Colmenar Viejo, 60 years of 'Outlaws'

 The film that inaugurated the western town, the scene of great filming

With directors such as Sergio Leone, Enzo G. Castellari and Wim Wenders

TeleMadrid

April 8, 2024

['Fuera de la ley' (Billy the Kid), was first film shot in the town of Colmenar Viejo.]

It is 60 years since the inauguration of the set of the western town created in Colmenar Viejo which served as a stage for multiple productions.

'Billy the Kid' was the first film to be shot using the Colmenar set. From Colmenar Viejo Tierra de Cine they remember that this initial film starring Jack Taylor, Juny Brunell and George Martin, and directed by Leon Klimovsky that the film premiered the 'town’s western set' with a stable character. In July 1964 it premiered at the Cine Avenida de la Gran Vía.

The Dehesa de Navalvillar de Colmenar Viejo was the landscape of the 'far west' used for the filming of fifty-six other westerns, and four other films of other genres.

Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gina Lollobrigida, Burt Reynolds, Claudia Cardinale, William Shatner, Franco Nero and Telly Savalas passed through here. “The Legend of Frenchie King”, with the aforementioned Cardinale and Brigitte Bardot as protagonists, is one of the most remembered.

[Clint Eastwood on the set of the Dehesa de Navalvillar in Colmenar Viejo]

Félix Michelena and Augusto Lega were the creators of the town of Colmenar Viejo in the image of the one created in Hoyo de Manzanares in 1958. This was lifted for "The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw," directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Jayne Mansfield and Kenneth More. It was the first western settlement built in Spain and later dismantled.

In the Colmenar of the Dehesa de Navalvillar, Sergio Leone will shoot sequences of 'For a Few Dollars More' and 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'. The town was joined in the vicinity by a Confederate fort and several ranches frequented in the movies.

'Seven from Texas', 'Django', 'The Big Gundown' or 'Custer of the West', the latter starring Robert Shaw, were some of the titles filmed in the different facilities.

It was precisely during the filming of 'For a Few Dollars More' in the town of Lega-Michelena, in May 1965, that Sergio Leone uttered the phrase, "This is the most beautiful western town I've ever seen", as it was built inspired by Old Tucson of ‘Rio Bravo’.

[Juny Brunell and Jack Taylor in the Dehesa de Navalvillar de Colmenar Viejo. 'Billy the Kid']

With only eight buildings at the beginning, it would reach almost forty, when Leone, or Enzo G. Castellari shoots with 'Kill Them and Come Back Alone', or Wim Wenders with 'The Scarlet Letter'.

The village to the west of Lega-Michelena, which was located parallel to the entrance road to the Dehesa de Navalvillar through the Talanquera de Remedios, remained standing until the end of 1973, when it had to be dismantled by government imperative, since the nearby military base had to be expanded.