The Ministry of Culture and
Tourism presents in Fitur a guide on the locations of Western films that were
shot in the region to disseminate among the filmmakers their current use and promote
film tourism
[Scene recorded in the Plaza de
Chinchón for “Circus World” (1964) - ABC]
Those who
shared filming with Clint Eastwood in
Hoyo de Manzanares still remember how the American actor drank from
the botijo, ate snacks and took a nap in the back of a car in the full
sun. It was precisely his desire to know Spain that made him accept Sergio
Leone's offer to roll "A Fistful of Dollars" in 1964. His decision
forever changed the history of the region. What was going to be another
low-cost western film meant, with its success, the takeoff of an entire film
industry that transformed the economy of many towns in the region. Small
towns that, like Hoyo de Manzanares, turned their sites into the gorges, the
valleys, the desert and the ranches of the Far West.
The Community of Madrid has been trying to create
value for that cultural legacy for years, claiming those locations as a still valid
scenario for filming movies. His latest initiative was by the Ministry of
Culture and Tourism, directed by Marta Rivera de la Cruz, within the framework
of Fitur Screen, the monographic section specialized
in film tourism. A guide entitled Community
of Madrid: Far West Territory that presents the locations of some of those
feature films. In total, more than 200 of the 600 plus that were produced
in Europe. A figure that exceeds those of
other areas of Spain such as
Almeria, which, however, has managed to exploit
the pull of places like the Tabernas
Desert.
[Ranch built in La Pedriza in the
60s for film shootings from the West - ABC]
The
publication, made through Film Madrid,
the filming promotion office in the Community, includes four routes that
run through the 36 municipalities in which part of these Anglo-Saxon films were
recorded. Among them is the capital itself, with its film studios - for
example the CEA, located in Arturo Soria and that today commemorates the bridge
that crosses the A-2 at its entrance to Madrid – or Casa de Campo, where
several films were also shot including “A Fistful of Dollars” sequences. John Wayne himself conducted a
role in “Circus World”.
Divided into
four routes that are collected in a guide map, the northwest one stands out for
being the place where most of the scenes of 130 of these westerns were
recorded. La Pedriza hosted the first of these shootings in 1941 with the
title "Dirty Gold", by Eduardo García Maroto; and another of
Leone's classics, "The Good, the Ugly and the Bad" (1966). The
last recorded there, in 2016, was "Stop Over in Hell", by Victor
Matellano. The Madrid
filmmaker is precisely the author of this publication. “It is time to
claim Madrid
as the setting for all these films. The locations are still there and have
a great load of romanticism,” he tells ABC.
“This idea
doesn't just want to look to the past. It is important that we look to the
future because I am sure that this synergy between cinema and tourism can bring
us very good news. On the one hand, we want to strengthen the audiovisual
sector and that with this guide professionals from all over the world know
everything that our region can offer as a set for their filming. And on
the other, we encourage film tourism, more and more tourists want to visit the
places where the scenes of their favorite movies and series were shot and that
is a potential that the Comunidad de Madrid has and that we have to know how to
take advantage of,” adds the counselor of Culture Marta Rivera de Cruz .
Colmenar Viejo
His father,
who participated as an extra in many of these films, inoculated his passion for
this genre. "I don't like to define it as Spaghetti western," he explains, criticizing
the derogatory origin of the term. “You have to imagine those towns at the
time and the shootings in which more than two thousand people
participated. Imagine, for example, people's faces when they saw Claudia
Cardinale and Brigitte Bardot bathing in a barrel for "Frenchie King"
(1971)," he says. The latter was filmed in Colmenar Viejo, the
municipality with the most feature films in the west - with five active sets at
once - such as "Django"
(1966), by Sergio Corbucci, or "The Guns of the Magnificent
Seven" (1969 ), by Paul Wendkos.
Madrid
had its "Rio Grande" on the beach of Alberche and the train sequences - of
titles such as "Savage Pampas"
(1966), by Hugo Fregonese or "One Hundred Rifles" (1969), by Tom Gries -
were recorded on the tracks abandoned from Villamanta. The list of
directors - Robert Siodmak, Raoul Walsh or Richard Fleischer - and actors -
Robert Mitchum, William Shatner, Burt Reynolds , Terence Hill , Gina Lollobrigida and Lee
Marvin - who went through Madrid
is long. This is what Matellano will talked about this in the Fitur along
with José Luis Galicia, art director in some of these films; the actors
Manuel Zarzo and Guillermo Montesinos; and Javier Ramos, co-author of the
book “Cinema of the West in the Community of Madrid”.
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