From the WAI! vault

 

Little Known Spaghetti Western Actors ~ Christine Caralonga

[These daily posts will cover little known actors or people that have appeared in more recent films and TV series. Various degrees of information that I was able to find will be given and anything that you can add would be appreciated.]

 Christine Caralonga, sometimes posted as Casalonga was a French model born in 1949. She appeared in only one film, and it was in an uncredited role in 1972’s “Les aventures galantes de Zorro” (Red Hot Zorro).

I can find no biographical information on her.

CARALONGA, Christine (aka Christine Casalonga) [1949, France -    ] – model, film actress.

Red Hot Zorro – 1972

Who Are Those Singers & Musicians? ~ Nico e I Gabbiani

 

Nicola Tirone was born in Sambuco, Agrigento, Sicilyon  September 18, 1944. He was best known as Italian singer Nico dei Gabbiani.

He was founder and voice of the pop-beat group Nico e i Gabbiani, which achieved several hits in the late sixties. In the early 1970s, he became a soloist, obtaining his major success with the song “Cento Campane”, theme of the TV series ‘Il segno del comando’.

During the eighties Nico toured the U.S.A., notably New York with the Group Europa based in Westchester. He was greeted with great enthusiasm singing his hits such as” Dedica”, “Amore Senza Fine”, and “Parole”.

Nico sang the main theme song “Come se fosse gia'autunno” for the 1967 Spaghetti western “Vendo cara la pelle” (I’ll Sell My Skin Dearly”)

Nico e I Gabbiani (TIRONE, Nico (Nicola Tirone) [9/18/1944, Sambuco, Agrigento, Sicily - 4/12/2012, Milan, Lombardy, Italy] – singer, ) – Italian pop singing group.

I'll Sell My Skin Dearly - 1967 [sings "Come se fosse gia'autunno"]

 

Special Birthdays

Luigi Bonos (actor) would have been 115 today but died in 2000.

Charles Hawtrey (actor) would have been 110 today but died in 1988.

Holger Kepich [voice actor] would have been 105 today but died in 2002.

Aurora De Alba (actress) would have been 95 today but died in 2005.

Ann Smyrner (actress) would have been 90 today but died in 2016.

Richard Brake (actor) is 60 today.

 

Spaghetti Western Trivia ~ BirrAlfina Italian beer commercial

BirrAlfina "Triello", a taste of a western in the commercial signed by Giovanni Bufalini

Orvieto News

November 18, 2024

On Monday 18 November, the BirrAlfina "Triello" commercial, written and directed by Giovani Bufalini, which promotes the craft beer produced with passion in the heart of Alfina by Alessandro and Ilenia Achilli, will be released. Filmed during the second edition of Trinità Days in Camerata Nuova, the commercial is a fun tribute to Spaghetti Westerns and Sergio Leone's cinema. The famous triel of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" has an unprecedented ending this time, ironically warning against imitations of Made in Italy.

Among the three protagonists with a remarkable resemblance to the originals, Massimo Aloisio stands out from Orvieto, lent for this time to acting with pleasant results. Born in 2019, BirrAlfina is a small agricultural brewery between the municipalities of Orvieto and Castel Giorgio, on the Alfina Plateau that has been considered for centuries among the best places in the area for agriculture and breeding. The Orvieto director Giovanni Bufalini is not new to genre incursions into western cinema, of which he is a great connoisseur and enthusiast. The commercial designed for the national social campaign will also be visible at the cinema in the Cine Tuscia Village multiplex circuit.

BirrAlfina triello

 

A 2024 Italian television commercial [Filmaker Factory (Rome)]

Producer: Marco Mandini

Director: Giovanni Bufalini

Teleplay: Giovanni Bufalini

Photography: Davide Curatolo

Music: Massimiliano Pace

Running time: 2 minutes

 

Story: Three gunmen duel over a BirrAlfina bottle of beer.

 

Cast:

Man with No Name – Emiliano Ferrera

Gunfighter – Vanni De Simoni

Mexican – Massimo Aloisio

Saloon girls - Aurora Panetta, Elisa Tampieri

Saloon patron - Gilberto Bruni

You Tube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wbo8MoIan_A

Little Known Spaghetti Western Actors ~ Tony Casale

[These daily posts will cover little known actors or people that have appeared in more recent films and TV series. Various degrees of information that I was able to find will be given and anything that you can add would be appreciated.]

Born Antonio Casale this Italian character actor appeared in over 100 films from 1961 – 1985. He’s not to be confused with the other Italian actor of the same name who is best remembered as the dying soldier in the “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” who tells Tuco and Blondie of the buried gold in Sad Hill Cemetery and the name on the grave where it’s hidden.   

He appeared in twenty-four Spaghetti westerns from “Il segno di Zorro” (The Sign of Zorro) in 1963 as a conspirator to “Occhio alla penna” (Buddy Goes West) in 1981 as a saloon patron.

I can find no biographical information on him

CASALE, Tony (Antonio Casale) [Italian] – film actor.

“Il segno di Zorro” (The Sign of Zorro) – 1963 (conspirator)

“Buffalo Bill, l'eroe del far west” (Buffalo Bill Hero of the Faw West” - 1964 (saloon patron)

“Due Mafiosi nel Far West” (Two Mafiamen in the Far West) – 1964 (Frank James)

“Un dollaro bucato” (Blood for a Silver Dollar) – 1965 (saloon patron)

“Uccidi o muori” (Kill or be Killed) – 1966 (saloon patron)

“Ramon il messicano” (Ramon the Mexican) – 1966 (Morales’ henchman)

“Johnny Oro” (Ringo and His Golden Pistol) – 1966 (Perez henchman)

“Un dollaro tra i denti” (A Stranger in Town) – 1967 (Aguila henchmen)

“Indio Black, sei che ti dico… sei un gran figlio di…” (Adiós, Sabata) – 1970 (saloon patron)

“Sartana nella valle degli avvoltoi” (Ballad of Death Valley) – 1970 (saloon patron)

“C’e Sartana... vendi la pistola e comprati la barer!” (Fistful of Lead) – 1970 (Mantas’

  henchman)

“El justiciero ciego” (Blindman) – 1971 (Mexican soldier)

“...e lo chiamarono Spirito Santo” (He was Called the Holy Ghost) – 1971 (officer)

“Giu la testa” (Duck You Sucker!) – 1971 (Mesa Verde Bank prisoner)

“Il pistolero cieco” (Blindman) – 1971 (Mexican soldier)

“È tornato Sabata... hai chiuso un'altra volta” (Return of Sabata) – 1971 (townsman)

“...continuavano a chiamarlo Trinità” (Trinity Is STILL My Name!) – 1971 (Mexican)

“Küçük Kovboy” (Cowboy Kid) – 1972 (saloon rowdy)

“I due figli dei Trinità” (Two Sons of Trinity) – 1972 (Requiem henchman)

“E poi lo chiamarono il Magnifico” (Man of the East) – 1972 (prisoner)

“Ci risiamo, vero Provvidenza?” (They Call Me Providence) – 1972 (bank depositor)

“Zanna Bianca” (White Fang) – 1973 (Cowensky)

“Noi non siamo angeli” (We Are No Angels) – 1975 (betting helper)

“Occhio alla penna” (Buddy Goes West) – 1981 (saloon patron)

 

Pierre Brice, Forever Winnetou, Lives On in Spirit [archived newspaper article]

 The French actor Pierre Brice died at the age of 86 on the 6th of June 2015. Many will mourn, but his legacy will live on.

Munich Live

By William Clark

March 7, 2024

Secretive, righteous, and noble — this is how the film character Winnetou, played by Pierre Brice, will be remembered by the generations of children and adults enthralled by his achievements. Pierre Brice gave the “Karl May” novels life and meaning. Brice became famous mainly in Germany; now he has died at the age of 86 in Paris from severe pneumonia.

Today, one can hardly imagine the grief and anger the audience expressed when Pierre Brice died for the first time in the 1965 film "Winnetou III". The fans’ emotional outpouring left the producer Horst Wendlandt no choice but to raise Winnetou from the dead. Even though all this attention was good for business, Wendlandt feared for his own life due to all the resentment that was directed towards him.

Pierre Brice died in early June

Once he coined the beautiful saying: "My happy hunting grounds are in Germany." Winnetou is finally back home - forever. And one does not exaggerate when describing his death as the end of a chapter of West German cultural history.

That Pierre Louis Baron de Bris, born in 1929 in France, would become one of the most influential actors in Germany, is an irony of fate - and illustrates perfectly the recent history. Brice was the living reconciliation of two nations. As a teenager he was in the Resistance and lost relatives in German concentration camps. After the war, he volunteered as a paratrooper and combat diver to go to Indochina, which is now Vietnam, and later to Algeria. He was decorated for his bravery.

There are 11 Winnetou films - all still popular in Germany

Pierre Brice was the idol of a whole generation

Brice was the idol of a whole generation: The noble savage, who always meant well and was prepared in times of need. The Germans loved the big-screen adventures, which were depicted completely differently from the actual U.S. Western. The message of "Winnetou" was simple: all men are brothers — and if there are difficulties, it is only because there are unscrupulous profiteers who exploit the people for their own benefit.

Pierre Brice became famous during the 1960s. This was a time where Germany was trying to come to terms with its past. With the trial of Adolf Eichmann and the Auschwitz trials, the country had just been reminded of its ugly background. After the war, the citizens started to contribute to the reconstruction and economic miracle of their country. This was the first step towards recognising and accepting the past. “Winnetou” and the Karl May films were an ideal concept that built on the idea of international understanding rather than racial hatred, peaceful coexistence instead of war and annihilation. This allowed the German population to understand and acknowledge their dreadful history.

For Brice, however, it became clear the films had ended his acting career. After his last film "Winnetou and Shatterhand in the Valley of Death" in 1968, Brice played with the idea of going into retirement. He eventually continued to work on a variety of projects but could never shake the Winnetou persona. He appeared in festivals as chief of the Apaches. Germany was his home. He married Hella Krekel and built a house in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

Ceremony in Munich

Relatives, friends, and companions will gather together in Munich to pay their respect to the French superstar on 18 June (between 9 and 12 Thursday morning at St Michael's Church on the Neuhauserstraße). The coffin will be laid out for several hours.

The fans of Pierre Brice will get the opportunity to say goodbye to their idol in person. For three hours, from nine to twelve o’clock, his coffin will be laid out in the Holy Cross Chapel of St. Michael.

The funeral will take place in the days to come. But not, as is often claimed, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, but in the Munich suburb of Gräfelfing with his wife’s family. "We have found a beautiful spot under an old tree," said Brice’s sister Gabi Dück.

As Apache chief Winnetou, he will however remain immortal — and always in our hearts.

Special Birthdays

Virgilio Riento (actor) would have been 125 today but died in 1959.

Ena Sedeno (actress) would have been 125 today but died in 1966.

Reg Thomason (actor) would have been 105 today but died in 2003.

Mihai Mereuță (actor) would have been 100 today but died in 2003.

Roland Brand (actor) would have been 95 today but died in 1984.

Arrocet Bigote (actor) is 75 today.

 

RIP Silvia Pinal

 

Mexican producer, theater, film, TV actress, politician Silvia Pinal died of a urinary tract infection in Mexico City on November 28^th at the age of 93. She was one of the last of the Golden Age of Mexican film divas and one of the greatest actresses in film and television history. Born Silvia Pinal Hidalgo on September 12, 1931, in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico, Silvia displayed a keen interest in the entertainment industry from a young age. After spending her early years in Sonora, she and her mother, María Luisa Hidalgo, moved to Mexico City. Despite her aspirations to make a mark in the field, her father encouraged her to pursue a different path, leading the young Silvia to study typing. She made her debut in a beauty pageant, earning the title of Student Princess of Mexico. Additionally, she participated in radio comedies on XEQ and began taking on various roles in theatrical productions in the early 1950s. In 1948, Pinal had the opportunity to appear in her first film, “El pecado de Laura”, where she had a supporting role. This was followed by over 110 films and TV appearances both in Mexico and Europe including working with Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel. Pinal also held political offices in Mexico from 1981-997. Her survivors also include children Alejandra Guzman, film and TV actress Sylvia Pasquel and musician Luis Enrique Guzman. Pinal appeared in only one Euro-western as Felicia in 1968’s “Guns for San Sebastian” with Anthony Quinn and Charles Bronson.

 

Thanksgiving 2024

 

Little Known Spaghetti Western Actors ~ Wilfredo Casado

[These daily posts will cover little known actors or people that have appeared in more recent films and TV series. Various degrees of information that I was able to find will be given and anything that you can add would be appreciated.]

Wilfredo Casado Diaz was a Spanish character actor born in Layna, Soria, Spain on July 20, 1939. He appeared in twelve films between 1959 and 1977 among those was one Spaghetti western “Cavalca e uccidi” (aka Brandy, Ride and Kill) in 1963 as a saloon waiter.

 Other than that, I can find no biographical information on him.

CASADO, Wifredo (Wilfredo Casado Diaz) [7/20/1939, Layna, Soria, Spain -     ] – film actor.

Ride and Kill – 1963 (saloon waiter)

Two new Japanese Blu-ray releases “荒野の用心棒 Koya no Yojinbo”, “夕陽のガンマン Yuhi no Gunman”

 

“荒野の用心棒 Koya no Yojinbo”

(Fistful of Dollars)

(1964)

 

Director: Sergio Leone

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volonte

 

Country: Japan

Label: King Records

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

Languages: (Dolby Digital 5.1) English, Mono Japanese

Running time: 178 minutes

ASIN: ‎B0DDRXY7YW

Available: November 13, 2024

 

Director: Sergio Leone

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Gian Matia Volonte

 

Country: Japan

Label: King Records

Widescreen

Aspect Ratio: ‎2.35:1

Language: Japanese (Mono), Dolby Digital 5.1, Japanese English

Running time: 132 minutes

ASIN: ‎B0DDS7X588

Available: November 27, 2024

夕陽のガンマン Yuhi no Gunman

(For a Few Dollars More)

(1965)

 

Director: Sergio Leone

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Matia Volonte

 

Country: Japan

Label: King Records

Widescreen

Aspect Ratio: ‎2.35:1

Language: Japanese (Mono), Dolby Digital 5.1, Japanese English

Running time: 132 minutes

ASIN: ‎B0DDS7X588

Available: November 27, 2024

Sergio Leone, ‘the Man with No English’, mimed directions to spaghetti western star Clint Eastwood

Guardian

By Dalya Alberge

November 17, 2024

The Italian filmmaker overcame the language barrier with his actors by using mime, as revealed in previously unseen photographs

They made their names with A Fistful of Dollars, the first in a series of spaghetti westerns that became classics of 20th-century cinema. But the Italian director Sergio Leone had such a poor grasp of English that, between takes, he would repeatedly rely on the words “watch me” before miming whatever he wanted from his leading man, Clint Eastwood, and his other actors.

Now previously unpublished photographs show him doing just that, acting out particular scenes.

[Sergio Leone rehearsing the scene in which Eastwood as Joe snatches Sheriff John Baxter’s gun from his holster, on the set of Fistful of Dollars: ‘Watch me, Clint.’ Photograph: Christopher Frayling Archive]

Sir Christopher Frayling, a leading cultural historian, has been given access to hundreds of images in archives that had belonged to Leone and his set photographer Angelo Novi. Frayling said that when A Fistful of Dollars was made in 1964, the words “watch me” were “the extent of Leone’s English”, adding: “He’d mime what he wanted and then start filming.”

A Fistful of Dollars was a box-office hit that led to two sequels, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, in which composer Ennio Morricone recreated the wild west of Leone’s imagination with a soundscape of haunting whistles and cracking whips.

[Leone mimes the action in characteristic style, for three sequences in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Photograph: Reporters Associati & Archivi]

Eastwood was a minor television actor when he was cast as the “Man with No Name”, the cool, laconic gunslinger in a poncho – a role that catapulted him to international stardom.

Leone, whose own father had made silent movies in Italy, became a master of mime in making up for his lack of English. He once said: “My films are basically silent films… The dialogue just adds some weight.”

[Leone directs Eastwood at the location where ‘Blondie’ shares the $2,000 bounty with Tuco (in the Rambla Otero, Las Salinas, Almería), while filming The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in 1964. Photograph: Reporters Associati & Archivi]

Singling out photographs of those miming scenes from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Frayling said: “There’s one of Clint Eastwood between two people being carried in front of a wagon, the arrival scene at a mission hospital – and one of Leone miming that. They’re virtually the same.

“I also love one of Eastwood, in the desert, which no one’s ever seen, where he’s obviously a bit confused about what’s going on around him, scratching his head and looking very frustrated because they couldn’t understand each other.”

Photographs from A Fistful of Dollars show Leone in a poncho, standing behind Eastwood in his poncho, having just acted out a scene, the showdown in the main street.

[Leone dispenses the gore on the set of Once Upon a Time in America. Photograph: Sipa/Shutterstock] 

Some of the photographs will feature in a forthcoming book, Sergio Leone by Himself, to be published this month.

It brings together interviews that Leone gave to selected film journalists over the years before his death in 1989 at the age of just 60, as well as essays that he had written on his cinematic influences, from Charlie Chaplin to John Ford. Most have never before appeared in English.

[Sergio Leone had a difficult relationship with actor Rod Steiger on the set of A Fistful of Dynamite. Photograph: Angelo Novi/Cineteca di Bologna]

There are also images from the set of A Fistful of Dynamite, starring Rod Steiger as a Mexican outlaw.

Frayling said that the two men disliked one another: “There are a couple of priceless photos of the two of them glaring at each other. Steiger’s style of acting, which was all ‘motivation’ and internalised acting, was the exact opposite of Leone’s.

[Leone directs Robert De Niro on the set of Grand Central Station, a sound stage at Cinecittà. Photograph: Angelo Novi/Cineteca di Bologna]

“Through an interpreter, Steiger was constantly asking: ‘What’s my motivation?’ At one point, he asked Leone: ‘Do you know whether I loved my mother or not?’ And Leone said: ‘It’s a bloody story, Rod.’”

Other previously unseen images include Robert De Niro’s makeup tests for the gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America. Frayling said: “It’s set in the early 1930s and in the 1960s. For the character, De Niro has to age a lot. They chop between different time periods. So it took a very long time to get his makeup so that he looked incredibly old.

“One of the photographs, which is unpublished, is of De Niro standing with his own father, looking at each other. Leone brought in De Niro’s actual father to give him an idea of what De Niro might look like when he gets older.”

Sergio Leone By Himself is published by Reel Art Press RRP £39.95. For further information and full list of stockists visit reelartpress.com

Special Birthdays

Luciano Rossi (actor) would have been 90 today but died in 2005.

Lauren Summers (actress) is 35 today.

RIP Katinka Faragó

 

Swedish film producer, production manager and script supervisor died in Stockholm on November 27^th. She was 87. Born in Vienna, Austria on December 16, 1936, the daughter of Hungarian refugees. Her family moved to Sweden in 1940, where her father became an author and scriptwriter. At age 17, she first worked with Ingmar Bergman on the production of “Dreams” (1955), and their association continued through “Fanny and Alexander” (1982) and projects beyond. Over the years, she also worked on other major Swedish productions, including Jan Troell’s “The Emigrants” and “The New Land” as a script advisor and supervisor and Andrei Tarkovsky’s “The Sacrifice”.

Little Known Spaghetti Western Actors ~ Enrico Casadei

[These daily posts will cover little known actors or people that have appeared in more recent films and TV series. Various degrees of information that I was able to find will be given and anything that you can add would be appreciated.]

Enrico Casadei is/was the brother of stuntman and actor Angelo Casadei [1919-2000]. Angelo was a staff manager for extras at Cinecitta Studios and therefore was able to provide his brother Enrico with quite a bit of work as an extra to actual credited roles.

I can find no biographical information on Enrico.

He appeared in 24 Spaghetti westerns that I know of but could have been in several more as an unseen or noticed extra over the years.

CASADEI, Enrico Angelo [Italian] – stuntman, film, TV actor, brother of actor Angelo Casadei [1919-2000].

“Jim il primo” (The Last Gun) – 1964 (Handley)

“Due Mafiosi nel Far West” (Two Mafiamen in the Far West) – 1964 (saloon patron)

“Doc, manos de plata” (The Man Who Came to Kill) – 1965 (saloon patron)

“La più grande rapina del west” (Hallelujah for Django) – 1966 (bank patron)

“Uccidi o muori” (Kill or be Killed) – 1966 (Deputy Joe)

“7 dollari sul rosso” (Seven Dollars to Kill) – 1966 (saloon patron)

“Odio per odio” (Hate for Hate) – 1967 (general store patron)

“Requiescant” (Kill and Pray) – 1967 (saloon patron)

“Wanted” (Wanted) – 1967 (Greenfield townsman)

“Sono Sartana, il vostro becchino” (Sartana the Gravedigger) – 1969 (vigilante)

“Acquasanta Joe” (Holy Water Joe) – 1971 (Donovan henchman)

“Per una bara piena di dollari” (Showdown for a Badman) - 1971 (townsman)

“...continuavano a chiamarlo Trinità” (Trinity is STILL My Name) – 1971 (barman)

“Si può fare... amigo” (It Can be Done Amigo) – 1972 (dancing cowboy in saloon)

“Una ragione per vivere e una per morire” (Massacre at Fort Holman) - 1972 (Confederate

  soldier)

“I sette del gruppo selvaggio” (7 Devils on Horseback) – 1972 (gambling observers)

“Cosi Sia” (They Call Him Amen) – 1972 (blacksmith customer)

“Sei jellato amico, hai incontrato Sacramento” (You're Jinxed, Friend You've Met Sacramento) –

 1972 (Bill)

“Los amigos” (Deaf Smith & Johnny Ears) – 1973 (Barrett)

“Sette monache a Kansas City” (Seven Nuns in Kansas City) – 1973

“Tutti per uno, botte per tutti” (The Three Musketeers of the West) – 1973 (hoedown dancer)

“Che botte ragazzi” (The Return of Shanghai Joe) – 1974 (saloon patron)

“Noi non siamo angeli” (We are No Angels) – 1975 (townsman)

“Zanna Bianca alla riscossa” (White Fang to the Rescue) – 1975 (dogfight gambler)

The Spaghetti Western: 7 Defining Examples + the Genre’s Influence on Cinema

Backstage

By Matt Goldberg

October 16, 2024

The sound of boots and spurs on the desert floor. An extreme close-up on a gunslinger’s eyes. The wah-wah-wahhhh of Ennio Morricone’s string and whistle-filled scores. You’d likely recognize the hallmarks of Italy’s “Spaghetti Western,” even if you’re not intimately familiar with the genre (or why it has such a peculiar name). Beyond their quick identifiers, these films are an essential piece of cinema’s development as a whole. Rather than a curious offshoot, Spaghetti Westerns circled back to influence American movies. It’s such a foundation, in fact, that any aspiring actor, filmmaker, or cinephile should dig in.

Why are they called “Spaghetti Westerns”?

The term was first used to describe the growing trend in the 1960s of making low-budget Westerns in Italy (although sometimes in Spain and Mexico, as well) with Italian filmmakers. Giants of the genre include Sergio Leone, Sergio Corbucci, and Tonino Valerii.

The lack of large-scale budgets and the country’s unique landscapes both added to what became the genre’s trademarks. The scorched deserts of Italy, for example, couldn’t be mistaken for the soaring mesas of Monument Valley or other aspects of the American West. While you’re still in a desert, it’s instantly recognizable as something different from the locales used by American filmmakers such as John Ford and Anthony Mann.

Furthermore, the need to make these films on a relatively cheap budget meant a grittier look. As Jakob Straub of Boords explains:

“Italian filmmakers imitated the look of CinemaScope without the actual anamorphic lenses of the technique. Instead, they used the spherical lenses of Techniscope and shot on 35mm film to achieve a wide-screen image, with visible film grain as a byproduct. Many cinephiles consider that ‘gritty’ look an essential charm of the subgenre.”

This roughness carries over to the text of the movies, as characters engage in morally questionable behavior and inhabit places where notions of justice and fairness are completely foreign. While post-war American Westerns explored such moral complexities with movies like Ford’s “The Searchers” and Fred Zinnemann’s “High Noon,” they were still rooted in the popular mythos of American ideals and the nobility of the frontier. Spaghetti Westerns dismiss those notions from the start to deal with far more bleak and unforgiving circumstances.

Spaghetti Westerns to learn the genre

The Man With No Name Trilogy (1964–66, dir. Sergio Leone)

Leone is the biggest name among Spaghetti Western directors; he arguably created the entire feel for the genre with this trilogy of movies starring Clint Eastwood: “A Fistful of Dollars” (1964), “For a Few Dollars More” (1965), and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (1966). In all three, Eastwood plays an unnamed protagonist who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty if it means exercising a little judgment. However, rather than a Western hero who rides into town to clean things up, Eastwood’s poncho-wearing outlaw is a man who typically wants to see a profit before even thinking of anything noble.

These movies also cement the tone of the Spaghetti Western, with Morricone’s lonely strings turning into rousing symphonies, the bleached landscapes and extreme close-ups used to capture characters’ emotions, and the bright-red blood that signified a more violent West (it was also easier to get out of laundry). But even though Leone was working with smaller budgets than his American contemporaries, he was also using that freedom to provide more nuance and shading to American mythology. Leone went even further with this inversion in a later Spaghetti Western, “Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968), by casting Henry Fonda, a figure of moral rectitude and normalcy in American cinema, as a sociopathic mercenary.

“Django” (1966, dir. Sergio Corbucci)

If Leone is the best known and most revered of the Spaghetti Western directors, Corbucci is a close second, especially with his iconic 1966 film “Django” starring Franco Nero. Similar to “A Fistful of Dollars” (which itself is a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1961 samurai film, “Yojimbo”), a gunslinger comes into a dirty town to play the rival factions off of each other. From the outset you can tell that Corbucci is going to go much bigger than Leone. Nero’s Django arrives dragging a coffin containing a machine gun behind him. It’s all a nasty piece of work, but in a way that’s delectably fun and defiantly liberated from the mores imposed by Hollywood filmmaking.

“Day of Anger” (1967, dir. Tonino Valerii)

While Eastwood was able to carve out an iconic figure thanks to Leone’s movies, you shouldn’t sleep on his “For a Few Dollars More” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” costar Lee Van Cleef, who also made a name for himself in Spaghetti Westerns. Here, in Valerii’s 1967 film, Cleef plays Frank Talby, a gunslinger who takes Clifton, Arizona’s young custodian Scott (the sweet-faced Giuliano Gemma) under his wing when Scott wants to stop living as the town’s punching bag. While a typical American hero’s journey would necessitate the mentor figure dying and the protégé taking up the mantle, “Day of Anger” builds to a far more fascinating climax as Talby takes over the town and forces Scott to question how far he’ll follow his teacher’s amorality.

“A Bullet for the General” (1967, dir. Damiano Damiani)

If you want to get into a subgenre of a subgenre, then it’s worth looking at the “Zapata Westerns” within the Spaghetti Western. These Zapata films are set in Mexico and typically take place during the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920. Damiani’s “A Bullet for the General” is particularly effective, as we step away from straightforward gunslingers. Instead, we walk alongside the rambunctious and emotionally complex El Chuncho (Gian Maria Volonté), a man who seems addicted more to the violence and freedom of revolution rather than any revolutionary ideals. The film is particularly bold in how it uses the slimy and duplicitous American character Bill Tate (Lou Castel) as a critique of American imperialism and its mercenary desires to impose authoritarian values on other countries. John Ford would never.

“The Great Silence” (1968, dir. Sergio Corbucci)

While you likely know Klaus Kinski from his work with Werner Herzog, the German actor also popped up in more than a few Spaghetti Westerns, such as Corbucci’s “The Great Silence.” Here, he plays a delectable villain in a film about a mute gunslinger (Jean-Louis Trintignant) taking on a group of bounty hunters in a snow-swept town. The tundra-like conditions make “The Great Silence” a unique presence in the Western genre as a whole, giving the movie not only a chilly look, but also further emphasizing the unrelenting brutality of the world the characters inhabit.

Lasting influences of the Spaghetti Western

In Eastwood’s career alone, you can see what he learned from Leone with his directorial efforts such as “High Plains Drifter” (1973), “The Outlaw Josey Wales” (1976), and his Oscar-winning masterpiece “Unforgiven” (1992). Eastwood, despite very much also living within the American Western (his first major TV role was on the Western series “Rawhide”), brought with him a modern edge that both studios and audiences were looking for. That kind of moral complexity permeates Eastwood’s efforts both behind and in front of the camera—and he’s such a looming figure, it bled into the genre as a whole.

Although Westerns started to die off through the 1970s, young filmmakers still carried the torch for the bold Spaghetti Westerns, especially Quentin Tarantino. His movies carry overt references, such as 2012’s “Django Unchained” taking not only the title, character name, and theme song from Corbucci’s film, but also smaller notes such as echoing the use of Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Für Elise” in Sergio Sollima’s “The Big Gundown.” Tarantino’s contemporary and “Grindhouse” co-director Robert Rodriguez is also heavily influenced by the genre, particularly in his “El Mariachi” trilogy (the title character, played by Antonio Banderas, arrives with a guitar case, instead of a coffin, full of weaponry).

The trappings of the genre are so identifiable, they can even be used in a family film such as Chris Miller and Phil Lord’s “The Lego Movie” (2014), which signifies the characters’ visit to “the Old West” with a “Ya ya ya!” musical cue meant to evoke Morricone’s scores.

But perhaps the most lasting influence is the way Spaghetti Westerns demonstrated how outsider status leads to innovation of the Hollywood status quo. Similar to the French New Wave, Italian neorealist movement, and New Hollywood, these filmmakers came out of World War II and upended Hollywood tropes to better reflect the darkness of the world they knew. You don’t get to the extreme violence and revisionist critiques of American history in films such as Sam Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch” (1969) and Robert Altman’s “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” (1971) without the influence and popularity of Spaghetti Westerns. It takes outsiders to deconstruct, re-evaluate, and rebuild what previously existed.

The name “Spaghetti Western” is silly on the surface, and it’s easy to parody tropes such as violent shootouts and Italian actors being badly redubbed into English. But these broad evaluations miss how this subgenre forced Westerns to grow, evolve, and meet a modern world. Italian filmmakers forced a stylistic evolution. Far from a foreign curio, Spaghetti Westerns are an essential part of one of cinema’s most enduring genres.