Spaghetti Western Trivia ~ Johnny Hamlet & Anthony Perkins

 Yes, even before Enzo Castellari became involved in the Spaghetti western “Quella sporca storia nel West” (aka Johnny Hamlet aka The Wild and the Dirty) Anthony Perkins was offered the lead role as Johnny Hamilton but negotiations broke down and Chip Corman (Andrea Giordana) was given the role after his success in “The Dirty Outlaws”.

Giordana wanted to dub himself in Italian, but Castellari did not find the actor mature enough, he thought that the role would suffer, so he preferred to have him dubbed by another Italian actor, as often happened in Italy. For Castellari, as for many Italian directors, dubbing was a fundamental step, it was the moment when they constituted the VO of the film from A to Z, improving the text and choosing the best possible voices for each of the characters. Even Giordana's father, Claudio Gora, intervened in this story, insisting that his son double up. So Castellari offered to have the character dubbed twice: once by Giordana and another time by Massimo Turci, an actor he considers one of the most beautiful voices Italy has ever had. Of course, Castellari instead preferred the dubbing of Turci for the final version, much to the chagrin of Giordana and his father. Namely also that Turci had dubbed Anthony Perkins several times - but not in the first “Psycho” - who remember, was the actor that the producers had chosen in the beginning. But perhaps it was pure chance. In a way Anthony Perkins was part of the leading actor if only in the Italian voice.