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Toy Boy

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I'm slowly going through the list of my all-time favourite films and rewatching them. Last night it was the turn of my favourite (Spaghetti) Western, 'Once Upon A Time In The West'. I couldn't find a 4k version, but in 2018 a remastered 1080p version was released to celebrate the film's 50th anniversary, and that's really excellent quality. It must be the fifth or sixth time I've watched this almost 3-hour long movie, and I've enjoyed it every time, especially the brilliant score by Ennio Morricone.

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I first saw the film just a few years after it was released, when I was in grammar school of all places. We always had a few weeks of limbo after the exams were over but before we could be released into the wild for the summer holiday. The teachers didn't want to teach us anything and we had little interest in more study, but the LEA said that we still had to attend school so it was a case of passing the time as best you could. The staff found that showing us films was one way to pass a few hours in relative peace and quiet, and one summer in the early 1970's they got hold of a copy of this film and we watched it. I was spellbound, the evil Frank shooting dead the little boy in cold blood, and the dreadful thing that had been done to the man with a harmonica when he was just a boy. Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda and Jason Robards all at the peak of their profession, and framing it all is the unforgettable music. Although, like 'The Good, The bad And The Ugly', it revolves around three gunslingers, it portrays genuine evil, unlike the Clint Eastwood film which much less dark and quite funny in places.

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On 3/2/2023 at 8:38 PM, Toy Boy said:

I'm slowly going through the list of my all-time favourite films and rewatching them. Last night it was the turn of my favourite (Spaghetti) Western, 'Once Upon A Time In The West'. I couldn't find a 4k version, but in 2018 a remastered 1080p version was released to celebrate the film's 50th anniversary, and that's really excellent quality. It must be the fifth or sixth time I've watched this almost 3-hour long movie, and I've enjoyed it every time, especially the brilliant score by Ennio Morricone.

maxresdefault.jpg

I first saw the film just a few years after it was released, when I was in grammar school of all places. We always had a few weeks of limbo after the exams were over but before we could be released into the wild for the summer holiday. The teachers didn't want to teach us anything and we had little interest in more study, but the LEA said that we still had to attend school so it was a case of passing the time as best you could. The staff found that showing us films was one way to pass a few hours in relative peace and quiet, and one summer in the early 1970's they got hold of a copy of this film and we watched it. I was spellbound, the evil Frank shooting dead the little boy in cold blood, and the dreadful thing that had been done to the man with a harmonica when he was just a boy. Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda and Jason Robards all at the peak of their profession, and framing it all is the unforgettable music. Although, like 'The Good, The bad And The Ugly', it revolves around three gunslingers, it portrays genuine evil, unlike the Clint Eastwood film which much less dark and quite funny in places.

For me, the greatest western ever made. I watch it about once a year. Numerous YT segments about it, including Henry Fonda telling the story on the old Dick Cavett Show around '71 where when they were about to start filming, he wore brown contacts, thinking if he was playing a bad guy, the brown eyes would look more sinister. But when he showed up on the set, Sergio Leone was beside himself, yelling in Italian, wanting his natural baby blues highlighted as there were many immediate close ups. 

It worked of course, and upon his grand entrance in the movie after the murdering of the family, when the camera pans around from the back to show Fonds's character, with those blue eyes, the effect was incredible! Has a bad guy character ever had a more dramatic entrance in a movie when matched to the ominous sounding theme music?

And what a musical score! My favorite of them all, by the legendary Ennio Morricone.

Edited by Mr. Smooth
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On 3/3/2023 at 11:38 AM, Toy Boy said:

I'm slowly going through the list of my all-time favourite films and rewatching them. Last night it was the turn of my favourite (Spaghetti) Western, 'Once Upon A Time In The West'. I couldn't find a 4k version, but in 2018 a remastered 1080p version was released to celebrate the film's 50th anniversary, and that's really excellent quality. It must be the fifth or sixth time I've watched this almost 3-hour long movie, and I've enjoyed it every time, especially the brilliant score by Ennio Morricone.

maxresdefault.jpg

I first saw the film just a few years after it was released, when I was in grammar school of all places. We always had a few weeks of limbo after the exams were over but before we could be released into the wild for the summer holiday. The teachers didn't want to teach us anything and we had little interest in more study, but the LEA said that we still had to attend school so it was a case of passing the time as best you could. The staff found that showing us films was one way to pass a few hours in relative peace and quiet, and one summer in the early 1970's they got hold of a copy of this film and we watched it. I was spellbound, the evil Frank shooting dead the little boy in cold blood, and the dreadful thing that had been done to the man with a harmonica when he was just a boy. Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda and Jason Robards all at the peak of their profession, and framing it all is the unforgettable music. Although, like 'The Good, The bad And The Ugly', it revolves around three gunslingers, it portrays genuine evil, unlike the Clint Eastwood film which much less dark and quite funny in places.

I'm gonna have to check that out. Never watched it.

 

 

 

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