A gunslinger who doesn’t speak, known only as Silence (Jean-Louis Trintignant), arrives in a snowbound town up north in Utah around 1898. There, he finds himself caught between merciless bounty hunters and people hiding out in the surrounding hills. He agrees to do a job for a grieving widow (Vonetta McGee): eliminating Loco (Klaus Kinski), responsible for her husband’s death. Sergio Corbucci directed and co-wrote “The Great Silence” (1968), and it stands among the stronger entries within the Spaghetti Western genre, largely because of several striking elements: the impressive snowy landscape, a poignant score by Ennio Morricone, the lead character's silence, the striking presence of Vonetta McGee—a rare black actress in a significant role in an older Western film—Kinski’s portrayal of a truly despicable antagonist, and a startling conclusion. The film left its mark on later Western movies, including “The Claim” (2000) and “The Hateful Eight” (2015). Like many Italian Westerns from that era, the English dubbing is adequate at best. My only reservation about the audio is the voice chosen for Kinski’s character; it doesn't quite seem to fit. The film has a runtime of 1 hour and 45 minutes and was filmed roughly 15 miles from Austria’s border in northeastern Italy (specifically, San Cassiano & Cortina d'Ampezzo), along with the flashback sequence shot at Bracciano Lake near Rome, and other scenes done at Elios Studios in Rome. GRADE: B+

Source on TMDB