First, I have a confession to make. This is the first Sergei Leone film I have ever seen (unless you count catching part of his 1984 gangster flick on TV one time). The film takes its time getting to know the people, and it takes just about that long to figure out just what is going on. But once everything is said and done, this is one heck of an epic western. Henry Fonda stars in a rare turn as Frank, a villain so charming one could almost forget he's a cold-hearted killer. He works for a railroad baron doing his dirty work, but he's starting to move up in the world, much to the chagrin of his employer, Mr. Morton. Frank is responsible for the massacre of an Irish landholder and his family, shortly before the man's new wife, Claudia Cardinale, arrives from New Orleans. The murder was set up to look like Cheyenne, (a wise-cracking Jason Robards) a notorious outlaw, is responsible. In another story thread, a mysterious stranger who plays a harmonica (Charles Bronson) is after Frank in a revenge plot that is not revealed until the end. Harmonica and Cheyenne end up teaming together, because each of them has there own reason to want Frank or Morton dead, be it an old score or protecting a reputation.
Halfway through the movie, The Widow McBain (Cardinale) loses my sympathy. She's a whore from New Orleans, and as is revealed with Frank, one willing to do anything to survive. Bronson plays an average Bronson role, while Jason Robards nearly steals the show as an outlaw who shoots his mouth off more than his gun. Fonda injects his character with a kind of sympathetic psychosis, so that while he understands guns better than he understands money, and uses them to cause great damage, he ends up not much worse than Bronson or Robards.
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