This classic western turned a beloved Hollywood hero into a vicious monster.
Sergio Leone's 1968 Hollywood epic Once Upon A Time In The West is widely praised as one of the greatest films in the Western genre . The Italian director's fourth outing in the genre, following his Clint Eastwood-starring Dollars trilogy, Once Upon A Time is both a love letter and a critique of the Western.
The opportunity to work with Fonda was allegedly one of the biggest draws for Leone to do a fourth Western. According to the film's behind-the-scenes documentary, An Opera Of Violence, Leone came to Hollywood after his Euopean-shot Dollars films with the hopes of developing what would eventually become Once Upon a Time in America. However, Paramount convinced him to do at least one more Western first, with a large budget and the chance to direct Fonda as irresistible bait.
From that central conflict alone, one can see greater signs of subversiveness in Once Upon a Time. Long gone are the days of John Ford's The Iron Horse and Cecil B. DeMille's Union Pacific, both early Westerns that celebrated the railroads as success symbols. In Once Upon a Time, westward expansion, at last, comes at the expense of displacement and exploitation on screen.
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