Once Upon A Time In The West Still Has The Greatest Villain Introduction In Western History
Once Upon a Time in the West is not only the greatest Western ever made, it has one of the best villain introductions to boot. Following Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy, the Italian auteur set out to make the ultimate Spaghetti Western epic. While he very much wanted his Dollars leading man to return, Clint Eastwood passed on Once Upon a Time in the West, having become jaded with Leone’s time-consuming style of filmmaking.
While Eastwood has no regrets about turning the Sergio Leone movie down, he undeniably passed on what many have argued is the best Western ever produced. Even 60 years on, it is a triumph in every department, from the performances to the music, production design, screenplay, and so on. It is a film every “Oater” fan must see at least once, and its influence on subsequent Westerns is clear to see.
Once Upon a Time in the West’s introduction is a perfect mini-Western in itself, where audiences meet Charles Bronson’s mysterious “Harmonica” as he faces off with three assassins. Leone also gives the movie’s villain, Frank (Henry Fonda), an all-timer of an entrance, where he and his men mercilessly slaughter an innocent family.
Frank Is Immediately A Brutal Villain In Once Upon A Time In The West
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For context, Frank is a gunfighter hired to scare the McBains off their land, which a railroad tycoon wants for himself. Frank takes a blunter approach, wiping out the McBains and blaming the massacre on the infamous bandit, Cheyenne (Jason Robards). Killing innocent men and women should be enough to establish the type of man Frank is – but Leone really underscores his lack of morals when the youngest McBain boy comes across the bodies of his family.
Leone lingers on Frank’s smirking face as he and the boy stare at one another, before he finally draws his revolver and shoots the child; mercifully, Leone doesn’t show the kill shot onscreen. Six decades on, this Once Upon a Time in the West scene is shocking, and even modern films tend to shy away from children being killed.
After Clint Eastwood passed on the lead in Once Upon a Time in the West, Sergio Leone offered him a cameo as one of the assassins in the prologue, alongside his The Good, the Bad and the Ugly co-stars Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach; after Eastwood rejected this, the concept was scrapped.
While the Frank character bears some relation to Lee Van Cleef’s Angel Eyes in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, he is still the most evil character ever depicted in a Leone Western. There is a calmness to Fonda’s performance that makes Frank deeply eerie, and his smirking amusement while committing violent acts only enhances how unsettling he is.
Once Upon A Time In The West Quickly Subverts Henry Fonda’s Star Image
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Leone very much wanted Fonda for Once Upon a Time in the West, even after the star turned it down. Henry Fonda was an actor defined – even typecast – as playing moral, upstanding man, thanks to films like The Grapes of Wrath or as Wyatt Earp in classic Western My Darling Clementine. Having read the screenplay, Fonda was turned off by the idea of playing the type of character who is introduced wiping out a family, and felt audiences would reject him in the part.
It was a meeting with Leone that helped change the actor’s mind. The director pitched him on the scene where he kills the young McBain boy, with the camera panning up to see the wholesome, blue-eyed Fonda as the one who pulled the trigger. Leone wanted Fonda for that very reason, knowing it would be unsettling for audiences worldwide to see a screen idol committing such a vicious deed.
Fonda played few antagonists throughout his long career, which makes his turn in Once Upon a Time in the West all the more effective. The film does hint that Frank has some humanity, as he only shoots the McBain boy after one of his men accidentally reveals his name. Perhaps he wouldn’t have pulled the trigger otherwise – though audiences will never know for sure.
Frank’s Introduction Makes His Ending Even Sweeter
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Once Upon a Time in the West is all about the gradual, inevitable end of the Old West, and the march into the modern world; the railroad itself acts as a constant visual metaphor for this. Frank himself becomes aware he has no real place in the world that’s coming, but the film also suggests that the weight of his own sins will eventually be his undoing.
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That’s the case with Once Upon a Time in the West’s operatic finale, where Bronson’s Harmonica finally reveals who he is to Fonda’s mercenary. Decades earlier, Frank hung Harmonica’s brother by the neck, forcing the teen boy to keep his sibling from hanging by balancing him on his shoulders. Inevitably, Harmonica collapsed from exhaustion, leading to his brother’s death.
Again, this underlines Frank’s total lack of a conscience, but after so many years of getting away with taking innocent lives, he is finally confronted by a superior gunfighter. Harmonica easily wins their duel, with the dying Frank having just enough time to consider the choices that led to the bullet that killed him.
Frank Remains One Of The Best Villains In Western Movie History
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They say a movie’s hero is only as good as the villain, and Once Upon a Time in the West’s Frank ranks amongst the best. The character is a grinning void of a human being, who only seems to derive pleasure from inflicting pain or killing. To Fonda’s credit, he commits fully to the part and appears to be having a blast playing a character who is the polar opposite of his typical screen image.
The Western genre has so many great villains, from Jack Palance’s merciless gunslinger in Shane to Gene Hackman’s egotistical bully “Little” Bill in Unforgiven. Even amongst such distinguished company, Henry Fonda’s Frank stands out. It might be the greatest instance of an actor breaking bad in screen history, yet for all the character’s vile deeds, Fonda never hams it up or makes Frank into a caricature.
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He is simply a killer at peace with who he is, and is untouched by his lack of conscience. Once Upon a Time in the West makes Frank into a symbol of the amoral lawlessness that used to rule in the Old West, but with the character’s demise, there is the suggestion that progress can finally be made.
In a sense, Leone gifted Fonda both the best intro of his career, followed by his best death scene. Again, Once Upon a Time in the West is about as perfect as a Western could be, and there is a good reason both the film and Fonda’s against type performance continues to draw kudos.
Once Upon a Time in the West
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