Spaghetti Western Location ~ San Salvatore di Cabras, Italy

Many Spaghetti Westerns were shot in the Spanish desert region of Almería and a few around Rome, but some were filmed in and around San Salvatore di Cabras, a small Sardinia village outside of Cabras near Oristano. If you go to San Salvatore di Cabras, you’ll find many house facades that look like they popped right out of a Wild West set, because, well, they pretty much have. They were transformed in the 1960’s during the heyday of Spaghetti Westerns into Western towns for movies. There’s even a bar in San Salvatore that a cowboy wouldn’t feel uncomfortable in.

Garter Colt (Italian: ”Giarrettiera Colt”) is a 1968 Italian spaghetti western directed by Gian Andrea Rocco and filmed entirely in Sinis in 1969. It is one of the rare Italo-westerns with a woman as lead character and it is an icon of Quentin Tarantino.

But San Salvatore isn’t just about Spaghetti Westerns. The Festival of San Salvatore, which takes place the 1st weekend of September, is one of the oldest festivals in Sardinia. San Salvatore can seem deserted any other time of the year; many people maintain small houses here just to house their families during the festival.

The journalist Luca Bottura, said that Sergio Leone shot some scenes of his film "For a Few Dollars More" in Sardinia, the claim has no basis, but has been around for years on the web. The facts regarding the Spaghetti Western epic are quite clear, on the island only a few minor films have been made, the most famous, also thanks to the participation of the actress loved by Quentin Tarantino, Nicoletta Machiavelli is undoubtedly "Garter Colt ". The setting is in Mexico, but the scenes were all shot in San Salvatore di Sinis and its surroundings. Macchiavelli herself recalls of that film: “GIARRETTIERA COLT” was an incredible experience: I had already shot" other westerns, that is with more or less classic stories with a bit of violence, to cash in on the spaghetti-western vein. But as for Garter Colt, I had never seen a story like this one: the story of this woman with a colt in her garter who, dressed and attired in nineteenth century style, with a low neckline and side slit dress for, in fact,  for her to have easy access to her garter, who rides over the prairies and salt marshes of Sardinia and encounters strange characters to say the least ... Garter Colt - continues Nicoletta - is an anti-western, controversial and provocative, an attempt to desecrate the genre of pistolero films. We shot it with the cinematographic collage method, alternating grotesque, melodramatic, romantic, western sequences. Even Giovanni Fusco's musical score follows this pattern: with music of noble Trovadoric-Provencal inspiration, beat motifs, or lyrical pieces played by electronic instruments follow La Stampa August 29, 1968 page 6. Arriving in Sardinia now, you won’t find a trace of that small set in San Salvatore di Sinis, but with a little imagination and after watching the movie ... and wanting to eat something, stop by Abraxas, it looks like a saloon and the owner has some story to tell there to tell.

You Tube short film on this location San Salvatore di Cabras, Italy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mkqc3f_72g&fbclid=IwAR2rQ5UpLqLqe7NGBdyri6jZxCxP7osrmvznVAChZqZfif3L-HIKjRYuRRs

 

 

“Garter Colt” (1969)

 

 

“Garter Colt” (1969)