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Sunday, June 12, 2016

Once Upon a Time in the West A.K.A. C'era una volta il West (1968)

An Italian American Spanish spaghetti western directed by Sergio Leone, starring Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, Charles Bronson and Gabriele Ferzetti.
A woman is on her way from New Orleans to a rural area to meet her new husband, but bandits kill him and his family before she gets there. There is a railroad baron leading the bandits and the dead family have purchased land that will soon have a railroad in it. A stranger playing a harmonica shows up to oppose the bandits.
Too long! The simple plot unfolded over almost three hours. The characters were typical of a standard western We had the lone wolf stranger, fancy lady, gentlemanly super-villain and his bandits. The audio was not up to par for Ennio this time. His music was extremely sparse and simple. There was also an Alejandro Jodorowsky style high pitched squeaking noise like in El Topo in the intro that bugged the hell out of me. The video was similar. The eye-line matching close-ups weren't as close and the pulling out crane shots were so predictable. Overall, not really worth the three hours. I rate this o.k. because it wasn't up to par for this team, but not bad enough to talk shit about.

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