Don't Make a Scene: Once Upon a Time in the West

The Story: I love movies. I love movies that tell a story. I love movies that tell a story with images. I love movies that tell a story with images because that's what movies do.

Well, that's what they're supposed to do, or else what are movies for? If all that was important was words, we have books and plays. Lots of them.

But movies are uniquely qualified with its pictures to tell a story using montage and mise en scène as its own form of punctuation. Anything else...well, it's just talk.

Like "why you pointing that gun at me, Bill?" or, in this case, say, "No one's coming off this train. My, that's a surprise. I guess we'd better go, then." I hate when movies tell us what they've already shown us. That's what "descriptive services" are for.

Once Upon a Time in the West is one of my favorite movies, but it's also an idiosyncratic one. "Idiosyncratic": that's what you say when the movie has a credits sequence that runs ten minutes long (an entire reel, if you're "old school") of three guys just waiting for a train to show up...and has very few words in that first reel. Everything you need to know is in the pictures and Leone cuts it ala Hitchcock: "He shows you. He shows the reaction. He shows the reaction to the reaction." Every glance and every soundless communication between the three gun-men is shown and followed up on.**

Now, to keep myself from going crazy, I've picked up the scene at the point when they first hear the train whistle (at approximately 08:30 into the movie), but there's plenty of time to go once the final "Directed by Sergio Leone" credit swings down like a crossing guard at the 10:00 mark to the 13:00 mark when Woody Strode's "Snaky" "bites the dust."

Once Upon a Time in the West has had a murky editing history with many versions—the DVD I have is missing three shots from the Vimeo version below—I put them back. And I avoided the credits as much as I could...but it's part of the sequence. Where due.

But, I've gone on longer than a Tarantino version of a Leone scene. I'll shut up. 

The Set-Up: Three gun-men* (Woody Strode, Jack Elam, Al Mulock) are waiting for a train. They lock up the station-master so they have no interference.   

And they wait.

Action...


In the distance, a train sounds its whistles as it approaches the station.

Stony takes off his hat, drinks the accumulated rainwater on the brim and smiles.

Snaky lets the fly go and gets up from his chair.

The train brakes to a stop.

There is no movement from the train, and nobody disembarking. The three look at each other.

A door slides open on a freight car, and the noise makes Stony jump.

A parcel is dropped on the loading platform and the door closes.

Knuckles moves his hand to the grip...just in case.

Snaky nods to the the others that there's no one on the train. Better head out.

The train whistles its intention to leave, as the three gun-men move together.

As the train leaves, they hear an off-key, mournful harmonica. They turn back towards the departing train.

HARMONICA: Frank?

Snaky shakes his head slowly.

SNAKY: Frank sent us.

HARMONICA: You bring a horse for me?

The three gun-men start to chuckle.

SNAKY: Well, now...

SNAKY: ...looks like we're shy one horse.

The men laugh. Harmonica just shakes his head.

HARMONICA: You brought two too many.

Snaky reaches first, but Harmonica is holding his gun within his parcel and fires off three shots hitting Knuckles, then Snaky, then Stony.

Stony gets off one blast from his rifle, hitting Harmonica and both fall where they stand.

Once Upon a Time in the West

Screenplay by Sergio Leone, Sergio Donati, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Dario Argento 

Pictures by Tonino Delli Cotti and Sergio Leone

Once Upon a Time in the West is available from Paramount Home Video.

*Their names are Snaky, Stony, and Knuckles. 

** Well, to a point, anyway. At one point, we don't see much of Al Muloch, except long shots and from the back. Muloch committed suicide during the filming.