How can you trust a man who wears both a belt and suspenders? The man can't even trust his own pants.

The main storyline revolves around a struggle for Sweetwater, a piece of land near Flagstone containing the region's only water source. The land was bought by Brett McBain, who foresaw that the railroad would have to pass through that area to provide water for the steam engines that power the locomotives. When railroad tycoon Morton learns of this, he sends his hired gun Frank (Fonda) to intimidate McBain, and Frank kills McBain and his three children, planting evidence on the scene to frame the bandit Cheyenne (Robards) and his gang. By the time McBain's new bride, Jill (Cardinale), arrives from New Orleans,the family is dead and she is the owner of the land.

Meanwhile, a mysterious harmonica playing gunman (Bronson), whom Cheyenne later dubs "Harmonica", pursues Frank. In the film's opening scene, Harmonica kills three men sent by Frank to kill him, and, in a roadhouse on the way to Sweetwater, he informs Cheyenne that the three gunfighters he killed appeared to be posing as Cheyenne's men. Sometime later, Harmonica kills two men sent by Frank to kill Jill. Back at Sweetwater, construction materials are delivered to build a railroad station and a small town. Harmonica explains to Cheyenne that Jill will lose Sweetwater unless the station is built by the time the track's construction crews reach that point, and Cheyenne puts his men to work building it.



Meanwhile, Frank turns against Morton, who wanted to make a deal with Jill. Frank's betrayal is made easy by the fact that Morton is crippled. After having his way with her, Frank forces Jill to sell the property in an auction. He tries to buy the farm cheaply by intimidating the other bidders, but Harmonica arrives, holding Cheyenne at gunpoint, and makes a much higher bid based on his reward money for delivering Cheyenne to the authorities. After rebuffing another intimidation attempt by Frank, Harmonica sells the farm back to Jill. At this point, some of Frank's men try to kill Frank, having been paid by Morton to turn against him, but Harmonica helps Frank kill them in order to save that privilege for himself.

After Morton and the rest of Frank's men are killed in a battle with Cheyenne's gang, Frank goes to Sweetwater to confront Harmonica. On two occasions, Frank has asked Harmonica who he is, but both times Harmonica refused to answer him. Instead, he mysteriously quoted names of men Frank has murdered. The two men position themselves for a duel, at which point Harmonica's motive for revenge is revealed in a flashback: When Harmonica was a boy, Frank killed his older brother by tying a noose to the top of an arch, placing it around the brother's neck, and forcing Harmonica to support his brother on his shoulders with a harmonica in his mouth. Harmonica draws first and shoots Frank, and when Frank again asks who he is, he puts the harmonica in Frank's mouth. Frank nods weakly in recognition and dies.

With Frank dead, Harmonica and Cheyenne say goodbye to Jill, who is supervising construction of the train station as the track-laying crews reach Sweetwater. Cheyenne collapses almost immediately, revealing that he was shot by Morton while he and his men were fighting Frank's gang. The work train arrives, and the film ends as Jill carries water to the rail workers and Harmonica rides off with Cheyenne's body towards the horizon.

I was a High School Junior when I took a video editing class that allowed us to make videos and edit them to certain length. We also were allowed to the the video cameras out of class and do projects and have them at a desired length of what the teacher wanted. These big video cameras were used around school to do all sorts of projects by other students for other classes. An example we had a student who was sick for part of the year at their home and we set up a camera and had the cable company run a feed to the cable company and then to a public access station that would let the student see the class at their house and hear the teachers lecture in class. At the end of the week someone would pick up and hand the assignments in. It was quite revolutionary for it's time.

One day I wanted to do some extra credit. I asked the teacher for this idea I wanted to practice editing commercials out of a film. The teacher knew I had an eye for good editing and his choice for a film was Once Upon A Time In The West. He told me he has rarely seen it on TV and it was going to be on the upcoming weekend and he wanted me to tape it and bring into class and edit the film minus the commercials.



The teacher told me that he saw the film back in the day on the big screen and loved it. I did not know much about the film when I was told about it. After watching the film at home while taping it I could see why. The film was visually wonderful. The acting was top notch and the action was great as well. When I brought the video to school I went to tell the teacher that I really liked the film and looked forward to editing the commercials out of it. The film ran three and half hours with commercials. I had to edit about a half an hour of them. After I was done with the project I told the teacher that we should sit down and watch it and see how I did. When the project was complete the teacher told me that there was stuff missing that really change the movies intent. After a long while I finally saw the film and I could see all the stuff they edited out. The movie is a classic.



If you want to see a film that is a true classic western I suggest you start with this. It is raw and very good. Even Henry Fonda as one of the best villains it has really great cinematography. Sergio Leone did a wonderful job with the actors. Most of all the music of Ennio Morricone is really great. With the age of blue ray and with large televisions that are out there this film is one that should be shown in that format. I had the pleasure to see the film at a small cinema and was blown away on how it really is a great experience. Watch this and you will too. Enjoy!