Oh look, another Western. I hated The Searchers and super-hated Rio Bravo, so expectations weren’t high going into this one, but… it’s actually really good!

And I think the reason why is that this is a spaghetti Western. Unlike the previous two I saw, which were directed by Americans, this was directed by the Italian Sergio Leone. Which means that the “Lost Cause” nonsense doesn’t pop up at all — this is a western that has no idea the Civil War ever happened, which is only to the good.

And then plus, it’s from 1968, and Italians in the ’60s were stylish af, and that sense of style comes through in the film. The extended opening sequence at a train station is something that could come right from a Tarantino movie, except obviously the real causal chain is that scenes like that were a huge influence on the young Tarantino. In terms of cinematic craft, this is a movie that’s operating at a higher level than those other westerns were.

The story itself is a semi-convoluted tale of murder, revenge, money, intimidation, and greed. It’s plenty complex enough but at the same time, this isn’t the kind of movie whose virtues are really related to its story. It’s a movie that’s about its characters — Charles Bronson as the enigmatic “Harmonica”[1], Claudia Cardinale[2] as a freshly widowed former prostitute, Henry Fonda as a murderous villain with a deceptively kind smile, and Jason Robards[3] as a roguish outlaw.

I still think I’m okay saying I don’t like westerns, but I’d actually recommend this as a solid film.

  1. So-called because he plays the harmonica all the time. Which is used to amusing effect in a couple of early scenes, where the Ennio Morricone score starts up at a dramatic moment… and then the camera pans over to reveal that it’s diegetic music, and he’s sitting in a corner playing the theme on his harmonica. ↩︎

  2. who you may remember from such films as 8 1/2 and The Leopard. She’s almost too pretty to be in this movie — like, everyone else looks really rough and weathered, and she doesn’t at all — but makes it work by giving her role a sort of earthy matter-of-fact-ness, and even angrily pushes back against the repeated threat of sexual violence (because, yes, the movie is predictably terrible on this front). ↩︎

  3. The old dying guy from Magnolia! ↩︎