Sad Hill: the Wild West was in Burgos

Spain has been a film and series set throughout its territory. One of the most famous settings is the Sad Hill cemetery, in Burgos

Infoveritas

By Guillermo Garcia

January 31, 2025

The stony eyes of Clint Eastwood, Lee van Cleef and Eli Wallach squint and their hands, agile, approach the guns. Sergio Leone's camera jumps frantically from one to the other. Ennio Morricone's music masterfully envelops everything. The climax arrives. The Sad Hill cemetery overflows with tension that finally overflows. It is the end of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the culmination of the famous dollar trilogy. This is one of the most renowned exponents of the spaghetti western, a subgenre of Western films that was dominated by Italian filmmakers, such as Leone.

But Sad Hill was not in the United States, but in Burgos. The Castilla y León tourism portal explains that the culmination of the film was shot in the Mirandilla Valley, one of the "most beautiful and secluded in the province, between the towns of Contreras and Santo Domingo de Silos".

But the dollar trilogy, also made up of Death Had a Price and A Fistful of Dollars, are not the only films that have been shot in Spain. Neither Burgos and Almeria (which was also the setting for these films) have been the only places that have hosted productions of this type. There is a whole tradition of filming in our country, from Seville to Guadalajara, from the Canary Islands to Madrid. Throughout its territory, Spain has been a set.

Many of the stories that have moved us the most, and many others that kept us in suspense, through celluloid have been told from here. From INFOVERITAS we talk about them and the impact that the filming of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly had, at the time.

Spain, Hollywood set

If we talk about the filming of films that chose Spain as a set, we have to talk about Almeria. The province has not only been the setting for the dollar trilogy. Other major productions, such as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Cleopatra or Patton, were filmed in the Tabernas desert, according to the Andalusian website.

The City Council of Tabernas highlights that great figures of cinema of the last century are already part of the history of the town. Orson Welles, Claudia Cardinale, Harrison Ford or Brigitte Bardot were personalities who, over the decades, were working in Almeria.

You can’t miss the Plaza de España in Seville either. If you are a fan of the Star Wars saga, you will not have missed it. The second episode of this series, Attack of the Clones, shot part of its footage here. Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen did not walk through a galaxy far away, but in the capital of Seville, according to the Spanish tourism portal. Just like the magnetic blue eyes of Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, who also looked at the columns and arches of this square, point out from the Visit Seville website.

And not only film blockbusters, but also series. Two of the big bets of platforms such as Netflix and HBO have filmed scenes, for example, in the Canary Islands or Guadalajara. The fantasy series The Witcher and Game of Thrones have been filmed, in part, in El Cedro, in La Gomera, or in the castle of Zafra, in Guadalajara, according to the Spanish tourism portal.

The “Tower of Babel” of Sad Hill

Perhaps The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is the first film that comes to mind when we talk about filming in Spain. The film tells, in a few words and to avoid spoiling the plot, the story of three bounty hunters who are looking for treasure in the context of the American Civil War.

And perhaps the first thing that comes to mind when we think of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is the climactic scene. That is, the Sad Hill cemetery. The filming was not without difficulties. Sergio García, from the Sad Hill Cultural Association comments that "it was not easy to coordinate so many professionals of different nationalities. Sergio Leone did not communicate well in English. Clint Eastwood did not speak Italian or Spanish. Apparently, Eli Wallach (the ugly), was fluent in French, a language that Leone did know," he points out, in conversation with INFOVERITAS.

For example, García tells the anecdote that one scene, the most expensive in the film, showed the blowing up of a bridge during a battle in the American Civil War. This was done "without the cameras rolling, and it would most likely be a consequence of this Tower of Babel."

The tourism portal of Castilla y León points out that the scene was filmed in the Arlanza Valley with more than 2,000 extras. And it had to be shot three times. The first "was a fiasco and Leone wanted something spectacular," they point out. For the second, more than 400 kg of TNT were placed and up to 12 cameras were placed to film the blasting. The director "ceded the privilege of detonation to a Spanish army colonel in charge of the extras, but a lack of coordination of orders caused the bridge to blow up before the cameras began to record."

With this, the bridge was destroyed, "but it was rebuilt by the army in one week and on the third the blast was perfect as seen in the film."

The impact of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in Burgos

Sergio García explains that Sergio Leone’s team included Josep Antoni Pérez Gínez, “who a few years earlier had worked on another shoot in the area: The Valley of the Swords, by Javier Setó (1963). This film told the story of Fernán González (a character from the time of the Reconquest)”. Several sequences of this film took place in filming locations that later appeared in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

It was this producer who traveled with Leone during pre-production to “learn about the possibilities of the Arlanza valley.

The filming had a “real socio-economic impact” on the area. Although most of the extras were soldiers from the military barracks of San Marcial, in the city of Burgos, many countrymen from the surrounding villages were also hired. In addition, everything that involves a great filming from the point of view of local suppliers, restaurants, carpenters…”, reports Sergio García, from the Sad Hill Association.

This expert emphasizes that that time “is remembered with great affection, since the salaries paid were well above what could be achieved as a day laborer, which was the most frequent job destination at that time.”

The set is currently visible, according to the Castilla y León tourism portal. Its construction was designed by the set designer Carlo Simi and was carried out in three days thanks to 250 soldiers of the Spanish army. A “superb circular cemetery was recreated with more than 5,000 graves arranged in a system of concentric circles and radii surrounding a 30-meter central cobbled square where the climax is located”.

Why Sad Hill?

The dollar trilogy was filmed in various parts of Spain. The first, For a Fistful of Dollars, was filmed almost entirely in the mountains of Madrid, Sergio García points out, especially in Hoyo de Manzanares. The second, Death Had a Price, was filmed in Almeria and in the Community of Madrid. However, the third, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, took place in Burgos, Almeria and Madrid, and "we must also add some sequences in Granada".

"The United States is a gigantic territory, with a great variety of landscapes. We often associate the historical context of the conquest of the West with desert landscapes, which are very well reflected in Almeria. However, there are many other not so arid territories, such as New Mexico, which can be perfectly recreated in the landscapes of Peña Carazo (Burgos)," says this expert.

The impact that Sad Hill and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly have had has been very broad and has given rise to other film productions. For example, the documentary Unearthing Sad Hill, by Guillermo de Oliveira. This film reflects the process of rebuilding the cemetery. It has testimonies such as those of the composer Ennio Morricone, Clint Eastwood, the director Álex de la Iglesia or even James Hetfield, the singer of the band Metallica, who always opens his concerts with the song The Ecstasy of Gold, which plays during the climactic scene of the Western.

You don't have to travel to the Wild West or go to a galaxy far, far away to enjoy the settings of some of our favorite movies and series. The diversity of this country's landscape has made the greats of Hollywood set their eyes on our territory.

Clint Eastwood, Lee van Cleef and Eli Wallach were searching, while squinting their stony eyes, for a treasure. And it turns out that treasure is here, in Spain. A cinematic treasure called Sad Hill.