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Don't listen to the negative reviews

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

There is so much to like here. I must admit there are also flaws. The spare dialogue is sometimes apt but also on occasion obvious or crude. Because there is so little, with ambient noise and music soundtrack so beautiful that the contrast is jarring. Several of the character actors, besides those in the opening sequence, are so little used that many of their scenes must have bee cut due to the length of the film. The sound was all recorded independently of the filming, standard procedure in many Italian films. Claudia Cardinale's voice was dubbed which is such a shame since for an actor, their voice is an important part of their craft. View "The Professionals" from about the same period to hear her real voice. Henry Fonda is indeed a real villain here but was nearly as bad in "Firecreek" made around the same time. The opening sequence was either inspired by or inspired that of "The Train Robbers". My main enjoyment of this film is purely visual. Near the end there is a telephoto shot of the train arriving at Sweetwater with all the railroad workers gathering, to the music of Morricone. This is truly an emotional moment as are many others. .

The greatest western movie ever, and one of the best movies anyway. Amazing soundtrack, by Ennio Moricone.

Perhaps the greatest western that Leone made. Everything about it is just epic and oozes style. The cinematography, music, story and definitely the characters are great. All main characters are memorable from the mysterious and heroic "Harmonica" and villainous Frank, to the drop dead gorgeous Jill played by Claudia Cardinale! Gripping from the opening scene till the last shot, it's a thrilling ride for sure!

Sergio Leone loves to keep the mood on edge by having repetitive annoying sounds, like the wind mill or insects overly loud. Not a real fan of this style, I know I am bucking the tide with all these glowing reviews, but the sound track is far to annoying to allow me to watch any longer, he would find a better use of his skills torturing audiophiles with chalk board scratching. As far as the best western ever, that I find laughable, another film firmly stuck in the time period it was filmed and it hasn't aged gracefully. This wreaks of spaghetti western, never an honest portrayal because the writing are always obtuse