Cattle Corner

[Stern]

I am looking for someone who ever found out why in "Once upon a time in the West" the station at the beginning is called Cattle Corner?

[Dust Devil]

Because it's the corner where they usually assemble the cattle as soon as the train arrives?

I'm just joking, never mind, welcome.

[cigar joe]

Well I'll venture a guess:

The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is a method used in the United States to survey and identify land parcels, particularly for titles and deeds of rural, wild or undeveloped land. Its basic units of area are the township and section. It is sometimes referred to as the rectangular survey system. The system was created by the Land Ordinance of 1785. It has been expanded and slightly modified by Letters of Instruction and Manuals of Instruction, issued by the General Land Office and the Bureau of Land Management and continues in use in most of the states west of Pennsylvania, south to Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, west to the Pacific Ocean, and North into the Arctic in Alaska. It replaced the meets & bounds type surveys that produced irregular parcels with tedious descriptions.

A territory was first demarcated by baselines North-South/East West and then broken into one square mile sections at each corner of the square mile section there was a "Section Corner" stone placed, if a railroad stock yard happened to be located near a section corner it could very well come to be know as "Cattle Corner".

[dave jenkins]

Joe, you are invaluable. We're so lucky to have you on the board!

[Dust Devil]

So I was right?

[Stern]

Hallo,

Dave thank you for my first reply and Joe for your scientific explanation.
I am writing on a an article about that movie and wanted to see whether my ideas were already developed earlier. By the way Dave, there are for names of Harmonica in the film:
Dave Jenkins
Calder Benson
Jim Cooper
Chuck Youngblood

Why do you like the first most? Knows anyone from who they come from?

[Dust Devil]

Dave thank you for my first reply...

lol, please, tell me you did not mistake me for dave jenkins?


(Please?)

[cigar joe]

lol, we'll let Dave take over, and yes essentially you guessed it right DD.

[dave jenkins]

Why do you like the first most? Knows anyone from who they come from?

It's been so long now, I don't rightly remember why I chose that one. Probably just because it was first on the list.

[Stern]

Hallo Dave,

Please remember, that Frank is wrong. He is wrong with Dave Jenkins and with everything. He is unable to find out what is going on in the Flagstone Scene, where his man try to kill him (in contradiction to Harmonica, who knows very well what is going on, look at the different play of the two artists). He is unable to find out, what the matter is with Harmonica and continues to question him the whole film. And the content of the end is, that he is completely unable to understand what happens to him at the end. In my view is Frank a man who do not understand the important things around him. So if Harmonica coud be Dave Jenkins, so it can not be a problem to you.

[dave jenkins]

I don't think Harmonica was telling Frank that he was literally Dave Jenkins, but that he was acting on Dave's behalf (and the behalf of all of Frank's other victims, especially Harmonica's brother). It was just a clever way of sending Frank a message.

I DO think Frank finally understands at the end: Harmonica and he share the final flashback, and the significance of the harmonica in his mouth is not lost on him. He understands, but only at the point of dying.

[Stern]

Hallo Dave,

This is an interesting point, because it coud be very well in the way you describe it: Frank understands but only at the end. He finds out and remebers, that they met already and that Harmonica come back for the revanche. Then he has to understand that he is this time - and finally - loosing. But please allow me to stick (as Joe in For a Fistfull of Dollars to his 45) to my version: Franks problem is, who is Harmonica, that means who is that guy, who winns again him. How can it be, that anyone is better then he. That is the one main point of the film: who is Harmonica. There are more then one interpretations. He coud be the good guy, who winns at the end, the classsic schema of a western. But Harmonica disappears after that. I think this was also the problem of Leone, he wanted to introduce someone who winns at the end again the bad, but he give for this person possibilities for different interpretations. And maybe he gives finally no explanation. You can endless wonder about the question: who is Harmonica.

[moviesceleton]

I think general opinion supports Dave's interpretation.

[Stern]

Dear Bounty,

You are right and I have no doubt that this is the general opinion. But this is a movie and in oposite to a scientific statement there are possibilities for more then one interpretation. There coud be differences between the opinion of the viewer and of the regisseur. The end is a happy end, bad guy Frank is dead, but is this also the opinion of Leone? If you take a close look to the end you might find, that Leone implemented a lot of detaills stating the opposite. To the viewer there is a happy end, to Leone not.

[Dust Devil]

I think general opinion supports Dave's interpretation.

 

Dear Bounty