jill, "if they happen to slap your behind...they've deserved it." He clearly feels for the poor working-class lumbered with job of laying down the rail road track, the tracks which would lead to American capitalism, in turn making a victim of the working-class citizen. Cheyenne's men are laying down the tracks to their own demise, and he seems to see this. He, like the audience, is watching all of what follows unfold. Also, he seems to be the only one who connects with Jill in any real way.