Once Upon a Time in the West

Although it was not as impactful perhaps as the “Dollar” trilogy, this is my favorite Sergio Leone — and “Spaghetti Western” — film. A sweeping, beautifully paced journey through a world that probably never existed until folk like John Ford and Akira Kurosawa helped germinate it in the mind of the Italian filmaker. Charles Bronson as the tortured hero seems like a constant dam about to burst with machisimo, Henry Fonda is brilliantly cast as the depraved villian, and you can’t not like Jason Robard’s bandit-with-a-heart-of-gold, who Leone reportedly told Ennio Morricone that he was like the “Tramp from Lady and the Tramp.” Claudia Cardinale plays the worshipfull Jill, a brave-faced ex-prostitute who inherits some very valuable property on the American frontier, but in the saddest way possible.