30 Westerns in Once

[cigar joe]

from disinterested_spectator on IMDb


Toward the end of The Plainsman, Gary Cooper dresses up in black and enters the bar, looking a lot like Frank when he enters the bar and tries to buy back the land from Harmonica. He even sits in the chair the way Frank does.

Then there is Harmonica’s hat, which has a little piece missing from the brim, just like the hat he wore in The Magnificent Seven (1960).

The way Frank slowly dismounts just before the climactic gunfight seems to quote Shane in the way Wilson dismounts when he and Shane size each other up outside Starrett’s house. Finally, and this may be a bit of a stretch, Cheyenne’s preference for coffee reminds me of Wilson’s similar preference in the same movie.

[dave jenkins]

from disinterested_spectator on IMDb
Finally, and this may be a bit of a stretch, Cheyenne’s preference for coffee reminds me of Wilson’s similar preference in the same movie.

You could say the same about Randolph Scott in Seven Men From Now; or, probably, any number of 50s Westerns. It's amazing how important coffee is in U.S. cinema throughout the period.

[drinkanddestroy]

Western reference in FAFDM (but I will mention it here cuz I don't know if we have an approprite thread for that):

In Texas (1941), there is a scene where William Holden is running away from people chasing him; he runs through a second-floor hotel room, there is a sheriff in the bath, and he says, "Pardon me, Sheriff!"

[dave jenkins]

Western reference in FAFDM (but I will mention it here cuz I don't know if we have an approprite thread for that):

In Texas (1941), there is a scene where William Holden is running away from people chasing him; he runs through a second-floor hotel room, there is a sheriff in the bath, and he says, "Pardon me, Sheriff!"

Hmmm, maybe we should start another thread?

[cigar joe]

Yea I know there are more.

[Herry Grail]

Not a reference to a Western, but I've watched the OUATITW several times now, and every time Jack Elam lifelessly drops his forearm on the station master's shoulder—rather than grabbing it with his hand like anyone else would—I immediately think that's exactly what Boris Karloff did (though from behind) upon seeing Basil Rathbone for the first time in "Son of Frankenstein," a culty entry in that series. Maybe he did it in other films too as the monster, but I really remember it in SOF.

It's funny to remember that, but I guess it was kind of an iconic gesture and I don't remember seeing it done in any other films.

[drinkanddestroy]

You could say the same about Randolph Scott in Seven Men From Now; or, probably, any number of 50s Westerns. It's amazing how important coffee is in U.S. cinema throughout the period.

Also the Walter Brennan character in THE FAR COUNTRY, as well as, like you says, many many many others.

One interesting point RE: the SHANE comparison: Usually, when coffee is mentioned in Westerns, it's outdoors: when people are riding in the desert - a wagon train, cattle drive, sitting around campfire at night, bivouaced etc.. But the SHANE connection with OUATITW is that those are two Westerns I can think of (though I am sure there are more) where there is an emphasis on coffee INDOORS: in OUATITW, it's Cheyenne drinking it in Jill's home; in SHANE, it's Palance drinking it inside the pub.


Btw, RE: SHANE: I think that Palance drinking coffee, rather than the more typical whiskey, shows control, class, of the villain. (
(Cheyenne, like most Western gunslingers who like coffee, likes it IN ADDITIOn to whiskey; with Palance, he explicitly rejects the whiskey and aska for coffee.) Sure, there are many villains who drink. But then, when you have a villain who explicitly rejects it, where you  get the feeling it's not that he is a pussy; quite the opposite - he certainly can drink, but is smart enough not to; he knows what drink does and rejects it, that self-control - it brings a certain "class," or more importantly, a certain toughness, to the character. This guy's business is too important, he is too smart, to risk drinking and not having his head clear. In one sense, there is a certain coolness to a character who drinks; but in another way to look at it, the best villain, the toughest, is not one who is wild and lets his desires get the better of him, but one who is cool and in control. Similarly, there are movies where the protagonist gets the babes, and then you have movies like the Dollar films where the protagonist doesn't touch a babe - he is too careful to be distracted from doing what is necessary to get what is important - a fistful of dollars.

Just pointing out the two different approaches to showing a villain's toughness: Indulging his desires or controlling them. Not that either one is necessarily better. Just two different approaches. With Leone, we know that his  characters drink (although TMWNN less than others) but do not waste their time with women. At least in the Dollars films, which is Leone-created original characters; it isn't until OUATITW - Leone's homage to the AW, with characters inspired from the AW - that his characters show an interest in a woman.

[drinkanddestroy]

Not sure if this was ever mentioned, but perhaps Cheyenne's line at the end, asking Harmonica to go away and not watch him die, is a reference to Doc Holliday's (also played by Jason Robards) line at the end of Hour of the Gun: When Wyatt Earp (James Garner) visits Doc at the sanitarium, Doc says, "Do me a favor, will you get out of here? Come on, don't hang around."

[dave jenkins]

Frayling, in his recent talk in Bologna, says that he has identified 35 references to other westerns in OUATITW. I wonder what those additional 5 might be . . . .

[drinkanddestroy]

from Frayling's book "Once Upon a Time in Italy: The Westerns of Sergio Leone," (2005) here are the movies he says are referenced on OUATITW, following conversations he had with Leone, Bertolucci, Argento and Donati. "Some citations they could remember clearly; some they were no longer certain about."

ACE IN THE HOLE (not a Western)
THE BRAVADOS
CIMARRON (1960)
COMANCHE STATION
THE COMANCHEROS
DODGE CITY
DUEL IN THE SUN
THE FAR COUNTRY
FAREWELL, MY LOVELY (not a Western)
THE FASTEST GUN ALIVE
THE FURIES
HIGH NOON
HOW THE WEST WAS WON
HUD
THE IRON HORSE
JOHNNY GUITAR
JUBAL
THE LAST SUNSET
LAST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
MAN OF THE WEST
THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE
MAN WITHOUT A STAR
MY DARLING CLEMENTINE
NIGHT PASSAGE
NORTH BY NORTHWEST (not a Western)
PURSUED
RANCHO NOTORIOUS
RIDE LONESOME
RIO BRAVO
RIVER OF NO RETURN
THE RETURN OF FRANK JAMES
RUN OF THE ARROW
THE SEARCHERS
SERGEANT RUTLEDGE
SHANE
THE TALL T
3:10 TO YUMA
TRIBUTE TO A BAD MAN
TWO RODE TOGETHER
UNION PACIFIC
THE VIOLENT MEN
WAGON MASTER
WARLOCK
WESTERN UNION
WINCHESTER '73


That's over 45 movies (minus the 3 non-Westerns, still over 40 Westerns). In some cases the reference is general, to several films, not just one.

For example, the fact that Morton is disabled, says Frayling, is influenced by "a succession of wheelchair-confined – and tyrannical – patriarchs, who try to run their landholdings with a rod of iron. Among the most memorable are ..." and Frayling goes on to list DUEL IN THE SUN, THE FURIES, and THE VIOLENT MEN. "The closest to Morton is edward G. Robinson in THE VIOLENT MEN." Would you count that as 4 references (or more?) or just one?

Similarly, when Cheyenne tells Jill, "You make good coffee," Frayling says: "Gags about making coffee around the campfire abound in the 1950's Western," including THE TALL T and TWO RODE TOGETHER. "But the actual line seems to come from the film noir FAREWELL MY LOVELY." Would you count that as 3 (or more?) references, or just one?

Final example: When Frank says, "Nothing matters now ... I came here to see you," Frayling says that influences – regarding a man on a mission from which nothing can stop him – include the Ranown Westerns, especially THE TALL T, RIDE LONESOME, and COMANCHE STATION, as well as MAN OF THE WEST. Would you count that as 4 or more?


And of course, many of the films listed above have more than one reference in OUATITW.


Regarding DJ's question of 30 vs. 35: It's entirely possible that neither number is too specific, but just a rounded/general figure. The quote from Frayling that DJ wrote in the first post in this thread (which I assume is from STDWD) is that Frayling said there were "about 30" references. "About 30" is not all that much different from "35."

Of course, as DJ says, it's also possible that in the time since Frayling wrote these books, he discovered more, or fans may have pointed out more to him.

If n_l is going to ask him about this, I think this is the way the question should be worded: "In 'OUAT in Italy,' you list more than 40 references to Hollywood Westerns that are in OUATITW. In the years since that book was published, have you discovered any more?" Perhaps you can gather the references mentioned in this thread (wanna read through 13 pages? ) that are not mentioned in OUAT in Italy and ask him what he thinks of them

[stanton]

This is all so arbitrary, I wonder why he wasn't able to find more than 100 films ...

... just like he did not found any of the "shooter and shootee in one frame" kind of scenes.

[drinkanddestroy]

This is all so arbitrary, I wonder why he wasn't able to find more than 100 films ...

... just like he did not found any of the "shooter and shootee in one frame" kind of scenes.

I only mentioned those examples of what you are calling "arbitrary." There are numerous specific examples. You have to check the book. I can't write it all up.