C'era una Volta il West ... 'Different versions'-question

DVD, BluRay & VOD
1

Hi folks!
How many different versions of Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West has been released on DVD?
The reason for asking is because I’ve noticed that the Italian Mondo Home Entertainment DVD-Libro-release runs 160:43, while the Danish- and the German-release runs 158:33 and the Italian CVC re-release runs 170:04…
Can anyone explain the 2:10’s difference between the Danish/German-release and the Italian ‘Libro’-release?

158:33 R2 PAL:

160:43 R2 PAL

170:04 R2 PAL

/D

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Welcome to the forum Diabolik, nice website! I don’t know anything about aspect ratios though :-[…

3

We have been discussing the different versions (or better : cuts) of the movie, on the film’s thread
These links will lead you to all useful info:

[quote=“scherpschutter, post:106, topic:322”]Here you can check what is exactly in the Italian edit:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/dvdcompare/onceuponatimeinthewest.htm

It’s true that the image is a bit softer on the Italian CVC, but the sound, on the other hand, is better (this is not mentioned by the guys from DVDBeaver): especially Morricone’s score sounds stronger and more dynamic.

Personally I prefer the shorter international (MGM) edit
Recently Mondo Home has released two new Italian DVDs (one Blu-ray) : those are the shorter international versions. I haven’t seen them, but an Italian friend told me to stick to my CVC disc[/quote]

Stanton has written out some of the info you were linked to (and gives an additional link):

[quote=“Stanton, post:109, topic:322”]The additional footage as listed via Scherpschutter’s link:

Waiting for the train:

  • Little bit more dialogue (in Italian) from Station Agent to Elam before he’s locked up.
  • More Murdock shots with the birdcage.
  • More Strode with hat filling up
  • Elam sitting playing with fly seemed same as always.
  • More Murdock cracking fingers (close-up)

When train arrives/three gunmen walk together:

  • Tracking Elam P.O.V. shot inspecting down the length of the train while he taps his fingers on his side holster, right before he signals his men to turn away and leave.

Harmonica ‘rising from the dead’ after getting shot is included.

The McBain killings seem the same.

When Jill’s train arrives:

  • Longer tracking shot of train passengers leaving and passing cases and bags out the windows until the camera stops and we see Jill’s head pop out of the doorway.

Cheyenne’s first appearance:

  • More reaction shots (2 or 3) of people looking at him while he walks in looking at them after the gunfire outside.
  • Shot of Cheyenne looking over at Jill and the wagon driver after taking a drink revealing his handcuffs, he starts to take a second drink and the harmonica is heard.
  • 1 shot of Cheyene looking straight at Harmonica after he’s revealed, before he walks up to him.
  • More reaction shots from people when Cheyenne forces the man to shoot his cuffs off.
  • 1 shot of Cheyenne’s gang stepping in further.

When Jill and Wagon Driver come up on the slain McBains.

  • 1 shot of Wagon Driver looking confused along with Jill as they encounter the group at the McBain homestead.

Washing Station:

  • When Cheyenne sees that Harmonica is now protecting Jill from the hills with his men his music extends into the following scene where Wobbles is in the wash station and ends when Jill opens the door to confront him about Frank.
  • 1 shot of Harmonica watching Woobles walk out of the wash station while Wobbles looks back to see where Jill went right after Jill walks passed Harmonica.

Wooble’s Death:

  • When he’s kicked out of the train by Frank quiet music begins to play and when he sees Cheyenne under the train a guitar plucks the notes of his ‘theme’

Cheyenne’s train surprise attack:

  • Morton noticing the metal Jester chess piece of his desk shaking from the train’s movement, it falls over and he quickly grabs it upright so as not to wake Frank’s men.

Jill and Harmonica at the bar:

  • When Frank enters his music ends before he sits down and taps his heel down, the music ends right when he taps it down in the International Cut.

Harmonica waits for Frank:

  • 1 more shot of the railroad workers placing logs down
  • When Harmonica sees Cheyenne approach he twists his gun on the pole towards the camera.

The Duel:

  • When we see the young Frank walking towards the camera we can much clearly see who it is from the beginning, instead of him being darkened until he gets right up on the camera.
  • A jarring cut in the music as Frank is looking at the young Harmonica
  • When Frank is stumbling forward from being shot with the blue sky above him, the broken harmonica ‘Death Rattle’ plays throughout, instead of just when the harmonica is placed in his mouth and falling over stone dead.

I’ve viewed the International Cut numerous times and the extensions/alternations stuck out with a sore thumb. These aren’t all of them but the more glaring examples just to give you and if you include it in comparsion your visitors a good idea about just how much is included.

I haven’t compared it with the above mentioned detailed and illustrated Schnittberichte.com link, but you could do:
Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod - Schnittbericht: Intern. DVD-Fassung (Schnittberichte.com)

Judging to the screenshots, the Paramount version looks much better.[/quote]

1 Like
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There are basically 2 versions.

  1. The theatrical version with a runtime of 165 min (158 min on a Pal DVD). I still think this is the director’s cut, the cut which was approved by Leone. I have seen it a dozen times at cinema, but in exactly this version it was never released on DVD.

  2. A longer cut of 177 min (170 Pal) which was released on DVD in Italy only and was at first restored or compiled or whatever in the early 90s. I’m still not sure where this long version was “found” and what Leone had to do with it.

The Paramount DVD is basically #1 with a superfluous extra scene showing Harmonica nursing his wounds on the railway station. Basically cause it was compiled from the English master which suffers from several minor cuts. There is about 1 min missing alone in the first 13 min just before the Harmonica nursing scene.

The 2nd Italian DVD (160 min Pal) is also #1, but now here is also the nursing scene included (which damages the film a bit imo, but only a very small bit).

So these 2 DVDs should have the same length, but haven’t, cause of the slightly different English master, and it seems that the differences are summing up to over 2 min.

It seems we will never again get rid of this stupid nursing scene.

1 Like
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Thanks for clearing this out… I knew that you lot were the right ones to ask!!! :wink:
/D

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Diabolik, could you check how long the first scene is on the Mondo Home DVD up to the nursing scene?

Paramount: 12’14 min (without the Paramount logo)

CVC long version: 13’59 min

That’s a 1’45 difference.

And which runtime had your old Danish VHS. Was the nursing scene in it?

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No Paramount logo in the MHE-release… After 12’32 mins. it cuts from Woody Strode hitting the deck to close-up on windmill
Difference MHE- and CVC-release: 1’27 mins.

Danish ex-rental (without including the Paramount logo)… 155’21 mins + 0’44 secs (only black screen and music) = 156’05 mins.
If you by ‘nursing scene’ means the scene where Bronson wakes up after the shootout and uses the jacket as a sling for supporting his arm, then yes, it’s also in the danish vhs release!
/D

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Tsk, then things are more complicated than I thought, as there are much more deviating versions around.

In my copy (taped from TV) of the German theatrical version the 1st scene lasts for 13’20 min. 26 sec shorter than the CVC and 66 sec longer than the Paramount. And obviously also different from the MHE.

What the hell …

Anyway it’s a masterpiece in any of all these versions.

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We’ll have to dig this all up as Paramount is touching this movie again for a 4K release next year… Let’s assume some sense could be talked into Paramount, what would be the “wish list” with which we would send them into the Leone vault?

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Hmm, this is a thread I completely have forgotten about. I have written so many things in this forum here, and unfortunately it seems a lot of it has slipped my mind totally …

Anyway, the Paramount master has 3 problems:

  1. The film’s first long scene, the montage of the 3 men waiting at the railway station, misses about 70 sec of footage

  2. The scene which is called here the nursing scene, and was otherwise often called the rising scene, should be completely removed

  3. The closing music, which is called Finale on the soundtrack, is cut off and replaced by the Cheyenne theme, but it should run through.until the film ends.

Well and there is a cut coming half a sec too early, as the guys from Schnittberichte.com also spotted. most likely just a short damage to the master. When you know about it, you see that the cut comes too early, otherwise most will not recognize it.

Checking dvdbeaver the wrong closing music was maybe fixed on newer Blus: Once Upon a Time in the West Blu-ray - Henry Fonda

But I can’t check that as I stayed with my DVD from 2005.

There was once a comprehensive article in Video Watchdog, which gave a detailed overview how 5 different versions were compiled and released between 1969 and 1984, the year Paramount created a new master, from which all home video releases were derived since then, at first only for the English speaking market, and since digital versions in the 90s became the norm, also for the rest of the world, except Italy. And what most people do not know, the first version was the same uncut version which was shown in Europe, at least in Italy, France and Germany (but not in the UK).

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it will be time to dig this thread back up soon, once we can lay our hands on the new 4K disc and check its merits

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Someone send this thread to Paramount, before it’s too late…

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it probably is…

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Cool, can’t wait to see the “Paramount edit” repackaged.
I give Kino credit for finally listening to the fans and collaborating to fix their GBU blu-ray.

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We’ll probably just get the 2011 “extended cut” that’s already been on BluRay and won’t make people happy, does it also have the wrong closing credits music I presume?

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I have the longer Italian DVD version. I am pretty certain that had the ‘rising’ scene in also.i could check.

IIRC the 10m odd of extra footage is all small extensions to existing scenes and contains no dialogue. To be honest I thought it was a ‘near-final’ edit as in a few of the scenes the editing is less good than in the international cut. For example, the scene in which it is revealed that Cheyenne is wearing handcuffs is much more effective in the international cut. I can’t remember how the end credits play out.

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I also think it feels like a version for which the last step of fine cutting wasn’t done yet.

The Rising scene is indeed in it. Unfortunately …

There was one short new dialogue in the scene in which CC sits in the bath tub. This scene is a little bit different, there were some alternative shots in this scene, and in one of them was at least one new line from Bronson. (at 2:00:10)

There is also one short scene near the end missing in this long version. (at 2:30:15)

18

Thanks

I checked the Italian censor site and they passed a version running 4969m in December 1968 without cuts which ran 177m30s approx when you translate.

Which I think means that’s the version on the Italian DVD ‘rising’ scene and all.

I don’t know what the original source is for the idea that the ‘rising’ scene was added only for the international print but I suspect it is Chris Frayling’s error-ridden appendix in his Spaghetti Westerns book. Frayling claims the Italian version was 168m which is nine minutes less than the censor sign off. Don’t know his source for this.

I suspect the ‘rising’ scene was always in the Italian version.

It may have been cut, along with other material, from other European versions.

I hadn’t realised that the Italian Blu Ray was now the International Cut. I will hold onto my copy of the Italian DVD - hopefully it will rise exponentially in value and fund my retirement.

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No, Italians, who had watched OuTW in the 60s, told me that they never had seen this Rising scene before the 90s, before that long version was shown the first time.

These censorship runtimes differ pretty often from the released versions, or at least the versions we consider nowadays as uncut.

As far as I know all theatrical versions in Italy, Germany, Germany, France and also for some weeks in the USA were the same.
Which means 168 min for the Italian version is right, which includes 3 min of exit music. Without that it’s 165 min, the real theatrical runtime. 13 min less than the long version.

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So the 177m version is an earlier cut then before the final editing. Possibly to get the censor rating before last tweaks were done. UK films were usually sent to the BBFC on that basis.

And was its release on DVD in Italy simply a mistake? Wrong print pulled off the shelf by the bloke in the storeroom? It has happened before. Most famous example is a horror film, Night of the Demon (1957), when an extended version seem to have been released inadvertently

Is there an equivalent to the MFB in Italy to check actual theatrical running times?