Once Upon a Time in the West

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

40 mistakes - chronological order

(7 votes)

Continuity mistake: When Frank's henchmen wait for Harmonica at the train station it's very windy. For example, you see the wires of the telegraph machine moving, and a string that's dangling in the window behind it is swaying wildly. Only in two shots, when the station agent gets locked up, the wires and the string are absolutely still, to start moving as before in the next shot. Desert wind wouldn't stop completely just for a few seconds. (00:02:40)

NancyFelix

Revealing mistake: Jack Elam gets bothered by a fly crawling over his face (nice stunt, actually). When the fly moves over the bench, just before he catches it with the muzzle of his gun, look at the hind legs. You'll notice that the fly is dead. (00:07:50)

NancyFelix

Audio problem: In the last shot of the shoot-out scene at the station, we see Harmonica's carrier bag in the extreme foreground, and windmill in the extreme background. The windmill has stopped, but you still hear the wind blowing, and a few seconds before you have heard the squeaking pump. (00:13:50)

Continuity mistake: Jill's arrival by train is quite badly edited: When she gets off, two porters carry her luggage to the station building. She looks at the station clock which shows 7:55, then down at her watch wich shows 10:10. This may indicate how the time has passed, but it looks strange. In the last shot her luggage is back at the tracks, and the porters pick it up again. (00:26:15)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: After Jill's arrival at the train station she leaves by cart. The way the luggage is piled on back changes totally when they go through Monument Valley. There are reasons to believe that it's a different cart as also the horses seem to change (check the mane which changes colors and sometimes falls to the left, sometimes to the right). (00:29:00)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: On the way to Sweetwater the cart goes through Monument Valley. There, the very long shadows of the cart and the rocks don't match the time Jill has left the station (some time after 10). A bit later, when they pass the construction site, the shadows are short and more fitting for the time of the day again. (00:29:00)

NancyFelix

Revealing mistake: When Jill get's off the cart at the post station look how the light falls on the cart with the luggage and the rock in the background. It obviously comes from opposite directions. (00:31:05)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: The whole scene in the post station takes about 12 minutes. During this time the bartender finishes his cigar almost completely, a task that takes at least 45 minutes if you smoke fast. In the very last shot the cigar is again much longer but half hidden in the hand, apparently to make it look shorter. (00:32:20 - 00:44:00)

NancyFelix

Factual error: It seems unlikely that the bullet hole in Harmonica's jacket should have burned edges - he was shot at a distance of more than ten metres. (00:36:35)

Character mistake: In the saloon on the way to Sweetwater, where Harmonica meets Cheyenne and his gang for the first time, Harmonica grabs one of the men's coats and looks at it, saying "I saw three of these dusters a short time ago. Inside the dusters there were three men. Inside the men there were three bullets." Actually, while the movie starts off with the three men at the train station wearing dusters, in the shootout scene, the black cowboy is no longer wearing a duster. Harmonica would have only seen two dusters. (00:41:50)

Steve Beckle

Continuity mistake: When Harmonica tells Cheyenne about the three men he killed at the train station, he is sipping from a cup. He is holding the cup in both hands with his fingertips touching, but in the last shot he is holding the cup by the handle. It's theoretically possible but looks wrong. (00:42:10)

NancyFelix

Other mistake: At the end of the post station scene Cheyenne says to Harmonica: "Cheyenne's men don't get killed". The subtitles read "Cheyenne's, man, don't get killed", whatever that is supposed to mean. (00:42:30)

NancyFelix

Factual error: At the end of the post station scene Cheyenne advises Harmonica to "watch those false notes". Harmonica anwers this with a discordant chord that could not be produced on a harmonica like his. (00:43:35)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: When Jill arrives at the McBain killing scene a close-up shows her looking in shock at the corpses. There are long, untidy strands of hair hanging down from both temples. When she gets off the cart, only the hair on the right side is loose. (00:45:20)

NancyFelix

Plot hole: On her first night alone on the McBain farm, Jill hears someone playing a harmonica out there in the dark. She blows out a candle (but there is still plenty of light in the room), grabs a gun, positions herself at the brightly lit window, and shoots when the sees tha harmonica player lighting a match. This behavior is way too foolish for a women depicted as street-smart as Jill. (00:55:30)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: When Jill attempts to leave Sweetwater for the first time her hair is combed out of her forehead, enhancing its striking beauty. When she opens the door, only to face Cheyenne and his men, the wind blows her hair even further back, but when the camera cuts to outside the wind is coming from behind, blowing her hair over her face. (00:57:50)

NancyFelix

Revealing mistake: When Jill offers herself to Cheyenne she puts down the kettle on the table so hard that the lid falls off. If you look closely (slow motion helps) you see the lid dangling by the knob between her fingers before she puts the kettle down. (01:03:10)

NancyFelix

Revealing mistake: In the morning after Cheyenne's visit Jill attempts to leave Sweetwater for the second time. She carries a lot of luggage to the stable, and it's very obvious that it's all empty. (01:11:30)

NancyFelix

Other mistake: When Jill tries to leave Sweetwater in the morning after Cheyenne's visit, she runs into Harmonica. He has a very nasty, coarsely stitched injury in his cheek that is not accounted for, and for which there was no time to be received, stitched, and the stitches removed again. (Special Edition DVD has a deleted scene in which Harmonica is beaten up, which explains the injury, but it is a continuity mistake within the regular movie.) (01:12:25)

NancyFelix

Frank: What do you want? Who are ya?
Harmonica: Dave Jenkins.
Frank: Dave Jenkins is dead a long time ago.
Harmonica: Calder Benson.
Frank: What's your name? Benson's dead, too.
Harmonica: You ought to know, Frank, better than anyone. You killed 'em.

More quotes from Once Upon a Time in the West

Trivia: While Morton's private train plays a key role in the movie, and the train moves several times, the train's engineer and fireman are never shown, nor is any reference ever made to them.

More trivia for Once Upon a Time in the West

Question: There's a few things I didn't understand in this film: 1) What's the deal with Jill? Did she really love Mr. McBain or did she just marry for money etc? 2) After she sees the McBain's bodies, why does Jill search the house? Is she checking to see whether anything was stolen? 3) When Jill meets Harmonica in the barn, why does he rip her dress? 4) What's whole thing with Jill and Frank near the end? What exactly happens?

Answer: 1) Jill is a prostitute from New Orleans. She seeks out a new life out West. Love is irrelevant here. 2) She was promised a country living, a family, and wealth. That's why she is looking not only for money or gold but also for the reason her family was killed. 3) So Leone can show her beautiful body. 4) She's saving her life. She's a prostitute and I guess she knows how to fake it. Remember: "There's nothing that can't washed off by a hot bath".

Answer: "Leone fools us into thinking that Harmonica is a criminal and sexual predator in the scene in Jill's barn in which Harmonica rips off the white lace beneath the bodice of Jill's dress. This act, that seems to betoken sexual aggression and to anticipate rape, is actually one of protection. Harmonica represents no more of a sexual threat than Cheyenne does. What Harmonica realises, and Jill does not, is that Frank's sharpshooters wait for her in the hills above her house and that the white of her dress makes her an easy target. He might have explained this situation more carefully to her, of course, but Leone's characters seem to almost thrive on, or to court, ill opinion. Moreover, when Harmonica's shots ring out at the well and Jill realises he is actually intent on protecting rather than brutalizing her, the effect is all the more dramatic for his having given her no hint of his intentions. Leone's heroes do not like to wear their morality on their sleeves." (John Fawell).

More questions & answers from Once Upon a Time in the West

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.