My infrequent conversations with Christopher Frayling usually spread across the whole range of the arts, but at some point we usually get around – inevitably — to Sergio Leone. Frayling is unquestionably the world’s leading authority on the definitive director of spaghetti westerns, and at our last meeting (we were both signing a book we’d contributed to for editor Stephen Jones), he told that he was working on a (hopefully) definitive study of Leone’s Magnum Opus, Once Upon a Time in the West — and it’s hardly a cause for surprise that the resulting book turns out to be an absolute treat – and, yes, definitive. In terms of analysis and celebration of this most complex of Westerns, Frayling’s text is both authoritative and accessible, with no stone unturned when it comes to examining the component elements of the film, from the astonishing cast to Ennio Morricone’s iconic score. The book itself is oversized and handsomely illustrated  — and firmly in the gift book category.

Previously, Fraying, a cultural polymath in the UK of heavyweight reputation, was the perfect commentator to celebrate the Frankenstein bicentennial with his sumptuous volume of that name . Frayling utilised new research on the novel’s origins, and his text was enriched with a variety of illustrative materials (all the films, of course, but also the first visual representations of the creature). His work on Leone’s masterpiece is equally thoroughgoing.

Barry Forshaw

Once Upon a Time in the West: Shooting a Masterpiece

by Christopher Fraying

Reel Art Press, 336 pages, £29.95