SPAGHETTI WESTERN MOVIES
When the availability of American Westerns started to dry up in the early 1960’s, various European film companies began financing and producing their own westerns. These producers endeavored to pass them off as genuine American westerns, by casting a vaguely recognizable American actor in the lead role and modifying the rest of the cast and crew to seem more English. Several of these new westerns were convincingly shot on sets in Italy and Spain. During 1964, a team of Italian, Spanish and West German producers put together a small budget and a deal that allowed a certain “Bob Robertson” (actually Sergio Leone) to write and direct a western in his own special way. Inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo and starring Clint Eastwood, Leone’s film was called “Per Un Pugno Di Dollari” (A Fistful of Dollars) and it was in essence the origin of the spaghetti western. There are however some people that believe otherwise. Of the hundreds of westerns (some people estimate about 600) that were made from 1960 - 1975, the majority of them came from western Europe (mostly Italy, Spain and Germany). More than 400 spaghetti westerns were produced during their 1960’s peak period. With the advent of the 1970’s, the spaghetti westerns rapidly started to decline, quality and quantity wise, although a couple of westerns were made in the early seventies that are considered to be equally as good and popular today as those of the sixties.
WHAT IS A TYPICAL SPAGHETTI WESTERN?
A typical spaghetti western was usually made with a low budget, but contains lots of action scenes and many also have some sort of gadget/s, typical James Bond style. Most spaghetti westerns could be described as “political” to some extent, because you are hard pressed to find an honest or honorable town official, businessman or authority figure in any of these films. Certain directors used the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, to deliver a more explicit political message. In addition to all the action, the brilliant Italian directors at that time, made sure their movies had an excellent score and great décor. This charming touch made these westerns in actual fact something to behold, especially in spite of low budgets. The world quickly started to symbolize Italians, who are known for their love of spaghetti dishes, with the fantastic westerns from their country. From there the term spaghetti westerns appeared overnight and has stuck in everyone's mind ever since.
An interesting fact is that most of the movies were actually shot in the Tabernas desert of Spain, while the rest were shot in different localities all over Italy. A typical spaghetti western had an Italian director, Italian-Spanish technical staff and the cast consisting of Italian, Spanish, German and American actors. Some of the westerns had fading Hollywood stars but also rising stars, like Clint Eastwood for example. Other famous and popular actors are Franco Nero, Giuliano Gemma, Eli Wallach, Tonino Valerii, Lee Van Cleef, Bud Spencer, William Berger, Gianni Garko, William Berger, Klaus Kinski, Tomas Milian, Jack Palance and Antonio De Teffe.
Initially however, the term spaghetti western had a sort of negative connotation to it. How could a low budget western, with a lone American actor and unknown European actors, ever dare to compete with the “greatly superior” American westerns that Hollywood had being producing for more than 20 years? It was thus labeled by many as cheap imitations and nothing more. With time however, the westerns being produced in Italy reached international acclaim for their achievements, on many different levels. Today these westerns have reached cult status and are highly sought after by fans of the genre and their popularity keeps increasing.
THE STYLE OF SPAGHETTI WESTERNS
The European westerns differ from the typical Hollywood style of westerns in more ways than one. Hollywood created cowboys and Indians, while the spaghetti westerns tend to be more about cowboys and Mexicans. The reason might be to the fact that in Spain a lot of Spanish actors were readily available to play Mexican roles, while Indians actors were extremely hard to come by or even totally lacking. The spaghetti westerns are notorious graphic violence in contrast to American westerns. Perhaps the most interesting fact about spaghetti westerns is that it is very difficult to distinguish at times between the so called good guys and the hero and the bad guys and the hero. This is in stark contrast to the Hollywood westerns with their hero who clearly stood out in all of their westerns. Not long after the spaghetti western stylistic success, Hollywood decided to adapt this same style and made their follow up westerns more unique and appealing.
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