Maggie Lovitt is the Deputy News Editor at Collider. In addition to reporting on the latest entertainment news, she is also an actor and member of the Screen Actors Guild based out of the Mid-Atlantic Region. Lovitt is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Critics Choice Association and National Press Club. While she spends her time writing and editing articles about the entertainment industry, Maggie’s background is actually in history and anthropology. She loves it whenever she can bring those two facets of her life together, such as with reviews for series like We Were the Lucky Ones and The New Look, and engaging interviews with talent like Ben Mendelsohn, Liev Schreiber, or Jonas Nay.
Director Sergio Leone helped define one of the most recognizable sub-genres of Western cinema, one that has greatly influenced Quentin Tarantino. His magnum opus, the Dollars Trilogy, was released between 1964 and 1966. He was prepared to retire from making Westerns after the monumental series, but was lured back into the game when Paramount and Henry Fonda came calling with Once Upon a Time in the West. The landmark film, which was released in 1968, featured two more Italian stalwarts as part of the core creative team, Dario Argento and Bernardo Bertolucci, who were credited with having conceived the story. The movie underperformed commercially, but has since become recognized as one of the greatest Westerns ever made. And now, it's only a click away on a new streaming platform.
Leone wanted to reunite with his Dollars Trilogy star Clint Eastwood, but was turned down. He went with Charles Bronson instead. Once Upon a Time in the West also featured Claudia Cardinale and Jason Robards, among others. The film's widescreen cinematography, immaculate pacing, and subversive hat-tip to earlier Westerns made it an instant cult classic. Famously, the late critic Roger Ebert dismissed it in his original review, only to revise his opinion years later. The movie now has a 96% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. In a piece for Collider, Andrew McGowan noted the film's subversive casting of Fonda as a bad guy and wrote that his character's introductory scene "let the audience know that this was not a typical Henry Fonda role, and by extension, Once Upon A Time was not going to be a typical American Western."
Here's Where You Can Watch 'Once Upon a Time in the West'
The film's theatrical cut was the subject of controversy. Leone and Paramount weren't aligned, with the studio setting the final American cut at 140 minutes. The Italian version was half an hour longer. The film influenced not only Tarantino, but also Vince Gilligan, whose Breaking Bad relied heavily on spaghetti Western iconography and themes. Once Upon a Time in the West served as a spiritual precursor to Leone's grand gangster film, Once Upon a Time in America, which had a similar trajectory to cult success. You can watch the classic Western on Paramount+ this month. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.