Spaghetti Western Locations

The site of Sad Hill Cemetery is located at Carazo near Salas de los Infantes. It is situated in a cow pasture, but you can still see the remains of the 1000s of graves constructed by the Spanish army. The center ring is grown over so it’s best to drive up the road to the top of the hill overlooking the site. Here you can get a bird’s eye view of the location and how closely it still resembles the original site. The Spanish army brought in dirt from another area to construct the graves and the plant and grass seeds the dirt contained are different then the surrounding soil which now make the graves stand out even more. When I walked the grounds with Don Bruce and Marla Johnson in 2003 and 2005 it was in silence as if we were visiting an actual cemetery. Recently an historical marker has been constructed to commemorate the location. Not easy to locate but one of the highlights of any SW fan’s list of must see locations.


You Tube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwVEDmw3n18

RIP Rigo Mora

Nicknamed ‘El Duque’ he was born in Mexico on January 9, 1955, he was co-founder of the special effects Necropia (1985), along with Guillermo del Toro. Necropia is responsible for the special effects in several films, such as Cabeza De Vaca, Dollar Mambo, Mentiras Piadosas, Bandidos, and many more. As member of Necropia, Rigo Mora worked in all the Hora Marcada (TV Series) chapters. Necropia's last work was for the directorial debut in a feature film of Guillermo del Toro, Cronos (1993). Mora also collaborated as an advisor on many animation projects released in his native Guadalajara and in Mexico City, like El Octavo Dia, La Creacion, Sin Sosten and Hasta Los Huesos. Mora directed the animated short films Polifemo and Como Preparar Un Sandwich (This one based upon an original idea by Guillermo del Toro), and the live action short Encrucijada, starring Ignacio Guadalupe and Rodrigo Murray. Rigo Mora died on May 6 of respiratory failure in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. He appeared as the hangman in the 1990 Euro-western Bandidos.

Thanks Mom!

ARRAPAHO

Arrapaho – International title

A 1984 Italian production [Lux International (Rome)]
Producer: Sam Cromwell (Ciro Ippolito)
Director: Sam Cromwell (Ciro Ippolito)
Story: Ciro Ippolito
Screenplay: Silvano Ambrogi Ciro Ippolito, Daniele Pace
Cinematography: Giuseppe Bernadini [Kodakcolor, widescreen]
Music: Totò Savio (Gaetano Savio)
Running time: 98 minutes

Cast:
narrator - Alfredo Cerruti
Scella Pezzata - Tinì Cansino (Photina Lappa)
Crazy Horse - Armando Marra
Chief Cataloni - Daniele Pace
Doctor Zhivago - Giancarlo Bigazzi
Cefalonia - Toto Savio (Gaetano Savio)
Arrapaho - Urs Althaus
Pierpaolo - Luigi Morra
spectators - Benedetto Casillo, Renato Rutigliano
gay Indian - Max Turilli (Max Tarilli)
orchestra director - Ciro Ippolito
Berta – Marta Rifano
with: Squallor (Alfredo Cerruti, Daniele Pace, Giancarlo Bigazzi, Antonoio Savio), Clara Bindi, Diego Cappuccio, Fiore DeRienzo, Roberta Fregonese, Gregorio Gandolfo, Guendalina Giovannucci, Maurizio Governa, Mario Olivieri, Marta Rifano, Domenico Lamacchia, Giuseppe Antonucci, Laura LaSorella, Prudencia Molero, Nello Pazzafini, Antonio Genca, Primiziano Muratori


Arrapaho is a film from 1984 directed by Ciro Ippolito, inspired by an LP made by thegroup Squalor that came out in 1983. Squalor were involved in the screenplay and appeared in the film as actors. The title of the film and the album was inspired by the Indian tribe of the same name who were a people devoted to trade and nomadic hunting.

Scelli Pezzato, daughter of Cataloni chief of the Indian tribe of Heavy Cefalonia, is betrothed to Crazy Horse, but is in love with Arrapaho, son of the head of the Black Mazza Indian tribe of the Arrapahos, which is itself the subject of the desires of Luna Caprese of Froceyenne. Heavy Ball can not follow the vicissitudes of love because he is busy invoking the gods of rain, to do with the horse Alboreto (a thoroughbred that day after day decreases until reaching the size of a pony), and also facing the problem of births in the village that have fallen to zero.

Scelli and Arrapaho are abducted by Cavallo Pazzo, but thanks to the rescue by Latte Macchiato of Froceyenne tribe and Cornetto Single of Arrapaho tribe are able to flee together. Cavallo Pazzo takes refuge in the arms of Luna Caprese.

The film ends with a performance of 'Aida along the lines of the song that opens the album.


You Tube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBD0VS4OEpY

Happy 60th Birthday Marie France

Born Maria Francisca Serrer Gabaldon on May 10, 1949 in Barcelona, Spain, Marie France spent her early years moving from country to country including Turkey, Italy, Argentina, Chile and Peru. During this time she studied drama, speech and singing. She made her acting debut in Peru in Ganarás el pan. Marie appeared in her only Euro-western in 1965 as Alice Munroe in “The Last Tomahawk” (1964). She returned to Spain in 1967 to live and appear in several television show and as a presenter. She then turned to theater and appeared for a number of years on the Spanish stage. Marie France continues acting today in films, television and theater. Today we celebrate her 60th birthday.

Think Westerns Can't Be French - Au Contraire.

By Robert Silva
Painted deserts, clanging spurs, and smoking barrels create a mystique that has rightfully earned Westerns a global audience. So it shouldn't be too surprising that some of our foreign friends have contributed their own versions of this rustic dreamworld, including, yes, the French. But before you cough up those freedom fries: Relax! From critics like Andre Bazin to future filmmakers like Jean-Luc Godard, the French have long been champions of American cinema, from turning John Ford and Howard Hawks into auteurs, to pulling film noir out of the shadows. It's also worth mentioning that the French were hardly sipping cafe au laits and slicing into blocks of Brie while the West was supposedly being "won". French and Indian War ring a bell, anyone?

Read on for a list of French actors who've played it cowboy with aplomb.

1. Joe Hamman
The first Gallic cowboy appeared not long after the inception of film itself. Starting in 1901, French actor Joe Hamman began a long line of "Arizona Bill" movies, and went on to inhabit such roles as "Rancho, un cow boy" and "Bornéo Bill". (You couldn't make this stuff up.) Though few prints survive, the surviving images are rather fun to look at. According to lore, Hamman worked out West as a young man, though the films themselves were shot in suburban Paris - an impressive trompe l'oil, to say the least!

2. Jean-Pierre Léaud
Best known for playing Antoine Doinel in The 400 Blows and its unnumbered sequels, the New Wave icon also played a gunslinger in the absurdist Western A Girl is a Gun, in which Jean-Pierre Leaud starred as a hippie-ish Billy the Kid. Directed by Hollywood deconstructionist Luc Moullet, the film is a low-budget gunslinging tale told by way of Godard, complete with hilarious poorly-dubbed English dialogue.

3. Alain Delon
Delon was (and is) one of France's most celebrated actors. Nevertheless he rode out west as a Cajun cowboy in 1971's Red Sun. Since his most conspicuous films -- Le Cercle Rouge and Purple Noon -- are taut reworkings of American pulp fiction, a take on the cowboy mythos doesn't seem too far off the map. But when you add Charles Bronson, Toshiro Mifune (!), and Swiss sex symbol Ursula Andress to the cross-cultural melange, well, it can make you a little dizzy. (It also conjures images of Red Sun's unholy fusion-cuisine counterpart: foie gras with baked bean sushi, and a dollop of cheese fondue.)

4. Robert Hossein
A writer and director of eclectic tastes, Hossein decided to get in on the Spaghetti Western craze with 1968's The Rope and the Colt. Like Delon, he'd often played roles in French take-offs of American crime stories, including the villain in Jules Dassin's classic Rififi. He began his career as a director in the 1950s, making movies that became well known for their noir shadings and graphic violence. These propensities show through as clear as bloodstains on a white shirt in this sordid frontier tale of murder, rape, and revanche.


5. Vincent Cassel
By the 21st century, it may have seemed as though the French Western had headed off into the sunset. But in 2004, Blueberry (referred to by some critics as a "baguetti Western", har) assembled yet another international cast for fun with horses, revolvers, and peyote. Vincent Cassel headed the group as its beset gunslinger, while Eddie Izzard, Michael Madsen, Juliette Lewis, and, yes, Ernest Borgnine made up the rest of the wild bunch. Shockingly enough, the film never made it to American theaters; it showed up in video stores under the slightly less fruity title, Renegade.

New DVD Release

The Three Musketeers of the West
released by Dorado Films, 1.85:1, anamorphically-enhanced,
widescreen, NTSC, running time: 93 minutes (some scratches,
wear and faded color are evident), Languages English, Italian,
Spanish stereo, extra’s alternative scenes, additional trailers
Available 5/19/2009