Book Review: American Western in Spain (Part 1)

A book rediscovers the black-legged western: when the Wild West was closer than ever

'American Western in Spain', by Carlos Aguilar, is a journey through the literary and cinematographic universe of the 'far west' genre in our country.

[Image of the filming of the documentary 'Unearthing Sad Hill' (2017), directed by Guillermo de Oliveira.]

 

El Espanol

Jesús Palacios

March 13, 2025

For several decades, the most American of film genres left the territories where it was born to move to the distant homeland (at least adopted) of its discoverer. None other than Spain.

Since the end of the fifties when the veteran Raoul Walsh directed the first western shot in our country, “The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw” (1958), a co-production with the United Kingdom starring the British Kenneth More (the future Father Brown, immensely popular also in Spain thanks to television) and the explosive Jayne Mansfield (six weeks pregnant and even more explosive than usual), until forty years later the filming of the last two took place: “A Dollar for the Dead” (1999) and “Outlaw Justice” (1999), TV films directed by Gene Quintano and Bill Corcoran respectively.

Both starred, the first, Emilio Estévez and the second Kris Kristofferson, the country of Columbus, Hernán Cortés, Cabeza de Vaca, Fray Junípero Serra and Coronado —the discoverer, not José—, without whom there would never have been cowboys, gunmen, gold prospectors or trappers, became a privileged setting to relive the feat of the conquest of the West, in the most different and varied forms.

Carlos Aguilar, veteran and renowned film critic and historian, seasoned in the territory of the wildest B Series and popular cinema, expert in the European, Italian and national western, resurrects this border world in every way in his new, documented and profusely illustrated book, American Western in Spain. But he does so, as its title indicates, with a different look than usual.

During these last decades numerous studies have appeared on the so-called Spaghetti western, the Italian and often Spanish-Italian western, which gave geniuses such as Sergio Leone and masters such as the other Sergios: Corbucci and Sollima.

Aguilar now sets his eye (and the bullet, of course) on the numerous American-produced westerns, often also with British or other countries' participation, which for economic and industrial reasons chose Spain as a set, parading through these lands stars such as Yul Brynner, Lee Marvin, Raquel Welch, Robert Mitchum, Faye Dunaway, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Richard Widmark, Jack Palance, Robert Ryan, Richard Crenna, Charles Bronson, Ernest Borgnine, Telly Savalas, Lee Van Cleef and Burt Reynolds... Accompanied by our Fernando Rey, Diana Lorys, Julián Mateos, José Nieto and the unforgettable Sancho Gracia, among many others.

To the rich American western

Surely, as Aguilar comments not without irony in some of his pages, few American or Spanish viewers could suspect that some titles were not genuine Hollywood westerns, but that they had been shot in Iberian settings, mainly those of Almeria or the Madrid Sierra, as well as with the participation of Spanish actors and technical crew. Many would believe that, like so many other American productions of the genre, they had been filmed in Mexico or its surroundings.

We are referring to titles such as “Custer of the West” (1967) by Robert Siodmak, with Robert Shaw as the mythical soldier massacred in Little Big Horn; “Shalako” (1968) by Edward Dmytryk, with Sean Connery, according to Louis L'Amour; the excellent and violent The Deserter” (1970) by Burt Kennedy, with Richard Crenna; “Valdez is Coming!” (1970) by Edward Sherrin, a faithful adaptation of a novel by Elmore Leonard; “The Spikes Gang” (1973) by Richard Fleischer, with Lee Marvin; “Chato’s Land” (1971) by Michael Winner and “Chino” (1973) by John Sturges, both starring Charles Bronson.

[A still from 'Valdez is Coming!' (1970), a genuine American western with Burt Lancaster... filmed between Almería and the Sierra de Madrid]

These and other titles of American production have their own distinctive characteristics, which clearly differentiate them from the Spaghetti western and the chorizo or western paella in the Mediterranean style. Infected by the success of the Latin formula taken by Leone to its maximum expression, they nevertheless possess the style of American cinematographic narrative, sharing in general the dirty, twilight, revisionist and demystifying bias of the New Hollywood.

Generally tragic, violent and little or not at all heroic, with sometimes open endings and characters that are rarely sympathetic or conventional, they also tend to break down the boundaries between different genres, using mystery intrigues as in Sam Wanamaker's “Catlow” (1971), again based on a novel by Louis L'Amour, with a cast headed by Yul Brynner, Richard Crenna and Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy.

[Raquel Welch and Robert Culp in 'Hannie Caulder' (1971), a western of rape and revenge directed in Spain by Burt Kennedy]

On other occasions, these are post-western scenarios such as that of revolutionary Mexico in the violent “100 Rifles” (1969) by Tom Gries, according to the work of Robert MacLeod, with none other than Jim Brown, Raquel Welch and Burt Reynolds; or even the proto-feminist subgenre of rape & revenge, as in Burt Kennedy's “Hannie Caulder” (1971), with Raquel Welch, Robert Culp, Ernest Borgnine and even Christopher Lee, in his only western.

Here, the jackpot goes to Terence Young's psychotronic “Red Sun” (1971), which brings together in a delirious plot of samurai in the Far West a heterogeneous international cast that includes Charles Bronson, Toshirô Mifune, Alain Delon, Ursula Andress, the Italian Luc Merenda and the Spaniards José Nieto, Mónica Randall and Julio Peña. In any case, these are titles that, as exotic and peculiar as they may be, are at the same time far removed from the stereotypes and styles characteristic of the most canonical spaghetti.

Lands of Spain

The curious thing is that the landscape and orography of certain Spanish regions is extremely suitable for recreating the spaces, both real and mythical, of the Old West. This led to the emergence of a truly healthy film industry, which in the midst of the late Franco regime gave work and well-being to numerous families.

As Aguilar explains: "The construction of western town sets in Spain adds up to the number of six, if we only consider those of a stable type over a certain period of time, in addition to other related enclaves (ranches, forts, cabins, etc.). All of them were erected throughout the 1960s: three on the outskirts of Madrid (Hoyo de Manzanares, Colmenar Viejo, Daganzo), one near Barcelona (Esplugues de Llobregat) and two in the province of Almeria".

[A view of the West village of Tabernas, the Mini Hollywood of Almeria]

To these could be added, although with less cinematographic relevance, what is considered to be the first theme park of the genre in Spain, Sioux City, located about fifty kilometers from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in the Barranco del Águila, belonging to the municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana. Founded as a film set in 1971, Antonio Margheritti's spaghetti “Take a Hard Ride” (1975) would be filmed there, with Jim Brown, Lee Van Cleef and Fred Williamson, as well as the scenes set in the West of the German comedy “Die Einsteiger” (1985).

A setting for advertisements, private parties, weddings and events, with its Old West shows, it would return to the present day when part of the Spanish series for Amazon “Zorro”, a new version of Johnston McCulley's character reinvented by screenwriter Carlos Portela, was filmed there, between 2022 and 2024.

[An image of the Western show that is still offered at the Sioux City theme park (Gran Canaria)] 

Of course, Almeria is the Spanish West par excellence: "... without a shadow of a doubt," explains Aguilar, "(...) Almeria represents the cardinal location of the western in Spain, in an absolute and sublimely emblematic way. In fact, it revealed an industrial vitality so formidable, even spectacular, that it justifies the appellation of "European Hollywood" during the boom decade (1965/1975)."

There, on the border with the new century and millennium, the last American westerns in Spain would be filmed. Today it continues to offer both Western shows and filming facilities in its Oasys theme park in the town of Tabernas, where the Almería Western Film Festival is also held, of which Aguilar is an irreplaceable regular, and in the towns of Fort Bravo and Western Leone.

In their day, these sets, which included everyone from Clint Eastwood to Robert Mitchum, along with Fernando Sancho, José Bódalo, Ricardo Palacios and Aldo Sambrell Italians such as Giuliano Gemma, brought Almeria and part of Andalusia out of the economic depression, putting Spain on a privileged map for international filming, beyond the gap opened by Samuel Bronston in the 1950s.