Why a 1968 Western caused a fashion crisis on Parisian department store escalators
In short: Sergio Leone’s epic Once Upon a Time in the West was a massive hit in Europe, sparking a trend for duster coats so popular that Parisian escalators required warning signs. While the film became a legendary masterpiece, its American release was a truncated, poorly received flop that cut crucial character scenes.
After completing his Dollars Trilogy, Sergio Leone initially intended to retire from the Western genre. However, an offer from Paramount Pictures providing a generous budget and the chance to work with his favorite actor, Henry Fonda, changed his mind. Leone recruited writers Dario Argento and Bernardo Bertolucci to craft a story built from references to classic American Westerns like The Searchers and High Noon.
The resulting film, released in 1968, marked a shift in Leone's style. Moving away from the up-tempo, tongue-in-cheek nature of his earlier work, he embraced a somber, slow-paced aesthetic. He prioritized the rituals preceding violence over the action itself, often using natural sounds—like cicadas or a turning wheel—rather than music to build tension. Ennio Morricone’s iconic score, which included specific leitmotifs for each character, was composed before filming began and played on set to guide the actors.
The film's reception was sharply divided by geography. In France, it saw 14.8 million admissions, and in Germany, 13 million. The American release, however, was edited down from 165 minutes to 140 minutes by Paramount. This version excised key plot points, including the deaths of major characters, leading to a financial failure. It was not until a 1984 re-release that the original, intended length was restored to English-speaking audiences.
Today, the film is celebrated as one of the greatest in history and is preserved in the US National Film Registry. Its legacy remains tied to its unique, deliberate pacing and its subversion of Western tropes. Even the casting of Henry Fonda as a villain was a calculated move to break his established image, a decision Leone insisted upon despite Fonda's initial attempts to add cliché villainous traits like a mustache.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Once Upon a Time in the West
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