When Fraga became the stage for Spaghetti westerns [part 2 of 8]

 Between the years 1965 and 1972, two Catalan production companies made about seventy films of the spaghetti western genre in the West Bank. We’ll tell you about it.

Sapiens

Salvador Giné (text) / Àngel Comas (advice)

Fraga, the ideal place:

Fraga was the ideal place. Relatively close to Barcelona (if we take into account the communications of the time), it offered, on the one hand, the river, riverside vegetation and some rocky hills practically trodden on the jeans, and on the other, a few kilometers further, in the same municipal area, a place with a foreboding name, the Barranc de les Bales , a bunch of closed ravines, stony paths, banks of dry bushes and a colorful haze of dust that rose at the slightest movement of horses or usual fights and tumbling of the gunmen.

In addition, the area added other spaghetti western elements that set them apart from American westerns, such as chapels and other construction buildings. In the wide shots, with an extensive landscape and a distant horizon, the filming team moved a few kilometers further, to Candasnos, already outside the Strip, where remains of sets still remain.

The hotels

The most important actors, such as Fernando Sancho and the Americans Richard Harrison or Robert Woods, stayed at the Pal·las hotel in Lleida. The majority, however, together with the technicians and specialists, were at the Sorolla de Fraga hotel, a true operations center, since in addition to the material they handled and stored there, there was also the fact of to be a location for hiring extras and professionals from the area (carpenters, cattle breeders, etc.). The Sorolla's equidistance with the various exteriors was very practical for them because it allowed them to move easily from one point to another.