What was the first spaghetti western

Two fistfuls of the finest Italian westerns, from Django to the Dollars trilogy and beyond. In the late s, almost half of the films produced in Italy were westerns, from big budgeters by Sergio Leone to much cheaper ones. With a greater sense of operatic violence than their American cousins, the cycle of spaghetti westerns lasted just a few short years, but before hanging up its spurs in the late 70s, it completely rewrote the genre. The spaghetti western had its classic period and its auteurs.

Its sequel, For a Few Dollars More , is bigger, louder and even more stylish, with Eastwood reprising his role as a cynical bounty hunter, teaming up with Lee Van Cleef as a retired general out for revenge. A lone gunslinger Franco Nero rides into a town of two rival factions — Mexican revolutionaries on one side, racist Klansmen on the other — and cynically plays them off against each other to get money and revenge. The two become friends, but the gringo is not all he seems, and so begins a tale of loyalty, betrayal and political assassination.

But for many genre fans, it specifically refers to Spaghetti Westerns, a genre that emerged during the s. So, what is a Spaghetti Western, why is it called a Spaghetti Western, how did they become so popular, and create such an enduring legacy? A straightforward Spaghetti Western definition will help you understand what the genre is all about. It will also help give some context when talking about the rise and fall of the sub-genre and how its legacy survives to this day.

Often filmed with low budgets, Spaghetti Westerns featured anti-heroes for protagonists, dastardly villains, desert landscapes, non-traditional music scores, and plenty of violence. The Western is, first and foremost, an American-made genre, influenced and inspired by the real American Western frontier of the s. One of them — Rawhide — starred a young actor named Clint Eastwood.

In-between all this, some Italian filmmakers were making Westerns that did not raise much attention. They were not anything too special or drastic, simply Western-style films shot in Europe. A few of these were Spanish-Italian Westerns, and Spain would later become a major co-financier in the sub-genre. One notable Western — West and Soda — was an animated film parodying the Western genre. It also further rattles the question of what is a Spaghetti Western, as parody films animated or otherwise didn't really dominate the genre.

What no one disputes and what everyone knows is the movie that made these Westerns a household name. One of the best Spaghetti Westerns, this was the breakthrough that created an industry where nearly half of every Italian film in production was a Western. Each one starred Eastwood as the Man with No Name, a drifter who came into town to fight off some bad guys in pursuit of money.

Other actors in these films included Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach, all of whom would later star in even more of these Italian Westerns. For the time of making many spaghetti westerns were quite violent, and several of them met with censorship problems, causing them to be cut or even banned in certain markets. Many spaghetti westerns have an American-Mexican border setting and feature loud and sadistic Mexican bandits.

The Civil War and its aftermath is a recurrent background. The genre is unmistakably a catholic genre some other names in use are Hallelujah, Cemetery, Trinity or Holy Water Joe! The surreal extravanganza Django Kill! Se sei vivo, spara, , by Giulio Questi, a former assistant of Fellini! The outdoor scenes of many spaghetti westerns, especially those with a relatively higher budget, were shot in the Spain, in particular the the Tabernas desert of Almeria Andalusia and Colmenar Viejo and Hoyo de Manzanares near Madrid.

In Italy the province of Lazio the surroundings of Rome was a favourite location. Some spaghetti westerns were shot in the Alpes, North Africa or Israel. Westerns had always been popular in Italy. A few Italian westerns had been produced during WWII, when the fascist government excluded American westerns from Italian cinemas, for instance Il Fanciullo del West , by Giorgio Ferroni who would direct several spaghetti westerns during the heydays of the genre.

The Karl May movies had created a cultural and financial context for large scale production of western movies in Europe.

The early examples of Italian westerns produced in the sixties looked more or less like American B-westerns, with cast and crew hiding behind American sounding pseudonyms.

While Leone redefined the western genre, Caiano told a classic western story about sheriff Pat Garret, and where Caiano engaged an aging American actor Rod Cameron , Leone chose a young television actor called Clint Eastwood. Spaghetti Westerns have had a long road to recognition in the film world. The films were looked upon unfavourably when they first came out. However, over the decades, the sub-genre has been closely studied and its filmmaking virtues have been acknowledged.

The films may have been spawned from Westerns but they developed their own visual language, soundtracks, distinct characters, themes and iconography.

These unique characteristics of the sub-genre have in turn influenced diverse filmmakers over the decades. As a result, Spaghetti Westerns have created a unique and influential place in cinematic history. Even though there were as many as Spaghetti Westerns made between , the sub-genre is still mostly associated with Sergio Leone whose A Fistful of Dollars is the first Spaghetti Western.

The selected films also cover the gambit of characters from bounty hunters The Bounty Killer , The Big Gundown , a gun-carrying priest Klaus Kinski in A Bullet for the General , corrupt general, double crossing gunmen to crazed machine gun toting characters.