I knew Sergio Leone quite well in the late ’60s and early’ 70s.
I was a fan of his first two westerns and when I learned that the Good, the Bad and the Ugly would first be screened in Brussels, I went hitchhiking.
He was present at the screening, I assailed him with questions and he answered amused. He invited me to the Paris premiere, then to Rome at home with his wife and three children. Several times I went on the set of Once Upon a Time West, for me one of the masterpieces of cinema.
The creativity of Leone, his imagination, his flamboyance, his fascination for the image, his perpetual renewals of all the cliches of the genre fascinated me.
At the end of the filming of Once Upon a Time, he gave me as a gift for the birth of my son Gedeon, one of the sublime coats of the film. 2 months later, it was stolen: I still regret it.
I did only 2 or 3 things for television but one of which I am most proud is a story for the show of the time on cinema of Robert Chazal on all the great scenes cut off of the Good, the Brute and the Ugly which was more than 3 hours in its first version!
Book Information
Once Upon a Time in the West: Shooting a Masterpiece
Sir Christopher Frayling
Foreword by Quentin Tarantino
The book by Christopher Frayling is published by Reel Art Press
£50 / $75 / €60
ISBN: ISBN 9781909526334
Hardback; 336 pages 9.5 x 11.5 in.
