Variety
By Tim Gray
January 4, 2019
Sergio Leone was born Jan. 3, 1929; he would have been 90
this week. Though he directed only seven films, their impact has been wide and
long-lasting, including making Clint Eastwood a star.
On Oct. 11, 1967, Variety carried a guest column by Lee
Van Cleef shortly before the U.S. bow of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” The
actor countered criticism that Leone’s films are too violent: “What could have
more violent sequences than the Bible?” he wrote. Van Cleef added that the
films were authentic and heavily researched, saying that on the set the
filmmaker “carried a small library of well-illustrated American books devoted
to American history of those times.”
In that same issue, Leone said he didn’t invent Westerns
all’Italiana. There were two dozen before the 1964 “Fistful of Dollars.” But
the film was such a hit, he said, it inspired more than 200 spaghetti Westerns
in the following two years, half of them with “dollars” in the title.
In those two years, the Italian film industry was
revived, with the two films earning $1.6 billion in Italy.
Leone — the son of director Roberto Roberti (aka Vincenzo
Leone) — started as a script clerk at age 17, and earned dozens of screen
credits as an assistant director. He made his directing debut when Mario
Bonnard exited the 1959 Steve Reeves vehicle “The Last Days of Pompeii”; movie
lore has debated whether Bonnard left for another commitment or whether it was
due to illness.
Leone directed another spear-and-sandal movie, “The
Colossus of Rhodes,” then made his turning point, the Italian-Spanish-German
Clint Eastwood-starring “Fistful,” which owed a great debt to Akira Kurosawa’s
“Yojimbo.”
“Fistful” was made for $100,000 and earned $4.6 million
in Italy alone, with box office growing for each new Leone western, with their
trademark use of tight closeups and memorable music by Ennio Morricone.
As a boy, Leone loved American westerns but felt they
presented an overly romanticized view of the Golden West. As Variety’s Hank
Werba wrote in 1968, “To Leone, the westerner was a predatory creature at every
level. There were no clear ethical or moral reference lines. The plainsman
acted and reacted violently, generally motivated by such basics as greed,
revenge or self-survival. It represented a complete switch from the law-virtue
syndrome of the past.”
However, Leone promised to Werba that his upcoming “Once
Upon a Time in the West” would have a different slant: “Ruthlessness will be
counterbalanced by such pioneer qualities as instinctive honesty and empathy.”
It was planned as his last Western, on a $5 million budget.
“Once Upon a Time” features a screenplay by Sergio Donati
and Leone, from a story by three of the Italian industry’s biggest names:
Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento.
Henry Fonda originally turned down the film after he read
a badly translated script. Then he phoned Eli Wallach, who said, “Take it!”
Wallach, who’d starred in “Ugly,” added that working with Leone was an
experience no actor should miss.
Fonda screened “For a Few Dollars More” and “The Good,
the Bad and the Ugly” and told Leone: “I am your boy. Where do you want me?
Make a mark and I will stand there.” After months of shooting, Fonda said,
“He’s one of the great directors in the business, and I’ve seen quite a few in
my 33 years.”
Leone’s final film was “Once Upon a Time in America” in
1984, five years before his death at age 60.
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