I had seen many scenes from this before, but I hadn’t ever sat through the whole thing. While being an epic film, this is just so restrained. Everything takes it’s times. Scenes take 10-15 minutes to finish which helps add up to the 2 hour 40 minute runtime. Every one of the lead actors are fantastic. I’m so happy Claudia Cardinale got billed above Charles Bronson and Henry Fonda, because she deserves it. Controversially, I think this is a better Morricone score than THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY. I’ll admit that is more iconic, but all of the harmonica cues are so tense and beautiful. Everything sounds like a creaky barn door moving back and forth. The train scene is so great, complete with the gun in the shoe. It’s also such a weird pairing of writers (Sergio Donati, Sergio Leone, Dario Argento, and Bernardo Bertolucci), but in another sense it just works so well.
