The cultural association of Cabo de Gata remembered today
50 years of feature films in Los Albaricoques.
La Voz de Almeria
By Evaristo Martinez
7/25/2015
‘For a Few Dollars More’, the second of Sergio Leone’s
‘dollar trilogy’, is rmemebered on its fiftieth birthday. Half a century since
Lee Van Cleef, Clint Eastwood and Gian Maria Volonte faced off are seen once
again in Los Albaricoques, Nijar, in one of the major climaxes in the history
of the western. To celebrate this anniversary, the cultural association Cabo de
Gata-Nijar, with the sponsorship of the City, recreated Saturday July 25th the
final duel. The event, christened with the name of 'Crazy for Spaghetti
Westerns', will began at 8 p.m. and included the participation of fifteen
actors.
The cast of actors, composed of personnel from the
villages west of Tabernas and Níjar are residents of this hamlet and helped
recreate some scenes of the film through the streets that Clint Eastwood, Lee
van Cleef and Sergio Leone walked. They interpreted the initial sequences of 'A
Fistful of Dollars', the first film that rolled in Almeria Leone and was
honored after five decades last year.
After the performance, at 10 p.m. speeches were held
giving thanks to the organizers and local authorities.
Sergio Leone died on April 30, 1989. A heart attack ended
his life when he was 60 and, although his career was not very extensive, he
left to posterity a handful of titles that not only redefined the western
genre, but the language itself of the cinema. "I dislike that everyone
points to me as the father of the spaghetti western. Because I'm the father,
yes, but there are a lot of bastards" he exclaimed over a crowd of
imitators who led to the international success of his ‘ dollar trilogy’, shot
in different Spanish locations and filmmakers discovered the world landscapes
of Almeria.
"Leone found here not only the Mexican people he
wanted but characters with those characteristics. We were lucky that ‘peliculeros’,
as we called them, helped us survive economically, since many residents worked
as extras and crew members explains Manuel Hernandez, who owns the Hostal Rural
Alba Restaurant in Los Albaricoques.
Lost treasures of Almería
From the Hostal Rural Alba Restaurant in Los Albaricoques. Was used as Aguascalientes
in For a Few Dollars More’ and Manuel Hernandez seeks to recover the "many
treasures" Almeria has not always taken advantage of.
Hernandez also belongs to the Cultural Association Cabo
de Gata-Nijar, which seeks to pay homage to the past of these places of film
such as was shown on Saturday.
For him, Almería "is still in debt" to Leone,
as his cinema discovered places that are still known and remembered after 50
years.
