Is Once Upon a Time in the West

Its good but I dont think its the best.

Interesting. If you describe the plot, it could well be a modern western. But somehow it has never felt like one to me. Nor like an adventure film either. More like a Film Noir, although it plays out in the blazing sun and there are no dames to be seen. (Well, some in the Indian village, but they are hardly Femmes Fatales). I guess Bogart's character makes me think that way.

If it were a Western, it would be the best of them. But it ain't. 

I have never taken it as a western either, but have recently seen it taken as one in polls at this site. That is why I mentioned it but added the comment. It would clearly be the best western if included as one. It was once my pick for the best film of all time, still in my top five.

I do not possess a problem with the idea of a true Western being set in the early twentieth century (I do see The Professionals as a Western), but the 1920s are really stretching the matter for me, especially since that decade is so associated with the rise of modernity: the aftermath of World War I, growing urbanization, suffrage, the rise of mass culture, consumerism, cosmetics, jazz, and radio, and Hollywood's ascendancy. But since the setting is Mexico, could we be turning back the clock, so to speak? Perhaps—in American culture and movies, Mexico or Latin America long held that appeal, including in such iconic Westerns as The Wild Bunch and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. 

Thanks for the note about the novel and its publication date, although just from viewing the film and knowing that it was a 1948 release (in order words, less than a decade after the Great Depression had ended), one might assume that the setting came after October 1929—obliquely, the film sort of functions that way, although the Mexican location suggests almost anything. 

I feel secure in the idea of The Maltese Falcon functioning as a noir. In terms of the genre belonging to the postwar era, the heart and peak of the genre surely emerged after World War II, but there have to be antecedents, right? If noirs can only exist after the war ended, then Double Indemnity (1944) would not constitute a noir, either. The Maltese Falcon established the noir template in many ways: the sardonic, largely amoral, fallible, world-weary urban anti-hero whose code of honor is threatened by his own avarice and lust; the treacherous, murderous seductress; the greed that attracts a slew of divergent yet murky figures; the portentous shadows; the Venetian blinds and cramped quarters suggesting claustrophobia; the urban labyrinth; and the constant duplicity and sense of distortion. You describe the film as "too playful" to fit the genre, but although I understand what you mean, I see the movie as much more sardonic than "playful." I have viewed The Maltese Falcon about five times in total, but the last time was last year in the theater, and I recently described that experience in another thread (which you may or may not have seen):


One could sort of view The Maltese Falcon as a transitional film, one that evoked movies of the 1920s and 1930s yet also established the foundation for something new, which would turn into a fully mature and distinct genre in the years ahead. And The Maltese Falcon certainly suggests a sense of pervasive seediness and the ugly underbelly of society, themes that would become staple noir notions. 

Back to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, you write that the film "hardly ends in a downer mood," but while your statement seems correct, I would argue that the denouement is fatalistic just the same. Again, I do not see the film as a noir, but I can understand why some would draw certain allusions in that area. In a sense, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is The Maltese Falcon transferred to a different setting—not surprising given that John Huston directed both films with Humphrey Bogart in the leading role both times.

Years ago on IMDb, I argued that Huston was indeed an "auteur." Another poster basically mocked me, suggesting that I was being absurd, but when one considers the parallels between The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Maltese Falcon, I feel that my argument holds up even better. Huston's films often offered similar concerns, motifs, and alignments that transcended wildly disparate settings and genres.   

No. Definitely on the Top 10 though.