All language subtitles for SPAGHETTI WESTERN - A Documentary Complete

"Get three coffins ready."

If you use the term "spaghetti western"
when speaking to your average Joe,

chances are he's not going to
know what you're talking about.

Is it some kind of Texan take on the Italian dish?

Well, not to spoil the surprise or anything, but
for you average Joes out there, it's a film genre.

Specifically, it's typically an Italian
sub-genre of the once-dominant western.

While these films had their heyday between the
mid-60s to 70s, many people don’t realize that

these films completely redefined
the western genre as we know it.

They were hugely popular in Europe,
and there were a lot of them.

By a lot of them, I’m talking
somewhere around 500 different films.

Before the advent of the Spaghetti Western,
westerns were stereotyped as happy,

wholesome films where the good guy
was good and the bad guy was bad.

In films like the highly influential The
Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, however,

the typical western cliches were subverted.
And the genre that started as subversive

with bounty hunters as morally grey
heroes took over the western mythos.

That’s a big reason why I find
these films so fascinating.

They completely changed and, as a
result, kind of killed westerns.

I grew up watching the Dollars
Trilogy films and started delving

into the spaghetti western genre as a teenager.

These movies maintain a significant influence

on me. But they also maintain an influence
on all kinds of media over 50 years later.

I am making this list because,

while the Spaghettis have their devoted
fans, they’re more or less a lost art.

Most people in the U.S. don’t know a lot about
these films, save the ones I’ll be discussing on

the first tier of the iceberg, and, even then, the
famous ones aren’t as popular as they used to be.

I also wanted to make this iceberg because
this genre has a super interesting history

and many of its prime figures overlap
with one another, as you’ll find out.

As for the actual content of the iceberg, I’ll
be covering notable films, actors, directors,

and other intriguing points within the genre.

Now for some housekeeping.

There is a lot to cover on this list,

and I feel that I barely scratched the
surface of this topic in some ways.

Like I said, there’s somewhere
around 500 spaghetti westerns and

information about a lot of them, even
the more well-known films, is scarce.

There’s also misinformation and uncertainty,

and most of these films are
over or almost 50 years old.

A lot of the people behind them are dead.

And it doesn’t help that these
are foreign films, so, as a filthy

GRINGO

accessing information was difficult at points.

With the information I did gather, it was
hard to decide what was worth including.

So if you want to learn more about something,

I highly recommend you check out the websites and
documentaries I am going to credit in a moment.

Also, for you spaghetti fans, if I don’t mention
your absolute favorite western of all time that is

so totally epic and underrated, please just leave
a comment and, if I get enough recommendations,

I might make a second iceberg in the form of
an amendment to this one or totally new one.

I covered a lot of great topics though,
and I want this to be a video that veteran

fans and people who have no idea
what these movies are can enjoy.

Additionally, I want to be clear that I am going
to be injecting this iceberg with a lot of memes

and jokes so if you’re expecting something
super serious, this is not the place to be.

I’ll also talk about my
research process at points and,

if I have seen the film I’m talking about,
I will give a kind of mini review on it.

If my commentary doesn’t interest you, I
have uploaded the iceberg itself to Imgur.

As long as you credit me and link to this video,

you’re free to upload the
iceberg wherever you like.

So if you’ve found this video and
discovered that someone has uploaded

my iceberg and claimed it as their own,
please let me know or call them out on it.

I’m not worried about where this iceberg
ends up but if there’s one thing I want,

it’s the bare minimum acknowledgment that
I made this thing. All right, rant over.

My last disclaimer is that,
I’m gonna level with you,

my dear viewers, and say the best films on
this list are within the first two tiers.

But even some of the best films are
only on par with your average B-movie.

If there’s a film in a lower tier that I think
is worth checking out, I’ll make a point of it.

But, like most media, it’s safe to say that
the well-known ones are usually the best.

Trust me, there are some amazing films on here,
though, and, regardless of whether you are a huge

western fan, a film buff, or not even that big
into movies, you should check some of these out.

Now, I want to endorse a few
documentaries that I used in my research:

The first is Western, Italian Style–a
1968 documentary that is narrated by

recurring spaghetti western actor
Frank Wolff and features interviews

with directors Enzo G. Castellari,
Sergio Corbucci, and Sergio Sollima–,

The Spaghetti West–a 2005 documentary that

details the history of the genre
with several important figures–,

The Leone Style–a short documentary
that focuses on director Sergio

Leone’s techniques specifically in
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly–,

and, if you want to check out some films (after
watching my video, of course) but aren’t sure

where to start, I recommend you watch YouTuber
kubricklynch’s “A Beginner’s Guide to Spaghetti

Westerns” as he goes over some of the significant
films in the genre and analyzes them as a whole.

These and other documentaries
are linked in the description.

Finally, just to give credit where credit is due,

I used three main websites
when it came to my research.

These sites are the Spaghetti Western Database,

Westerns… All’Italiana, and
Once Upon a Time in a Western.

I wouldn’t have found 75% of the things
I did if it wasn’t for these pages. So,

massive, MASSIVE thank you to all the
users and contributors on those sites.

“Now, we start.”

There’s no better place to start
this iceberg than the Dollars movies.

These three films set the stage for all
the spaghetti westerns that followed them.

They are by far the most
influential films within the genre.

And thanks to them, the careers
of Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef,

Ennio Morricone, and many others took off.

The films center around the legendary Man with
No Name, an iconic character in the truest sense.

Well, he was technically never meant
to be seen as the same character,

nor were the films intended by their
director to be a linked trilogy.

But the films are called the
Dollars trilogy because, well,

the first two films have “Dollars” in their
titles and each film is more or less about the

Man with No Name trying to make a fortune the
only way he knows how: cold-blooded killing.

I guess it's not so cold once you consider that

all the people he kills are
far more ruthless than he is.

There’s not much more to say about these movies
because you should experience them on your own.

I would say they’re all essential
viewing if you like film in general.

At the very least, The Good, the
Bad, and the Ugly certainly is.

All three of these movies have excellent
soundtracks, cinematography, stories, and acting.

When it comes to dubbing, compared
to most spaghetti western dubs,

these movies have the best ones in my opinion.

Please, if you haven’t watched
any of these yet, do so.

I was originally going to leave the Man with
No Name in the Dollars trilogy part as a quick

reference. However, he's such a notable character
that I decided to give him his own section.

As I’m sure most of you know,

the Man with No Name is played by Clint
Eastwood in all three Dollars movies.

Most will recognize him thanks to his
poncho, hat, cigarillo, and squinty eyes.

What's funny about The Man with
No Name is he is never called

The Man with No Name in any of the Dollars movies.

In A Fistful of Dollars, he is called Joe.

In For a Few Dollars More, he’s Manco.

And in The Good, the Bad, and
the Ugly, he's named Blondie.

The No Name moniker was given to him
after the films were released as a way

to market the Dollars trilogy as that: a
trilogy, instead of three separate movies.

I would say every major character
in the spaghetti westerns that came

after the Dollars movies are more or
less modeled on the Man with No Name.

Most of the time, they're
like copies of the character.

Strangers of few words who ride
into town seeking something.

Either that or they're direct
subversions of the character.

But I won't get too much into that right now.

Naturally, the Man has inspired
many characters in other media,

whether that's books, anime, film, or even games.

If you’re already familiar with spaghettis,
you’re probably wondering why I didn’t talk

about things like the cinematography
of the Dollars movies more in-depth.

That’s because I wanted to save
it for this section where I will

be discussing the films’ director Sergio Leone.

Leone was born in Rome and began
his film career in the late 40s

as an assistant director and screenwriter.

His first stint as a director came in 1959 when

he directed The Last Days of Pompeii
after its initial director fell ill.

After making his official directorial
debut with another film in 1961, in 1964,

he wrote and directed A Fistful of Dollars.

In addition to some other films on this list,

Leone also directed the highly acclaimed Once
Upon a Time in America featuring Robert De Niro.

If it wasn’t clear enough,

Leone was a huge visionary not just for
these westerns, but for film in general.

His directorial style of extreme close-ups
and long shots is still widely respected.

Leone was all about capturing atmosphere and mood,
and he succeeds in all of his films with this.

He knew how to pick actors, even minor
background characters, that had a look.

"You have to look at the film carefully."

"Lee had the tip of a finger cut off."

"Leone adored that."

"He had a man with no legs."

"He would find different people who have
suffered in life, and he would focus on that."

These little details build up to
create some magnificent scenes.

A lot of his best scenes are just a
couple of guys staring at each other,

but the ways in which he depicts
these moments are incredible.

If you don’t know the name, you’ll know the music.

And if you don’t know the music, I-I
don’t even know what to say to you.

“Prolific” is an understatement when
it comes to describing this man.

Maestro Morricone created the
scores for over 400 films.

These films include The Untouchables,
The Thing, The Hateful Eight, Once Upon

a Time in America, and, of course,
some of the best spaghetti westerns.

He composed the scores for at
least 35 films in the genre.

Morricone covered a wide range
of genres and moods in his music.

From triumphant and energizing
to haunting and beautiful,

it’s no wonder that he was highly
sought after by filmmakers.

One cool fact about Sergio
Leone and Morricone is that,

when Leone was directing, Leone had
Morricone create the score first,

and Leone would play the music as he filmed
his scenes to time them to the music.

In an interview, Leone once said,

It’s no surprise then that Morricone
composed all the music for all of

Leone’s films starting with A Fistful of Dollars.

It just goes to show how important
music was to Leone in his films,

as well as how much he respected Morricone.

For those of you who still aren’t quite
sure if you’ve heard his music (which I

feel like you’d have to go out of your
way to avoid if anything considering,

y’know, 400 film scores), his most famous
song is by far “The Ecstacy of Gold,” sung

by the lovely Edda Dell’Orso, from
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

If you haven’t heard that song before,

then you need to watch the film so you can
hear the song as it was meant to be heard.

That scene is the most powerful one in the
movie, and it is mostly due to that song.

After finishing The Good, the Bad,
and the Ugly, Sergio Leone was tired

of directing westerns and decided to
retire from creating films in the genre.

At least, that’s what he thought because
Paramount Pictures had other plans.

Paramount gave Leone an offer: direct
another western for us and we’ll give

you a big ol’ budget and the great Henry Fonda.

Henry Fonda was Leone’s favorite actor, so, with
that and the cash incentive, Leone took the deal.

What he created was Once Upon a Time in the West.

Alongside the Dollars movies, this
film is considered not only one of

the best spaghetti westerns but also
one of the best films of all time.

The movie tells the story of a growing western

town where the McBain family
hopes to make their fortune.

This dream is cut tragically short
when the family is killed by the

ruthless Frank and his men, disguised as outlaws.

Little does Frank know that McBain's
new wife Jill has just rolled into town,

meaning McBain’s land is now hers.

Someone else arrives, the mysterious drifter
Harmonica, who seeks Frank for reasons unknown.

There is also Cheyenne, the outlaw whose group
was framed for the murder of the McBain family.

These four figures and their inevitable
collision will shape the town’s future forever.

Although it was a huge hit in Europe, Once
Upon a Time in the West was a flop in the U.S.

These days, however, it is beloved
by critics and audiences alike.

The film has some incredible performances
by Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale,

Jason Robards, and, of course, Henry Fonda.

What a lot of people don't realize
about this film is that Fonda was known,

at the time, for his heroic roles.

In Once Upon a Time in the West, however, he
plays the utterly remorseless and unsympathetic

main villain, which was a huge shock
to American audiences at the time.

"And then into the foreground of
the little boy comes a figure."

"The camera very slowly is coming around."

"And Sergio Leone had cast me because he could
imagine at this moment the audience saying-"

"JESUS CHRIST IT'S HENRY FONDA"

I’ll be honest, I wasn't too keen on
this movie when I first watched it.

I thought it was pretty boring and in no
way constituted a nearly three-hour runtime.

After rewatching it, I’ve
changed my tune quite a bit.

The things I have loved since my
first viewing are Leone’s masterful

cinematography, the amazing score by Ennio
Morricone, and the film’s final duel,

which is my favorite one out of all
the spaghetti westerns I have seen.

If you want to hear a review that
praises the film more than my little

spiel here, I recommend you watch
ralphthemoviemaker’s video on it.

He has a great passion for this film, and,

while I appreciate it now more than on my first
viewing, it’s still not my favorite spaghetti.

If you want to spare yourself the whole viewing,

at least watch the final duel scene.
It’s the best part of the film by far.

The cinematography, the music,
the acting, and the suspense;

it’s all executed perfectly by Leone and his team.

Released in 1966, together
with the Dollars trilogy,

Django played a massive role in boosting
the popularity of spaghetti westerns.

At the time, it was a smash-hit in Italy but was
highly criticized due to its gore and violence.

It was even banned in the UK and never
properly released there until 1993,

almost 30 years after its original debut.

Those of you who aren’t familiar with
spaghetti westerns will most likely

recognize Django and the theme from the
Quentin Tarantino film Django Unchained.

I included this film in the
first tier for this reason.

Also, it’s pretty well-known for the coffin the

titular character drags around
at the beginning of the film.

Whatcha got there, Django?

OH

Yeah, that scene is probably the
most memorable part of the film.

As for Django’s plot, it’s a story about a former
Union soldier who seeks revenge for his lost love.

As a result, he is caught in the crossfire between
a group of Mexican bandits and the Klu Klux Klan.

It has this sort of cheapish,

almost B-movie quality to it that
a lot of spaghetti westerns have.

But, as I said, these films were more
or less mass-produced after the Dollars

movies and most of them never got
the big-budget Leone treatment.

For what it is though, it’s a great watch.

One final fact is that this film is
also notable for its breakout star,

a then 25-year-old Franco Nero.

Franco Nero is an Italian actor
who has appeared in several films.

Many of these productions have been Italian,
but he has also starred in films like Camelot,

John Wick 2, and, his greatest
role, Uncle Topolino in Cars 2.

Nah, I’m kidding.

Nero is most well-known for his spaghetti
roles, especially as the eponymous Django.

Django is probably his most iconic character,

but Nero starred in roughly a dozen more
spaghetti westerns after his big break.

He’s going to come up a lot on this iceberg since
his westerns are some of the most well-regarded.

For a final cool fact, Nero made a
brief cameo in Quentin Tarantino’s

Django Unchained as more or
less his most famous role.

“The D is silent.”

“I know.”

I understood that reference.

I listed a lot of names just
now because these are actors

who either reached stardom because of
the spaghetti westerns they starred

in or are perhaps more notable now
for having been in these westerns.

Franco Nero got his own section because,
while he is a well-known actor, I wouldn’t

say he’s as known to the general American
public as the actors in this section are.

Clint Eastwood is… well… Clint Eastwood. Though
he was somewhat successful in television,

especially in the show Rawhide, his role as the
Man with No Name in the Dollars trilogy catapulted

him to international fame. He continues to direct
and star in films even at the ripe age of 92.

I discussed Henry Fonda in the Once Upon a
Time in the West section due to his a-typical

casting as a villain rather than a hero for
that film. In addition to his role as Frank,

Fonda was offered the role of the Man with No Name
in A Fistful of Dollars before Clint Eastwood.

Before Once Upon a Time in the West, he was and
still is most notable for starring in films like

12 Angry Men, The Grapes of Wrath, How the West
was Won, My Darling Clementine, and many more.

Lee Van Cleef began his acting career in the 50s
but rarely received big roles due to his sharp,

“villanious” features. He was about to give
up on acting when Sergio Leone offered him the

role of Colonel Douglas Mortimer in For
a Few Dollars More. Van Cleef accepted,

and he finally broke out as a star, especially
in Europe. His part as Angel Eyes, the bad,

in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly also helped
cement his legacy. After the Dollars films,

he starred in several more spaghetti westerns.

Eli Wallach didn’t break out into stardom because
of spaghetti westerns. However, he is most

remembered today for his role as Tuco, the ugly,
in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Though Wallach

starred in a few spaghettis outside The Good,
the Bad, and the Ugly, his better-known western

roles are American ones such as The Magnificent
Seven, How the West was Won, and The Misfits.

Charles Bronson became an actor after serving
in the United States Air Force during the

Second World War. Although he starred in
a variety of films, the most notable of

the spaghettis he starred in was Once Upon a
Time in the West as Harmonica. Funnily enough,

Sergio Leone offered Bronson the role of the
Man with No Name in A Fistful of Dollars and

For a Few Dollars More, as well as the roles of
Angel Eyes and Tuco in The Good, the Bad, and the

Ugly. However, Bronson declined all
of these offers. As for his stardom,

Bronson didn’t become a huge name until the 1970s
when he starred in The Mechanic and Death Wish.

Claudia Cardinale is an Italian actress
who is best known for her role as Jill

in Once Upon a Time in the West. She mainly
starred in European/Italian productions but

also American endeavors such as The
Pink Panther and The Professionals.

She also starred in Federico Fellini’s
renowned 8½ and continues to act today.

Woody Strode was one of the NFL’s first
African American football players. After

his sports and military career, he took up
acting. His best-known role these days is

probably as Stony, one of Frank’s goons,
in Once Upon a Time in the West. However,

he also had roles in several famous
films including The Ten Commandments,

Spartacus, The Man Who Shot Liberty
Valance, and The Italian Connection.

Jason Robards was a highly acclaimed actor,
one of the few to receive the Triple Crown

of Acting (when one wins an Academy Award, an
Emmy Award, and a Tony Award). In addition to

the Triple Crown, he won a second Academy Award
and a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor.

Among the many plays, television
shows, and films he starred in,

Robards also starred as Cheyenne
in Once Upon a Time in the West.

James Coburn, Rod Steiger, and Jack Palance
are the last three stars on my list. However,

none of them starred in any of the
spaghetti westerns on this tier.

They’ll pop up later, but I included them due
to their notability outside of these westerns.

James Coburn is best known for his roles in
The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape,

which also featured fellow spaghetti actor
Charles Bronson. Like Charles Bronson and

Henry Fonda, he was also offered
the role of the Man with No Name.

Rod Steiger, like many on this list,
was also a prolific actor. You might

know him best for his role, which won
him the Academy Award for Best Actor,

as Bill Gillespie in In the Heat of the Night.

Jack Palance starred in a wide
variety of television shows and

films. He was nominated for two
Academy Awards for Sudden Fear

and Shane and won Best Supporting
Actor for City Slickers in 1991.

Spaghetti Westerns are known for featuring
many different actors from all different

countries. This little list was a small
sample of the number of notable actors

it was connected to. And I think it's the
best way to take us into the next tier.

This section of the iceberg will be dedicated,
for the most part, to the Three Sergios.

I am starting here because the films
by these three directors are the most

highly regarded and well-known
among Spaghetti Western fans.

This will be an area where, as long as
you're familiar with the term “spaghetti

westerns,” you’ll most likely have
heard of these films and figures.

The Three Sergios refers to three of the
spaghetti western genre’s most recognized

and widely acclaimed directors. The first and most
famous of these three is, of course, Sergio Leone.

The next in the trio you’ll often hear about
is Sergio Corbucci, who directed Django.

Aside from Leone, he is considered
by many to be the greatest of all the

spaghetti western directors,
and I’m inclined to agree.

Corbucci had a much more
prolific career than Leone.

Leone only had eight directorial credits to
his name, though he did much more direct.

But Corbucci has 66 writing and
directing credits to his name.

When it comes to his style, he is
known primarily for the violence

and highly cynical tone of his spaghetti westerns.

The last Sergio is Sergio Sollima.

Even though Sollima only made three westerns,

his films are continually praised and regarded
as highly as Leone and Corbucci’s films.

Sollima’s other directing credits include
Violent City with Charles Bronson,

as well as the TV miniseries based on
the popular Italian character Sandokan.

Though his westerns are also dark
and gritty like the other Sergios,

his films tend to have a slightly
(and when I say slightly,

I mean slightly) more positive tone with
their likable and redeemable protagonists.

Sollima thought of his protagonists, primarily
Cuchillo in The Big Gundown and Run, Man,

Run! as childlike dreamers, representatives
of the lower class, who were different

from the typical no-talk no-nonsense
gunslingers from other spaghetti westerns.

Yojimbo is a 1961 film by
legendary director Akira Kurosawa.

The film’s lead character is
played by Toshiro Mifune who

also starred in Kurosawa’s
other classic Seven Samurai.

The film’s title translates
to “Bodyguard,” and it’s about

Mifune’s character taking advantage
of two rival gangs to make some bank.

Sound familiar?

That’s because Sergio Leone heavily based
A Fistful of Dollars on Kurosawa’s picture.

Due to the obvious similarities between the two

films, the company that produced
Yojimbo sued Leone and his team.

The lawsuit ultimately delayed the release
of the Dollars movies in the US until 1967.

Eventually, the groups settled out of court.

According to historian Sir Christopher
Frayling, Kurosawa supposedly remarked at

one point that he made more from A Fistful
of Dollars than any of his previous films.

Leone admitted that he took the ideas from Yojimbo
and translated them into a western setting.

However, director Sergio Corbucci also
claimed that he based Django on Yojimbo.

Annnnd Sergio Sollima said he
based the character Cuchillo

off of Toshiro Mifune’s character,
not from Yojimbo, but Seven Samurai.

And and, while it wasn't a spaghetti
western, I’m sure many of you will know

that Seven Samurai was also the direct
inspiration for The Magnificent Seven.

If anything’s clear from this, it seems
we have not the Italian directors but

Akira Kurosawa to thank for the
genesis of the spaghetti western.

If you have yet to watch Yojimbo or Seven
Samurai, I also highly recommend those films.

Gian Maria Volonté is remembered by most for
his roles as the main villains in the first

two Dollars films: Ramon Rojo in A Fistful of
Dollars and El Indio in For a Few Dollars More.

During his career, Volonté was known for his

left-wing activism as well
as his fiery personality.

According to some sources, though I haven’t
been able to verify them, he often conflicted

with Sergio Leone during the filming of A Fistful
of Dollars and especially For a Few Dollars More.

Leone was notorious for reshooting
scenes over and over again.

But what I can’t confirm is that
Leone would purposefully tire out

Volonté with retakes to make
his acting less over-the-top.

A few sources also suggest he didn’t get
along with co-stars of differing politics.

Rumors aside, Volonté had a long
career on stage and in film.

He was renowned in Italy and starred in several
award-winning films, including Investigation of a

Citizen Above Suspicion–which won Best Foreign
Film at the Oscars–The Mattei Affair, and The

Working Class Goes to Heaven, both of which
won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.

I am particularly fond of Volonté’s
role as Indio in For a Few Dollars More.

This is mostly because, while the characters in
spaghetti westerns are more dimensional overall,

the big bad guys tend to remain one-sided.

Though Indio is still an irredeemable character,

he has more depth to him than the
average spaghetti western antagonist.

I’m not going to spoil the film, but you can see

from the start that Indio is haunted
by something that he did in the past.

One could infer that Indio’s
madness is a result of that event,

though it’s also possible that
he was just as insane before.

“...and that’s why I feel your family
is partly mine. I’ll take my part now.”

Whatever the case, it makes him
a much more interesting villain

compared to a lot of the other ones in the genre.

When it comes to spaghetti westerns,

most scholars identify three different kinds
of films across three different periods.

The first period is the genesis
with Leone’s Dollars trilogy,

Django, and other early spaghettis.

The next is the golden age or political period,
which I will be discussing in this tier.

And the last is the parody period.

Some also include what are often called
the “Twilight Spaghettis,” made in the

mid-70s after most considered the genre dead.

I think most spaghetti fans will agree that
spaghetti westerns have two primary subgenres.

The first of these is the political
spaghettis or Zapata westerns.

The term Zapata comes from Mexican
revolutionary Emiliano Zapata.

These movies are usually set during
the Mexican Revolution, of course,

and are allegories of the tense political
climates in which they were created.

Some are allegories for the Vietnam War, fascism,
capitalism, or other topics of political turmoil.

These films debuted in the late 60s, around
the time the Years of Lead began in Italy.

This was an incredibly tumultuous period marked
by terrorism from right-wing and left-wing groups.

Since the Years of Lead began in the late
60s, it's safe to say that many of these

mostly left-leaning directors were using their
films to indirectly speak about the unrest.

That's not to say that every Zapata was
necessarily inspired by the Years of Lead

or Vietnam, but knowing the roughness
of the political climate at the time

certainly gives one perspective about
the era these films were created in.

I’ll get into what films are Zapatas or
not as they appear within the iceberg.

Several spaghetti westerns,
despite almost all of them

being Italian endeavors, weren't filmed in Italy.

A lot of them were filmed in Spain.

One location that was used,
primarily for the Dollars movies,

was the Spanish province of Almeria.

To capture the kind of western he wanted, Leone
had his team build a town in Almeria’s desert.

And that's how Mini Hollywood was born.

According to Wikipedia, Mini Hollywood was
built for the filming of For a Few Dollars More.

However, the official Mini Hollywood
website and an interview with the

park’s manager (in 2017) claim that the
set was built for A Fistful of Dollars.

Thanks for nothing, Wikipedia.

You’re probably wondering what I mean
when I call Mini Hollywood a park.

These days, Mini Hollywood
is just that: a theme park!

After Leone used the town in his films,
other spaghetti westerns were filmed there.

When The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
finished filming, the set became a theme

park and expanded to include a zoo, a cactus
garden, a pool, and, naturally, a film museum.

The park is still called Mini Hollywood,
but its official name now is “Oasys.”

While Mini Hollywood is by far the most
popular and well-known park of its kind,

two other western theme parks are in Almeria:
Western Leone and Hollywood Texas Fort Bravo.

Western Leone is the former film set of
Sweetwater and the McBain land from Once

Upon a Time in the West while Hollywood Texas was
mainly used to film some more obscure spaghettis.

Klaus Kinski was a German actor who had a

long and prolific career from the
late 1940s into the late 1980s.

Among general audiences, his most well-known role
may be as the Hunchback in For a Few Dollars More.

Aside from this minor role, he
is also renowned for his roles

in Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre,
Aguirre, the Wrath of God, and Fitzcarraldo.

Another interesting fact about Kinski is
that Steven Spielberg offered him a role

in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but Kinski
refused with some rather unkind words.

Above all else, Kinski acted
in several spaghetti westerns.

Though many actors have their
fair share of controversies,

it's safe to say that Kinski was the king of them.

One of the craziest things about
Kinski was that some of his co-workers

hated him so much that they either
plotted or attempted to murder him.

Werner Herzog once admitted that he
tried to set Kinski’s house on fire.

And then there’s David Schmoeller’s
short documentary (that I highly

recommend) on the time he worked with Kinski,

where he claims several crew members were
literally begging Schmoeller to kill Kinski.

Yeah, Klaus Kinski was a horrible
human being. and I’m going off

on this little tangent because I
think it’s important to talk about.

Especially this last part. (Skip to
this time if you don't want to hear it)

Aside from his general awfulness,

Kinski was also notorious for sexually
harassing his female co-stars.

In his autobiography, which Werner Herzog
claims is almost entirely fabricated,

he admits to having sex with several underage
girls and his sister, mother, and daughter.

It wasn’t until 2013 that his daughter
Pola released her autobiography and said

that Kinski had sexually abused her
since she was five or six years old.

Considering Kinski was completely insane–and

I mean that–I don’t doubt his
daughter’s claims for a second.

As someone who only came to learn about
Kinski’s behavior after I started watching

spaghetti westerns, I feel that it is only
fair for you all to know these things as well.

I see Kinski’s involvement with spaghetti
westerns as separating the art from the artist.

Considering the evil of his actions,

I wouldn’t blame anyone for wanting
to skip out on one of his films.

In my opinion, since Kinski
has been dead for decades,

he is in no way benefitting from me
watching the films with him in them.

And I have an attachment to some of these
films that formed before I knew what he did.

That’s my reasoning, but, like I said,
considering he was a very notable actor,

especially in the spaghetti western
genre, I want others to be informed.

How about we talk about someone much
more pleasant than Klaus Kinski?

Tomas Milian was a Cuban actor who is best known
for his roles in numerous spaghetti westerns.

His most notable works are his films with the
latter two Sergios: Corbucci and Sollima.

Milian picked up a fairly large
following in Italy. Though he was

able to play a wide range of characters, he
is most recognized for his comedic roles.

In addition to his major successes
in European films, he also starred

in plenty of American productions.
Milian worked with Dennis Hopper,

Steven Spielberg, Andy Garcia,
Oliver Stone, and Tony Scott.

Milian certainly had an exciting career,

and it was only kick-started because of
the spaghetti westerns he starred in.

Now that I’ve rambled about
actors and other background info,

how about we actually talk about some films?

Released in 1967, Face to Face is the
second of Sergio Sollima’s three westerns.

I am talking about this one
first because the other two

are closely related to one another
while this is a standalone film.

It stars Tomas Milian and Gian Maria Volonte
as the main characters: Beauregard Bennett

(an infamous outlaw) and Professor Brad
Fletcher (a meek but compassionate academic).

The plot kicks off when Fletcher relocates
to Texas to curb his tuberculosis.

Shortly after his arrival, he has
a chance encounter with Beauregard.

Fletcher ultimately saves his life, and,
from there, their paths become entangled.

Face to Face is probably my personal

favorite of Sollima’s films and most
spaghetti fans consider it his best.

I wouldn’t necessarily call it a Zapata because
while there is a political allegory–at least,

that’s how most interpret it– it is
definitely under the surface instead

of in-your-face like the Zapatas
set during the Mexican Revolution.

One of the most highly praised parts of this film
is the transformation of the lead characters.

We watch Fletcher go from shy and sheltered to
fascist dictator and Beauregard from ruthless

bandit to thoughtful and remorseful.

It’s done almost masterfully buuuut
I do have one very strong criticism.

I was hoping to make this iceberg without needing

a spoiler warning but go to this time
if you want to watch the film blind.

I am going to be talking about a rape scene so
this will serve as your warning for that too.

...Yeah... here’s the deal.

The coolest part of this film
is by far watching Fletcher and

Beauregard transform into the opposites of
themselves, more or less into each other.

For the most part, it is slow and well-paced.

You slowly watch Fletcher become more and

more desensitized to all the
violence and evil around him.

However, about midway through the film,

the sexually-repressed Fletcher sets his sights
on one of the women in Beauregard’s hometown.

She is in an abusive relationship.
So Fletcher will save her, right?

Well only after beating her
to the ground and raping her.

While the point is to show that Fletcher
is changing into a cruel and cold man,

this part comes up way too soon, in my opinion.

Maybe have him be forceful but her
ultimately consenting instead of

having him beat her to the ground and
forcing himself on her? Just a thought.

Yeah, that part really leaves
a bad taste in my mouth.

And she winds up sticking with him,
which could just be her leaving one

piece of garbage for another but like I said,
I think it happens too soon within the arc.

Spoilers over.

Despite some elements, I think Face to Face
is up there when it comes to spaghettis.

The soundtrack is also by Ennio Morricone.

And it's not my favorite
but it’s still pretty good.

If you watch this one, make
sure to get your hands on the

uncut version. I’d also recommend
watching the subs instead of dubs.

The Mercenary is a 1968 Zapata western
by Sergio Corbucci starring Franco Nero,

Jack Palance, and Tony Musante.

It is perhaps Corbucci’s best-known
spaghetti western after Django.

You’ll probably recognize the final
duel theme “L’ arena” because Quentin

Tarantino reused this song in Kill Bill Vol. 2.

And it is, of course, by Ennio Morricone.

As for The Mercenary’s plot, it is about a
Polish mercenary who tries to make a quick

buck off of some Mexican revolutionaries only
to be caught up in the revolution himself.

It was pretty successful in Italy, and fans
rank it among the best spaghetti westerns.

The dubbed version features
Franco Nero’s actual voice,

unlike Django which was
dubbed by an American actor.

There’s a lot of trivia about this film which,

like a lot of the other factoids
I’ve pointed out, is unverified.

Such as a claim that the film crew saw a UFO,
recorded it, and sent the footage to NASA. What-

Anyhoo, this is pretty standard spaghetti
viewing if you want to get into the genre.

It’s above average but by no means a masterpiece.

The main characters are likable enough.

And there's a scene where Franco Nero lights his

match on a girl’s boobie. I
just thought that was funny.

god I wish that were me

Another Corbucci

Zapata with a killer soundtrack by

Ennio Morricone, Companeros is
also a beloved spaghetti western.

With Franco Nero and Tomas Milian in the leads,
it’s much more comedic than The Mercenary.

"Beautiful EYEEEEEEssss"

"Blue like the skyyyyyyy"

"Just like your sister, eh?"

It’s more or less a sequel to The Mercenary,

but instead of being a Polish mercenary,
Franco Nero plays a Swedish mercenary.

"EH nooooooo, I am not clown: I am Sweden"

Much like The Mercenary, Franco Nero’s character
is caught up in the Mexican Revolution while

Tomas Milian’s character is a misguided
revolutionary trying to find his purpose.

From the data I scrounged up,

Companeros was more financially successful
in Italy than The Mercenary but not by much.

It’s a pretty good film, but I
think I prefer The Mercenary on

the merit of it having slightly better characters.

I forgot to mention that Jack
Palance is also in this film as

a crazy American with a wooden arm and a pet hawk.

Did I mention the soundtrack is great?

Overall, I’d say The Mercenary
and Companeros are a pair,

and, to get the full Corbucci Zapata
experience, I’d recommend viewing both.

This film, released in 1966, is Sergio
Sollima’s first spaghetti western.

It features Lee Van Cleef and
Tomas Milian in the leading roles.

This is the first appearance
of Milian’s Cuchillo character.

And the plot centers around nearly-retired bounty
hunter John Corbett as he takes on one last

job to hunt down notorious bandit Cuchillo, who
reportedly raped and murdered a 12-year-old girl.

Even though Corbett is hellbent on taking
down Cuchillo, he ultimately comes to

question if Cuchillo is guilty of the crime
at all and, therefore, who really did it.

Not gonna lie, I only watched the dub version that

cut a few scenes out so that might be
why I prefer Face to Face to this one.

But it’s still a good watch. However,
like Companeros, it is comedic at times,

and there’s a decent chunk of
filler even in the cut version.

My main gripe with this film is,
while the theme is about the perils

of blindly following authority and
“justice,” I was hoping they’d go

more for the mystery angle of who
committed the crime. But I digress.

Like, well, literally every film in this
tier so far, the score is by Morricone,

and the main theme, in particular, is fantastic.

This film is a direct sequel to The Big Gundown.

Made about two years later, it features Tomas
Milian as Cuchillo again, but no Lee Van Cleef.

While The Big Gundown was a spaghetti played
straight with some social commentary, Run,

Man, Run is a Zapata where Cuchillo gets
directly involved in the Mexican Revolution.

Starring alongside Milian is Chelo Alonso
(who had an uncredited role in The Good,

the Bad, and the Ugly) as
Cuchillo’s fiancee Dolores.

This spaghetti was the last one Sollima directed,

and it is his most polarizing of
the three as far as I can tell.

It was successful when it came out, but it
isn’t as beloved as Sollima’s other spaghettis.

A large part of that is probably due
to the fact that, as stated earlier,

Cuchillo is not the typical strong silent
type spaghetti western protagonist.

If you want to see a spaghetti western with

a unique character and a mix of comedy
and politics, I'd say to give it a go.

Also, as a final cool fact, though the
score is credited to Bruno Nicolai,

Sollima said the score was
actually done by Ennio Morricone.

Morricone had another contract
to fulfill at the time,

but the music was his work, according to Sollima.

The last of Leone’s westerns
and his first and only Zapata,

this film came out in 1971, and it
features James Coburn and Rod Stieger.

Though the Dollars trilogy, especially The Good,
the Bad, and the Ugly, have some identifiable

political/social commentary, Duck, You Sucker! is
the only Leone film that is outwardly political.

I mean, it opens with a quote from Mao Zedong.

Plot-wise, the film centers around lowlife
bandit Juan Miranda, played by Stieger,

who encounters IRA agent Sean Mallory.

Through some mishaps, the two
become involved in the Revolution,

and their relationship deepens
through their misadventures.

The film is critical of fascism and capitalism but

also critical of the idealization of
revolutions and left-wing movements.

Unlike most Zapatas, which fully embrace
left-wing ideals, Leone, though much more

sympathetic toward these ideas than the right-wing
ones, is not afraid to show their ugly side.

That revolutions aren’t all sunshine and
rainbows and seizes of the means of production.

When it comes to the production of this
film, its history is quite interesting.

Though Leone enjoyed working on the script, story,
and characters, he had no intention of directing.

Originally, director Peter Bogdanovich was set
to direct, but he left the project or was fired.

Then, supposedly, Sam Peckinpah agreed
to direct, but the studio rejected him.

So, Leone passed the torch to his friend
and assistant director Giancarlo Santi

buuut United Artists said, “Screw
you, Leone. You gotta do it.”

So, he begrudgingly obliged.

In addition to all this chaos, Leone wanted Eli
Wallach to play Juan Miranda in this film but,

yet again, the studio forced Leone into a corner.

So Rod Steiger played the part with an accent
even worse than Eli Wallach’s when he played Tuco.

"Silver? You know something- I don't
understand you. I don't understand

how you waste your time and your
holy water looking for silver."

Say what you will about Tuco’s accent,
but I doubt anyone who has seen The Good,

the Bad, and the Ugly will
argue it ruins the film,

especially because Tuco is by far the
best and most developed character.

Steiger, though, ehhh not so much.

Don't feel too bad though, Rod!
Coburn has a crummy accent as well.

I LITERALLY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HE IS SAYING

Despite all the setbacks, this film has
a lot of great elements seen in only the

best spaghetti westerns: great visuals,
action, and a score by Ennio Morricone.

This score is also particularly
moody and ethereal, especially

the main theme which features Edda Dell’Orso.

Though it didn’t do so hot in America,

the film was a moderate success
in Italy and a huge hit in France.

While it is my least favorite of Leone’s
westerns, I can still respect it for what it is.

The ending hits surprisingly hard on an emotional
level, so it might be worth a watch just for that.

To finish this segment, I’m just
going to leave you with this

clip from our favorite Bri’ish Leone
historian, Sir Christopher Frayling.

"But Steiger never liked the
title 'Duck, You Sucker.'"

"Nobody did actually amongst the Americans."

"For some reason, Leone was convinced this was
a well-known phrase in American vernacular."

"Everyone went around saying, 'Duck, you sucker!'"

"I don't know where he got that from."

"It is an Italian phrase: Giu la testa coglione."

"Which means, literally, put
your head down comma balls."

"Which is a very odd phrase."

"Put your head down, balls."

When Sergio Corbucci conceptualized Django,
he wanted to set his western in the snow.

Instead of snow, the setting for Django used mud.

However, Corbucci would finally get his
spaghetti in the snow with The Great Silence.

Fans rank The Great Silence as one
of Sergio Corbucci’s best films and

one of the best spaghetti westerns of all time.

One of the reasons I like it is
because it is a subversion of an

already subversive genre. I love that meta stuff.

Contrasting the scorching deserts, this film takes
place in Utah during the great blizzard of 1899.

The movie follows a mute gunslinger, played
by French actor Jean Louis Trintignant,

(I really hope I said that
right) traveling across the

frontier as bounty hunters run amuck
killing petty outlaws for easy money.

When one outlaw is killed by the
sadistic bounty hunter leader Loco,

played by *siggggh* Klaus Kinski, the outlaw’s
widow hires the gunslinger to take him down.

After its 1968 debut, many called it
controversial for its dark tone and ending.

It went unreleased in the UK and US
until 1990 and 2001, respectively.

If you couldn’t tell, I adore this movie in
particular for its subversive tone and mood.

It isn’t a film that’s subversive
for the sake of being subversive.

It's developed and feels earned.

The snowy setting and haunting score by
Ennio Morricone add to this bleakness.

Something that I’ve always noted
about The Great Silence is its score.

In most spaghetti westerns, there’s
this triumphant aura in the music.

Even in films where the main
characters don’t necessarily win,

there’s a sense of assuredness and victory.

While most spaghetti westerns are cynical,

the characters are still the heroes
we follow, root for, and celebrate.

In contrast, The Great Silence’s
score is foreboding and sorrowful.

It’s kind of like that “somber inevitably” that

John Carpenter talks about
in The Thing documentary.

That’s ultimately what makes the subversion work.

You can see the ending coming from a mile

away and it rips your heart out and
stomps all over it (and I love it).

One last thing I want to point out (because
I have raved way too much now), is that,

though it is not a Zapata, the film is, as
confirmed by Corbucci, a political allegory.

It is a criticism of capitalism and was inspired

by the deaths of figures like
Malcolm X and Che Guevarra.

Unlike Zapatas, this allegory is entirely under

the surface so you can enjoy
it with or without that view.

All right, I’ve said enough. If there’s
one film you should see on this list,

aside from the Dollars trilogy, it’s this one.

It’s still B-movieish, but, in
my opinion, it’s a masterpiece.

It turns out The Good, the
Bad, and the Ugly has two cuts:

the “classic” version that most saw
when it debuted outside of Italy and

the extended director’s cut that
adds 14-16 minutes to the film.

I say 14-16 because reports vary on
how much the extended version adds.

My copy of the film has the extended version
as a special feature, and it's at 14 minutes.

So maybe other versions add more
time. I don't know for sure.

But, anyway, I added this to
the iceberg because I had no

idea that there were two different
cuts of the film until recently.

The extended cut came as a special feature on
DVDs of the film in 2003, and the English cast,

including Clint Eastwood and Eli
Wallach, re-dubbed these scenes.

Not gonna lie, I haven't watched these extra

scenes in full because they
are just transition scenes.

And, to my surprise, most fans of
the film argue that the original,

International cut is better
than the extended version.

I find this surprising because, on just about
every other spaghetti western I’ve seen and

researched, the extended version is almost
always recommended over the shorter version.

This is just a small thing
but I found it interesting.

For those of you who know Tarantino’s
films, it will be no surprise to you

that the master of deriving reused
music from many spaghetti westerns.

No, this isn’t a bad thing as
it exposes people to the music,

and he does do it in a very respectful manner.

Of all the spaghetti western music he used,

none is more recognizable than the theme
from Django that he used in Django Unchained.

As I mentioned beforehand, he also used “L’
arena” from The Mercenary in Kill Bill Vol. 2.

Additional reused tracks include music
from The Grand Duel, Death Rides a Horse,

They Call Me Trinity, His Name
was King, and The Big Gundown.

I’m sure there are others but these were
the easiest ones for me to track down.

Even if people aren’t aware of
where these tracks come from,

at least they are being introduced to
them. So, props to Tarantino for that.

This section will mainly consist
of films and figures not counting

the Sergios that are known by
average spaghetti western fans.

As an additional note, up to this point,
I have seen every film in the iceberg.

This is where films that I
haven’t seen start to pop up.

So, I won’t be able to make an honest
recommendation for some of these movies.

I will do my best to keep each point
as interesting and informative though.

I mentioned earlier that there are
two main spaghetti western subgenres.

The first is, of course, the Zapata.

The second subgenre is the comedy spaghettis.

These films gained traction in the early 70s
after the spaghetti western’s golden age.

A lot of filmmakers blame the death of
the spaghetti westerns on these films.

They say this because the comedies
were exaggerated parodies of the genre,

full of slapstick and self-deprecating jokes.

In my opinion, the death of the spaghetti
happened because literally hundreds of

westerns supersaturated the Italian film market in
a period of less than 10 years. In Italy that is.

The comedy/parody westerns were just a result
of the serious westerns being worn out.

In this way, the comedies could be called
the last gasp of the spaghetti westerns,

and they dragged themselves out
from there into the mid-70s.

It's rather unfortunate that these films
get such a bad rap, even among spaghetti

western devotees simply because they're not
as artistic as their more admired brethren.

Ironically, a lot of spaghetti
westerns have comedic moments in them,

so what's wrong with going
all out with the comedy?

It doesn't always hit, but I can't gripe
these directors for trying something new.

“Wait a minute, Made,” I hear you say.

“What the frick is a Fagioli western?”

Fagioli means “bean” in Italian and is
a somewhat obscure term for the comedic

subgenre of spaghetti westerns that
the film They Call Me Trinity inspired.

It specifically comes from a famous scene where

the character Trinity eats
a big ol’ plate of beans.

Since I only saw this term used
on the Spaghetti Western Database,

I refer to it as obscure, as most will
just refer to these films as comedies.

The first comedy spaghetti was a little
picture named They Call Me Trinity,

which was a huge success in Italy
when it was released in 1970.

It spawned an entire series (and ripoffs) thanks

in no small part to its leads
Terence Hill and Bud Spencer.

Directed by Enzo Barboni,–who would go on to
direct several more films with Spencer and

Hill–the film is about brothers Trinity
and Bambino who decide to settle their

differences to help a group of Mormons keep
their land out of the hands of a greedy major.

Trinity loves beans.

And Bambino loves false impersonation.

Together, they love massive brawls.

While this film is not as popular as it was in
1970, many spaghetti western fans are fond of it.

Though, as I mentioned in the previous section,

a lot of spaghetti western directors hated it and
essentially blamed Trinity for killing the genre.

I know this film plays up the comedy but it’s
still played pretty straight for a spaghetti.

Yeah, the gun fights are ridiculous
but Trinity has typical spaghetti

protagonist traits like being the
fastest gunslinger in the area,

defending his pride, and not
taking anyone else's garbage.

But yeah it’s still a comedy.

I like this movie, it’s fun. :)

The other cool thing is that Hill and
Spencer do all of their stunts. It’s awesome.

Just, look at the way this man gets on a horse.

It’s so satisfying, I-I can’t stop watching it.

As for the other official films in the
series, they include Trinity is Still

My Name, which remains one of the most
financially successful films in Italy,

and Sons of Trinity, which is technically
a neo-spaghetti since it came out in 1995.

A lot of spaghetti western creators
may have disliked the Trinity films,

but there is no denying that they were
hugely successful back in the day.

Terence Hill and Bud Spencer, born
Mario Girotti and Carlo Pedersoli,

were the comedic duo behind the Trinity films.

Hill began acting at the age of 12 while Spencer,

10 years his senior, made his
film debut at the age of 21.

Before they began acting, however,
they were in the same swimming club.

According to Hill, he greatly admired Spencer due

to his record-breaking swims in Italy
and participation in the Olympics.

Though the first film that
featured both of them was

the action-adventure film Hannibal in
1959, they did not meet and become an

established duo until they starred
in God Forgives… I Don’t! in 1967.

As far as film producers could
tell, audiences enjoyed Hill

and Spencer’s chemistry and cast them
in more spaghetti westerns together.

Hill says that there was, “an instant positive
vibe” between them, and they became fast friends.

Then came their huge
breakthrough: the Trinity films.

After they catapulted to stardom
(everywhere except the U.S.),

Hill and Spencer made 18 more movies together.

The last film they starred in as a duo was a
1994 neo-spaghetti written by Hill’s son Jess and

Spencer’s son Giuseppe called Troublemakers, which
is a spiritual successor to the Trinity films.

Hill directed it too!

Hill continues to act and produce;

he currently stars as the lead in the
long-running Italian show Don Matteo.

But, sadly, Spencer passed away in
2016… and he has a museum in Berlin.

WHAT.

Yeah, this museum just opened in 2021 and even

features interviews with his son
Giuseppe and grandson Alessandro.

I can’t understand it though because
there are no English subtitles. RIP.

And WAIT WAIT, there’s a Terence Hill one too??

Man, why does Germany get all the cool museums?

I guess at least they had Klaus
Kinski to balance this out.

What I find crazy about these two is how they were

so popular all across the
globe except for America.

Maybe it’s because their brand of comedy
was very wholesome and nonviolent.

Also, Imma just say it:
their friendship is adorable.

If you want to learn more about these
two, they both have official websites

that are highly informative
and fascinating to read (and,

if you’re in Germany, I guess
you can visit their museums).

The bios on each site are written by the actors

themselves so you’re reading their
history straight from the source.

Hats Off Entertainment also has a pretty
good vid summarizing their careers,

and you can tell that he
genuinely enjoys their films.

As of writing this script, this part was
the most fun to research because it was

like uncovering a hidden treasure trove of two
great friends and the art they made together.

As mentioned previously, God Forgives… I
Don’t! is the first film in which Terence

Hill and Bud Spencer starred side by side; it
also features spaghetti regular Frank Wolff.

Debuting in 1967, it was directed by Giuseppe

Colizzi, who made three additional
westerns starring Hill and Spencer.

The plot focuses on Cat Stevens and Hutch Bessy,
a gunman and an insurance investigator who set

out to find a crook and his fortune after he
robs a train and kills nearly everyone on it.

According to Hill, actor Peter
Martell was cast to play Cat, but,

after getting into a violent argument
with his girlfriend, he broke his foot.

Filming was about to begin, so
Colizzi rushed to find another actor.

While Hill worked on another film,

that film’s producer recommended Hill to
Colizzi. And that’s how he got the part.

This film in particular seems to have a lot
of different translations between countries.

Some versions refer to Hill’s character as “Pretty
Face, “Doc Will,” “Wil Doc,” and even “Django.”

While Spencer’s character is
sometimes called Earp or Dan.

Also of note is the fact that the
film’s working title was The Cat,

the Dog, and the Fox, an obvious riff
on The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

While the film is mainly remembered as the first
film where Hill and Spencer performed as a duo,

it was the highest-grossing
film in Italy when it released.

It even managed to get two sequels: Ace
High (featuring Eli Wallach) and Boot

Hill (featuring Woody Strode and George
Eastman (yes, the guy who ate the baby

in Anthropophagus. If you don’t know what I’m
talking about, Whang! has a great video on it)).

Finally, the score is by Carlo Rustichelli, an
Italian composer with quite a prolific career,

mainly in Italian productions, including
some lesser known spaghetti westerns.

Sad Hill Unearthed is a 2017
Spanish documentary film on Netflix.

It tells the story of a group of volunteers who

restore the massive graveyard from
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

After filming ended in 1966, the crew abandoned
Sad Hill and let vegetation take it over.

In 2015, dedicated The Good, the Bad, and
the Ugly fans in Almeria located the site

and began to excavate the stones
used for the cemetery’s circle.

The volunteers, dubbing themselves
the Sad Hill Cultural Association,

gained support and returned
Sad Hill to its former glory.

Not only does the film detail the experiences
of the volunteers who fixed the site,

but it also features interviews with
Clint Eastwood, Ennio Morricone,

and others who worked on the original film.

Oh and James Hetfield’s there too.

There’s a lot of archival footage

and behind-the-scenes discussion
too which was very informative.

My favorite part is where
they show footage of Leone

giving an interview while eating a plate of pasta.

It’s just the most Italian thing I’ve ever seen.

If you have a chance to watch this documentary, I
recommend it because it has lots of cool factoids,

and you feel for the volunteers as
they put Sad Hill back together.

Watching them struggle and then succeed
with flying colors feels amazing.

The Cultural Association is still active
as far as I can tell, and I wish them well.

Enzo G. Castellari is an Italian
director who is probably best known

these days for his cameo in Quentin
Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.

In fact, the title of that film was taken from
Castellari’s film The Inglorious Bastards,

which was a rip-off of Robert
Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen.

Like many directors who got their
start with spaghetti westerns,

Castellari’s films are noted for their violence.

Of all the Italian directors
who influenced Tarantino,

it seems that Castellari
was by far the biggest one.

"Whenever I got a Variety when I was
a little kid, I COULDN'T BELIEVE IT."

"I READ IT FROM COVER TO COVER AND I WOULD
HAVE ONE THAT WOULD LAST ME FOR A YEAR,

TWO YEARS. AND READING ALL
THESE COOL FOREIGN THINGS-"

"You're crazy."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Get out of my house."

Castellari found mild success in Italy.

He made his unofficial debut as
the uncredited director for the

unofficial Django film A Few Dollars for Django.

A year later, he made his official debut
with Renegade Riders AKA Payment in Blood.

In an interesting twist of fate,
Castellari would frequently work

and become friends with Franco Nero a
few years after he made the Django film.

The two made seven films together.

In total, Castellari made ten
spaghetti westerns including

his uncredited and neo-spaghetti westerns.

He made his last film in 2010 but still
seems to be active in the industry.

In 2016, he released an autobiography.

I haven’t read any of it but
the cover looks like this.

“I LIED. THERE IS NO NETFLIX. NOW
SIT DOWN AND WATCH MY MOVIES.”

Also known as Quien Sabe?, this Zapata
stars spaghetti favorite Gian Maria Volonte.

And Klaus Kinski, but he’s in the
film for like… 5 minutes, probably.

Also, they’re supposed to be brothers
but… they don’t look alike at all.

Directed by Damiano Damiani, who collaborated

with stars like Franco Nero and Claudia
Cardinale, the film centers on Chuncho,

a Mexican bandit who partners up with
an American mercenary named Bill Tate.

Chuncho’s group is selling weapons to
one of the Mexican Revolution’s generals.

As Chuncho and Tate work together, it’s clear that
Tate has his own motivations for joining Chuncho,

and the bandit begins to question
his involvement in the revolution.

Since this film was released in 1966, most
spaghetti scholars consider it the first Zapata.

Most interpret the film as an allegory for

U.S. involvement in South American
politics and even the Vietnam War.

It is certainly a left-wing
film and highly critical of

the fascistic governments the U.S. put in power.

My favorite part of this film, by far, is Chuncho.

He’s very fleshed out, and his arc is even

better than the arcs Beauregard and
Fletcher go through in Face to Face.

The only problem is that Chuncho
is so fleshed out that it leaves

every other character without any development.

Still, it’s a pretty enjoyable film
not including the political allegory,

like many other films in the iceberg.

Keoma is often regarded as the
last great spaghetti western.

It released in 1976 when the genre was in
its death throes and stars Franco Nero,

Woody Strode, and William Berger (who starred as
the Pinkerton agent Charley Siringo in Face to

Face and, supposedly, dubbed Bill Tate in the
English version of A Bullet for the General).

A lot of people consider this film Enzo
Castellari’s greatest, but not without its flaws.

Castellari essentially views this film as his

magnum opus, and it’s got some great
cinematography and action sequences.

As for the plot, it is about the
half-Indian half-white soldier named Keoma.

When the Civil War ends,
Keoma returns to his hometown,

finding it ridden with plague and
under the iron fist of a gang leader.

Keoma’s half-brothers have sided with the gang.

While Keoma tries to save the
town and the people he loves,

he finds himself conflicted over
who he is and where he belongs.

Nero’s performance as the
titular character is excellent.

And I wish I had more nice
things to say about the film.

The plot tends to become unfocused,
but that isn’t the worst thing.

Of all the things wrong with this film,
nothing is hated as much as its score.

If you take a quick skim at
the reviews on Letterboxd,

you’d see that almost every review
talks about how bad the music is.

It's awful. And it's especially awful
because this is a spaghetti western,

where 99% of the time, even if the film is
crummy, at least the soundtrack is awesome.

But in Keoma, it’s so grating.

I’ve been playing the female vocals, but
the male ones manage to be even worse.

I also hate how the lyrics explain
what is going on in the scene.

"yEAAh."

"I'm heeeere."

"In front of"

"these"

"mEn"

Yes, thank you. I have eyes.

This is a film, it’s a visual medium.

You don’t need to explain to me what’s going on
in the lyrics because I can see it on the screen.

This film is like a 3 out of 5-star film as it is,

but it could easily be four stars
if the score was any better.

And it just goes to show how
important music is in these films.

They add a lot more to the mood
and atmosphere to the point where

it’s like you’re looking at a piece of
art more than a story on the screen.

Oh, and there are quite a few
gamer words dropped in this film.

Mostly by the bad guys, but even
our boy Franco Nero couldn’t resist.

"WHERE'D THEY TAKE HER N-"

Sometime after Leone finished Duck, You Sucker!
he had an idea for a new film, one that would

act as a sendoff for the classic American
Westerns and the Italian spaghetti westerns.

What he produced was My Name is Nobody
with Terence Hill and Henry Fonda.

Leone did not want to direct the
film, so he made Tonino Valerii,

his assistant director on the first
two Dollars films, the director.

While Valerii is solely credited as the film’s

director, it's believed that Leone
helped direct a few of the scenes.

There are varying accounts
of which scenes he directed,

but Valerii stated that Leone
took the reigns several times.

My Name is Nobody has a bit of a twist on
the typical spaghetti western archetype.

The film is about Terence Hill’s character Nobody
as he attempts to convince an about-to-retire

gunslinger (played by Fonda) to go out in
a blaze of glory rather than peacefully.

Honestly, I like this film’s concept,
rather, I like the film’s intention.

Leone was bitter about what spaghetti westerns
had become since he released the Dollars films.

What he wanted to depict with
this film was how the spaghetti

westerns had killed the old western for good.

And how spaghetti westerns had become so
overdone to the point of ridiculous self-parody.

Fonda’s character depicts the traditional,
heroic gunslinger that was out of fashion.

Hill’s character depicts the young,

cheeky Fagioli hero who wanted to be
the Somebody that Fonda’s character is.

When you learn about this allegory and
that it was fully intended by Leone,

it becomes depressing to watch.

And I wish I could say that the film was
any good but… like a lot of the westerns

on this iceberg and westerns in
general, it hasn’t aged well.

Unlike the Trinity films which
are genuine in their humor,

you get the feeling that My Name is Nobody's
filmmakers are belittling the comedy.

The joke isn’t the slapstick, the joke
is supposed to be about the slapstick.

It actively mocks fans of the Fagiolis and lacks

the substance and atmosphere
of serious spaghetti westerns.

This mockery turned out to be
super ironic because it was the

highest-grossing film in Italy when it came out.

Even Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack is
exaggerated and grating sometimes.

Though there are songs I like.
“Good Luck, Jack” is very pretty.

I also enjoy “My Fault?” which reuses some of
the music from Once Upon a Time in the West.

And that kind of makes it sound like an
epic battle remix of the former song.

Many fans have called this film “half-great.”

It has some great ideas, and I can sympathize
with Leone’s disillusionment with the genre.

If ever there was a film to mark the end
of the westerns as a whole, it’s this one.

In 1968, director Gianfranco
Parolini released the first

in a series of five official films (and
ripoffs) starring the character Sartana.

The film If You Meet Sartana, Pray
for Your Death saw success in Italy

and featured actor Gianni Garko
(often billed as John Garko) as

the titular character alongside
William Berger and Klaus Kinski.

Garko would reprise his role in
three of the next four films.

These films are I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death
(1969), Have a Good Funeral, My Friend… Sartana

Will Pay (1970), and Light the Fuse… Sartana
is Coming (1970). The final film in the series

Sartana's Here… Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin
came out in 1970 as well, but instead of Garko,

George Hilton–who starred in several lesser-known
spaghetti westerns–took the role of Sartana.

Parolini also had no part in any of the sequels;

Giuliano Carnimeo took over and
directed the last four movies.

You can see from watching the trailer
of the first film that this series (at

least the first) was a massive rip-off, more
than usual, of Sergio Leone’s Dollars films.

There’s a strong-silent type gunslinger
who carries a musical pocket watch,

and everyone is after $200,000 in gold.

But uhm, he does card tricks! Yeah.

One of the things I will note
about the first film is that

Sartana is given this supernatural aura to him.

People can’t tell if he’s just some bloke out
for money or some sort of ghost. And I like that.

While I’m pretty sure Sartana’s dress
was inspired by Colonel Mortimer’s in

For a Few Dollars More, I like it
quite a bit compared to the usual

low-brow/dirtied clothes most
spaghetti protagonists wear.

In 2018, after what seems to have
been a delay of roughly five years,

all five Sartana films were
released in a box set on DVD,

fully restored and featuring interviews from
several cast members, crew, and historians.

I haven’t watched any of the Sartana films
yet, but I think you’ll get a good impression

as I did from the trailers alone. I
do plan on checking them out sometime.

Remember how I mentioned
Gianfranco Parolini didn’t

work on any of the Sartana
films after the first one?

That’s because he went on to create
another spaghetti western series: Sabata.

The first Sabata film debuted in 1969 and featured
Lee Van Cleef as the eponymous protagonist.

After this first film, Parolini directed two
sequels: Adios, Sabata, and Return of Sabata.

Though Lee Van Cleef played the character once
more in the Return of Sabata, Yul Brynner took

on the role in Adios, Sabata for his first and
only foray into the spaghetti western genre,

though he acted in a couple of Euro-westerns
(which westerns not exclusively made by Italians).

Those who are unfamiliar with Brynner may know
him best as the original King Mongkut in The

King and I musical. He also starred in The
Magnificent Seven and The Ten Commandments.

The first film is about Sabata’s chance encounter
with a group of bank robbers who he defeats.

After returning the stolen goods, Sabata is
targeted by the orchestrators of the robbery,

three of the most powerful people in the town.

This film is a bit of a hidden
gem. It has a very unique cast

of characters compared to most spaghettis.

This one dude (played by William Berger yet again)

has his gun hidden inside
his banjo. It’s pretty sick.

It’s by no means better than the films in
the first two tiers, but this one is fun.

The second film depicts Sabata as a gun-for-hire
whose pay is stolen by a man who hired him.

Naturally, Sabata hunts him down.

I haven’t seen this one, but
the reviews seem a tad mixed.

Some say it’s Parolini’s best film, others
say it’s the weakest entry in the trilogy.

A reason for this polarization is probably because
this film was not a Sabata movie, originally.

Brynner’s character was called Indio Black, and
the film was dubbed and titled as such in Italy.

Given the success of the
first Sabata film, however,

they ultimately decided to market it
as a sequel for international release.

However, some theorize that the film
became a Sabata movie during filming

because it looks like some of the actors are

mouthing “Sabata” when referring to the
main character and not “Indio Black.”

The last film sees the return of Van Cleef and,
when people aren’t fighting over the second film,

this one is generally considered the worst
due to its poor pacing and repetitive nature.

By repetitive, I mean that it just
copied the first two films. Lee Van

Cleef’s money gets stolen so he has to
kill a bunch of guys to get it back.

I found out from reading Letterboxd
that there was a book from 1978 called

The Fifty Worst Films of All Time, and
Return of Sabata is one of the films.

Also, off-topic, but the original
The Omen is in it, for some reason?

I mean, that’s a great film. I don't get it.

I still haven’t watched this Sabata
film but it doesn’t look that bad.

From watching the first film and
some footage of the other films,

this series was pretty creative in
terms of its characters and gadgets.

It never takes itself too seriously like
a lot of other spaghetti westerns (not

counting the comedies) so it makes
for a more light-hearted experience.

During my research, as I was trying
to find out about the early spaghetti

westerns, I felt a bit confused about what
was/wasn’t considered a spaghetti western.

According to the spaghetti western database,

Eurowestern is “a catch-all term
referring to all westerns made in Europe.”

This includes spaghetti westerns,
as they are westerns made in Europe.

However, most of the time Eurowestern is used to

define a European western that has
little to no involvement with Italy.

You can pretty much think of it like this:
all Spaghetti Westerns are Eurowesterns,

but not all Eurowesterns are Spaghetti Westerns.

Some of the terms used for these other European

westerns include Sauerkraut
Westerns (for German films),

Paella-Westerns (for Spanish films),

Baguetti Westerns (for French films),

Easterns (for Polish Westerns),

and Osterns–which also means
Easterns–(for USSR/Russian films).

As I mentioned, this distinction only
becomes a problem when you try to figure

out what the early spaghettis
were (pre-A Fistful of Dollars).

It can get pretty confusing.

Most consider A Fistful of Dollars the first

true spaghetti western since it defined the
genre alongside the other two Dollars films.

I agree for the most part but there
are a couple of pre-Dollars films that

were Italian produced which I would consider
spaghetti westerns. We’ll get to those later.

I’m also going to use this category to
talk a little about the terminology of

Italian/Italo Western vs Spaghetti Western.

A lot of spaghetti western filmmakers
hate the term Spaghetti Western.

While no one knows quite
where the phrase came from,

most believe that it was coined as a
derogatory term for these Italian films.

A lot of these directors like to refer
to their films as Italian Westerns

rather than spaghetti westerns,
or will use the term spaghetti

western only for Italian westerns
that are considered cheap or bad.

People also use Italian-Western to label westerns

that were primarily made in Italy and not
in the common filming location of Spain.

I use spaghetti western because
I don’t care, and, in my opinion,

the label is something a filmmaker should
aspire to. Being compared to a genre known for

great music, cinematography, and
action sounds pretty good to me.

In Italy, however, the term
they tend to use is western

all’italiana (meaning Italian-style western).

While most people know Ennio Morricone as the
grand master of spaghetti western soundtracks,

several other composers worked within the genre.

The most prominent one after
Morricone is perhaps Luis Bacalov.

Bacalov, a man of Bulgarian-Jewish descent,

was born in Argentina and began
composing film scores in the 1960s.

Among his many accomplishments,
Bacalov also won the Academy

Award for Best Original Score in 1994
for the film Il Postino: The Postman.

There’s not a whole lot of information
about him out there, or, if there is,

it’s not easily accessed
by a filthy gringo like me.

While Bacalov didn’t have nearly as many
spaghetti western scores as Morricone,

he made a hefty fifteen.

His most famous score is by far Django’s.

But he also composed A Bullet for
the General and The Grand Duel.

Though Bacalov’s scores aren’t as
experimental or soaring as Morricone’s,

they have a simple yet atmospheric sound.

I think his score for The Grand Duel is his
best, and Quentin Tarantino thinks so too.

Though Bacalov is pretty well-known
among spaghetti western devotees,

there are other composers in the genre that
I would like to highlight briefly as well.

These other composers include Franceso
de Masi, who composed the scores for 36

Spaghetti Westerns and Eurowesterns,
as well as The Inglorious Bastards.

Bruno Nicolai, who the Spaghetti Western Database

lists as the second most
popular spaghetti composer.

As I mentioned earlier, he receives credit for

some films where the filmmakers later
said Ennio Morricone made the score.

However, he often co-scored with Morricone, and
his credits include films such as The Mercenary,

Run, Man, Run!, two Sartana
films, and Adios, Sabata.

He also made the score for the film Caligula.
Yes, that Caligula, with Malcom McDowell.

Guido and Maurizio De Angelis were the two
brothers behind the infamous Keoma soundtrack,

but they also composed the score for Trinity
is Still My Name and other spaghettis.

Alessandro Alessandroni did some of
the guitar work and amazing whistling

on all three Dollars Trilogy films
and Once Upon a Time in the West.

He also collaborated with Franceso
De Masi on some of his scores.

Riz Ortolani composed the scores for 14
Euro/Spaghetti Westerns and wrote the song

that would later become “More,” covered by
artists like Frank Sinatra and Roy Orbison.

There are many more composers
who contributed to the genre,

but I wanted to take the time to
highlight just a few, especially Bacalov.

I mentioned earlier that there was a final

spaghetti western category that
some identify certain films as.

This last category is the Twilight spaghetti,

named so because these films were made when the
genre was said to be dying or, more often, dead.

When the spaghetti western
died depends on who you ask.

Some say it died around 1969 when there weren’t
as many films being made, others when the Trinity

series debuted in 1970, and some when the films
stopped being made annually (around the late 70s).

The most well-known Twilight
spaghetti is probably Keoma.

Films of this subgenre are tonally bleak.

Though most spaghettis feature
moral shades of grey and cynicism,

these films lack that particular
sense of triumph I mentioned earlier.

Not quite as brilliantly as The Great Silence,

but in a sort of minimalist way
with lots of dark colors and music.

They also tend to be much more surrealist and
trippy, with Keoma, again, being a great example.

I haven’t seen as many of these films,

and I wasn’t raving about Keoma so,
there’s not as much else I can say.

While there are better-known actors
within the spaghetti western genre

like Franco Nero and Tomas Milian, another
fairly popular actor was Giuliano Gemma.

Gemma started his career in film as a
stuntman which helped him gain leading roles.

Around 1964, he met and befriended Duccio Tessari,
one of the co-writers of A Fistful of Dollars.

After the success of A Fistful of Dollars,

Tessari decided to direct his own
spaghetti western with Gemma as the star.

This film was A Pistol for Ringo: the first in a
series and a more light-hearted spaghetti western

that wound up being successful enough to garner
a more respected sequel The Return of Ringo.

Gemma went on to star in several more
spaghetti westerns, including Blood

for a Silver Dollar (which was the second
highest grossing film in Italy the year it

came out and launched Gemma into stardom),
Day of Anger, Arizona Colt, and California.

Like many of his cohort, Gemma used an English
pseudonym (Montgomery Wood) for a little while.

Ultimately, Gemma decided to drop the pseudonym
because he wanted to use his real name.

Like Terence Hill, Bud Spencer, and
even Tomas Milian, Gemma was a popular

actor overall but didn’t seem to get
much attention in the United States.

Unlike Hill, Spencer, and Milian however,
most of his fame was centralized in Italy,

though he was extremely popular in Japan too.

Suzuki Motor Corporation manufactured
a motorbike and named it after him.

He also supposedly had a Japanese
clothing line named after him but I

haven’t been able to find any information on that.

It is interesting that an actor
like Gemma became so huge in the

genre considering the norm was for the
actors to be rough-looking and manly.

Gemma had very boyish features,
even as he entered his 30s.

I’m sure a large part of people’s interest in
him was the fact that he did do his own stunts.

I hate to keep comparing him to
Terence Hill, but much like Hill,

it’s very entertaining to
watch him for the stunts alone.

I wish I had more to say about Gemma.

And there are a lot of interviews with him
up on YouTube, but they are all in Italian so

I'm out of luck.

First of all, the score (by Riz Ortolani). That
was what caught my attention for this film.

It’s super jazzy and unique compared to
the folksy or orchestral soundtracks of

other spaghetti westerns. And I love it.

Anyhoo, Day of Anger is a 1967 spaghetti
western directed by Tonino Valerii.

This film is Valerii’s second spaghetti
western and second film overall.

It stars Lee Van Cleef and Giuliano
Gemma as the lead characters.

The film is about Scott, a young, orphaned
man living in the town of Clifton.

Since his mother was a prostitute and his father
was never known, Scott becomes the town janitor.

Everyone treats him like garbage.

But one day, he meets Frank Talby,

an aged gunslinger who has a bone to
pick with some of Clifton’s residents.

Scott wants to find a way to stand up for himself,

so he convinces Talby to take him under his
wing, and it all goes downhill from there.

One of the things I like about Day of Anger
is that morality is truly gray in it. Most

spaghetti westerns may be “gray” but it's pretty
clear that you’re going to root for the main guy:

your Man with No Name, your Django, your
mercenary, that’s who you’re supposed to like.

In Day of Anger, however, you find yourself
conflicted on who you’re meant to side with

as you learn more and more about Talby and watch
Scott change. It’s a good film for that reason.

Like a lot of spaghetti westerns, there is
an original cut and an international cut.

The international version cuts out a whopping
28 minutes so try not to watch that one.

One last cool fact about the film is that it
reuses two of the sets from the Dollars films:

The town Agua Caliente from For a Few Dollars More
and Ramon’s safehouse from A Fistful of Dollars.

If you look hard enough, a lot of
spaghetti westerns reused sets.

As I mentioned in Giuliano Gemma’s
section, the spaghetti western that

kicked off his career was A Pistol for
Ringo. Duccio Tessari directed this film,

and it released a year after A Fistful of Dollars.

The story is about Ringo, the fastest gun
in the west (there are a lot of those guys),

who is imprisoned for shooting some men.

However, the town’s sheriff has no
choice but to call on Ringo for help

when a group of bandits takes a
ranch and its occupants hostage.

While A Pistol for Ringo has its
share of violence and tension,

it tends to be more comedic than anything.

Unlike the grizzled and dirty Joe from A Fistful
of Dollars, Ringo is much more clean and cheeky.

Though he uses his skills to get
out of jail and make some money,

he is not as indifferent or professional.

Ennio Morricone scores this
film, and the theme is sung

by the incredible Maurizio Graf whose
voice is as angelic as Gemma’s face.

With the success of the film,

it is only natural that it would
have a sequel (and a lot of ripoffs).

But the second Ringo film
isn’t even a real sequel.

The only connection the second film
has to the first aside from the same

cast and crew is that the main
character’s nickname is Ringo.

Not counting that, it’s pretty much
a standalone film and wasn’t going to

be a Ringo film until the first one
turned out to be a massive success.

Though A Pistol for Ringo is pretty well-liked,

The Return of Ringo is on the Spaghetti
Western Database’s Top 20 list.

It wasn’t as financially successful as its

predecessor but is highly regarded
today for its harsh dramatics.

In this film, Ringo is an American
Civil War vet who returns to his home,

only to find that his wife is about
to marry a bandit to save herself and

her daughter (her and Ringo’s daughter, that is).

To save his family, Ringo disguises
himself as a bandit to infiltrate the gang.

Yes, the film is loosely based on
the last parts of The Odyssey where

Odysseus rescues his wife and son
from all of the nasty suitors.

Anyway, this film is much
darker than A Pistol for Ringo.

The film has been cited for its
commentary about post-WWII Italian life,

that it was difficult for soldiers returning
from the war to reintegrate into society.

This sort of allegory in films would become more

popular after Vietnam not only
in Italy but across the world.

You could almost call this film a
proto-Zapata in the sense that it is

a social-political commentary, but
it isn’t a Mexican Revolution film.

The soundtrack is once again by Ennio Morricone
and features Maurizio Graf singing the theme.

I haven’t watched either film,

but I liked Gemma in Day of Anger so I
hope these films are worth a watch too.

People compare this film to Day of Anger
due to its similar main characters.

It is about Bill, a young man whose family
is murdered at the start of the film.

Years later, when he is finally old enough
to take his revenge, he encounters Ryan,

a recently released prisoner, who seeks
the same men that murdered Bill’s family.

The two ultimately partner up
and hunt down the gang together.

Unlike Day of Anger, this film is about Bill and

Ryan’s developing relationship rather
than Talby and Scott’s declining one.

The film’s revenge plot and score served as
great inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s

Kill Bill (when I say inspired he used
the main theme as I mentioned earlier).

Also, Law’s character is dressed exactly like
Joe/Manco/Blondie from the Dollars films like,

c’mon. You knew what you were doing…

The score is, of course, by Ennio Morricone.

And Bill is played by John Philip
Law whose only other role I know

of is as Sinbad in The Golden Voyage of
Sinbad (a childhood favorite of mine).

And Lee Van Cleef plays Ryan.

It is directed by Giulio Petroni who would go on
to write and direct a few more spaghetti westerns.

Of all the spaghetti western fan
faves, this one is the weirdest.

This 1967 movie was the only spaghetti
western by director Giulio Questi,

whose other well-known filmography inclues
Death Laid an Egg (uhhh go off I guess!).

And it features Tomas Milian in the starring role.

The story begins with “Django” (who is actually
just called the Stranger in the film since this

wasn’t actually a Django film but renamed as
such to capitalize on Django’s popularity),

who is double-crossed and left for
dead after stealing a shipment of gold.

Luckily, Not Django is rescued
by some Native Americans.

And they take him to a town where
his betrayers just so happen to be.

Except the townsfolk have murdered them all
and are currently fighting over the gold.

What makes this spaghetti western stand out is
its surrealism and bizarre cast of characters.

These characters include a mentally ill
woman locked in a room by her husband,

a gang of evil gay cowboys, and basically
all the townsfolk who rip the bullets out

of a dying man’s body with their hands
because the bullets are made of gold.

It’s one of the most memorable and
unsettling moments in the film.

"Poncho, you idiot! You didn't
have to kill him, did ya?"

"I'm sorry, sir. But all my life I've searched
for gold, and this man is full of it."

The film is quite violent even
compared to Sergio Corbucci’s films.

Questi claims that this is due
to his military experience.

If you’re looking for a spaghetti
that flies on the wild side,

this is probably right up your alley.

All right, now we’re getting weird with it.
We’re at the point that I like to call “the

fringes.” These are films and facts that are
just on the outer reaches of popularity and

notability. But they might not be might
considered mandatory viewing among fans.

In the last three tiers, I’ve done my best to
highlight significant actors within the genre.

While there are internationally acclaimed actors
and actors whose popularity surged in Italy alone,

there are a lot of lesser known actors who make
multiple appearances in spaghetti westerns.

The reason I am taking a section to
highlight some of them here is that

1. They appear a lot in these films but
aren’t popular enough to warrant their

own segment and 2. There’s not a lot of
information about them on the internet.

First is Mario Brega.

He was an Italian actor and is probably one of

the better-known supporting cast
members of the Dollars Trilogy.

He appears in all three films as Chico,
Nino, and Corporal Wallace, respectively.

As he does in the Dollars films, he tends to
play the villain’s big muscle or top henchman.

Brega also starred in The Great
Silence, Death Rides a Horse,

My Name is Nobody, and even Sergio
Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America.

Frank Wolff was an American actor who began
his career with director Roger Corman.

Wolff’s most notable spaghetti western role

is probably as Mr. McBain in
Once Upon a Time in the West.

He also starred in The Great
Silence, God Forgives… I Don’t!,

Kill Them All and Come Back Alone,
and I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death.

He also narrated a 1968 documentary about
spaghetti westerns called Western, Italian Style.

Tragically, Wolff died at the age of 43 when he,
according to news reports, committed suicide.

Donal/Donald O’Brien was an Irish actor best

known for starring as Cassidy in
Sergio Sollima’s Run, Man, Run!.

His real name was Donald, but he changed
his stage name to Donal, purportedly,

because contracts constantly misspelled
his name, so he just rolled with it.

In addition to Run, Man, Run!, he was in Keoma,

A Man Called Blade, Four of The
Apocalypse, and Silver Saddle.

William Berger was an Austrian actor who
starred in several spaghetti westerns,

beginning with Ringo’s Big Night in 1966.

When he was a child, his family moved to the
United States after World War II broke out.

As a result, Berger became a
fluent English speaker and,

once he made a career out of acting in spaghetti
westerns, he would often dub himself in English.

His notable western roles are Charlie Siringo
in Face to Face, Keoma’s father in Keoma,

Banjo in Sabata, Lasky in If You Meet Sartana Pray
for Your Death, and Mr. Preston in California.

Luigi Pistilli was an Italian actor who
is most recognized for his role as Father

Pablo Ramirez, Tuco’s brother, in
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

He was a theatre-trained actor, and
his other spaghetti westerns roles

include For a Few Dollars More, Death
Rides a Horse, and The Great Silence.

Pistilli tragically died in 1996
after reportedly committing suicide.

Horst Frank was a prolific German actor who
appeared in what some might consider one of

the early or proto-spaghetti westerns:
The Pirates of the Mississippi in 1963.

It was filmed in Croatia but the production teams
hailed from West Germany, France, and Italy.

Frank’s other spaghetti western
endeavors include Django,

Prepare a Coffin/Viva Django,
Johnny Hamlet, and The Grand Duel.

Aldo Sambrell was a Spanish
actor who, like Mario Brega,

appeared in all three Dollars
films and tended to play bad guys.

He starred in over 150 films, including
Once Upon a Time in the West, Duck,

You Sucker!, A Bullet for the General, three
proto-spaghetti westerns, and Silver Saddle.

Eduardo Martinez Fajardo was a Spanish actor
who starred in many plays, television shows,

and films throughout his 55 years as an actor.

His most famous role is Major
Jackson, the main villain from Django.

Fajardo also starred in Seven Pistols for
a Massacre, The Mercenary, and Companeros.

John Ireland was a Canadian actor who
starred in several American westerns,

such as My Darling Clementine, Red
River, and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

In the late 1960s, Ireland traveled
to Europe and made a few spaghetti

westerns. These spaghettis included Run,
Man, Run!, Pistol for a Hundred Coffins,

Taste of Death/Cost of Dying, and Challenge
of the McKenna’s/Badlands Drifter/Amen.

Fernando Sancho Les was a Spanish
actor who starred in over 200 films.

In spaghetti westerns, he often played
bandits, which are his most famous roles today.

He starred in The Big Gundown, both Ringo films,

Arizona Colt, If You Meet Sartana, Pray
for Your Death, and $10,000 Blood Money.

Jose Calvo (sometimes billed as
Pepe Calvo) was a Spanish actor

who starred in over 100 films in a 28-year period.

He starred in the proto-spaghetti western
Gunfight at Red Sands in 1963, but is most

famous internationally for his role as Silvanito,
the broest of bros, in A Fistful of Dollars.

He also starred as another bro
character Blind Bill in Day of Anger.

He starred in a lot of lesser
known, mediocre spaghettis.

Lorenzo Robledo was a Spanish actor who
starred in several spaghetti westerns.

In many of these films, he was uncredited.

Like Mario Brega, he starred
in all three Dollars films.

He played an uncredited Baxter gunman in A
Fistful of Dollars, Indio’s former partner

in For a Few Dollars More, and one of Angel
Eyes’s men in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

He also starred in Navajo Joe,
The Big Gundown, Face to Face,

The Mercenary, Once Upon a Time in the
West, Companeros, Four of the Apocalypse,

the early/proto spaghetti western
Implacable Three, and more.

In the spaghetti western community,

99% of fans would say that the first
spaghetti western is A Fistful of Dollars.

It defined the whole genre
and just about every film

that followed it tried to mimic it in some way.

However, due to the nature of Eurowesterns and
Italo-Spanish productions before A Fistful of

Dollars, there is some debate about what
the first real spaghetti western is.

While there are Italian westerns that released
in 1964 before A Fistful of Dollars, there are

three films that fans occasionally
identify as the first spaghettis.

These films are Implacable
Three, Gunfight at Red Sands,

and Gunfight at High Noon/Three
Ruthless Ones/Sons of Vengeance.

The first two films debuted in 1963 while
the latter film debuted in early 1964.

I also included Heroes of the West as an
early spaghetti because, though it is a

comedy, it was an Italian/Spanish
production and released in 1963.

Implacable Three (which, going off of the trailer,

seems to have been advertised at one point
as Three Black Horsemen) is about a man who

teams up with two other men to hunt down
a group of outlaws that murdered his wife.

Despite being made before the
genre-defining A Fistful of Dollars,

it has a rather dark tone and features the
wife being strangled to death on screen.

One review of the film by the Son
of Django blog says the western has

a very Spanish-style, rather than an Italian one.

The characters are not anti-heroes seeking

fortune; they are just seeking to
defend their honor and justice.

At one point, the whole film was on
YouTube, but now only trailers remain,

and based on those, it seems
to have been a very cheap film.

But it does feature spaghetti regulars
Fernando Sancho and Lorenzo Robledo.

Gunfight at Red Sands (AKA Duello nel Texas
and Gringo) tells the story of Ricardo.

A Mexican family adopted him
after he lost his parents.

After fighting in the Mexican Civil War,

Ricardo returns home to find his adoptive
family murdered and their gold stolen.

Of course, he sets out to avenge
his family and find his gold.

Though it’s almost entirely
played like an American western,

the film has the common spaghetti western
theme of revenge and seeking money.

The film also features Ennio
Morricone’s first score in a western.

While it seems pretty basic, the film
actually sounds a bit interesting-

Gunfight at High Noon/Three Ruthless Ones/Sons of

Vengeance/The Pitiless Three has a very
similar set up to Implacable Three.

Three young boys are left fatherless
after three robbers attack their home.

They grow up, and the three seek different
paths to deal with their father’s death.

Jeff wants to become a marshall and
deal with the killers through the law,

while Chris wants to kill them with his own
hands (er… gun…), and Brad is just kinda there.

The film features Richard Harrison, who previously
played Ricardo in Gunfight at Red Sands, as Jeff.

And Fernando Sancho makes an appearance.

And it also features a score by Riz Ortolani.

Of these three films, this one seems to be

the most highly regarded when it
comes to early spaghetti westerns.

The last film in this section
is Heroes of the West.

It’s a comedy and by far the most obscure
of these films which is probably why it

doesn’t get brought up a lot when the
early spaghetti westerns are discussed.

I mean, when you look it up on the
spaghetti western database page,

the only link on the page aside from some of
the cast and crew and IMDB is the soundtrack.

Usually there’s a little something like a short
review or possible DVDs, but this has nothing.

From the information I scrounged up,

the film is about two outlaws who
pose as the heirs to a gold mine.

Hijinks ensue, and the two imposters
ultimately work together to take down

the town’s evil mayor and save the day.

As far as I can tell, the film
never released outside of Italy,

and anything that might be considered subversive
of the western genre was only for comedy.

Therefore, I can see why people
would hesitate to call this a

spaghetti western. But created
by Italians and Spainards it was.

As I said earlier, while there were Italian
westerns that came a bit before and after

these movies, these films give a pretty good
taste of what the western genre would become.

A lot of reviews of these films say they have a

more Spanish flair to them than
the later spaghetti westerns.

The films look cleaner and brighter. The
protagonists also still have to be lawful.

For example, the most righteous character
in Gunfight at High Noon is Jeff,

the brother who wants to become a marshall.

Still, some of these films
have pretty dark moments,

showing that there was something new lurking
beneath the surface of the western genre.

West and Soda is a 1965 animated film by
legendary Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto.

The film tells the story,
like many spaghetti westerns,

of a small western town beset by
an evil land owner and his cronies.

The only one who won't sell her land to the
evildoer is the lovely Darling Clementine.

To save her land, Darling hires a skilled
gunman who just so happened to wander into town.

This film is relevant in the
iceberg because Bruno Bozzetto

claims West and Soda is the first
true and honest spaghetti western

since he started working on it before
A Fistful of Dollars began production.

While Wikipedia might have you believe Bozzetto
was bitter about this, he’s actually pretty

cheeky about it and said in an interview that
he and Sergio Leone joked about the coincidence.

Honestly, this film is a light-hearted
parody of classic westerns from the 1950s

rather than the gritty westerns
this iceberg is dedicated too.

However, it is interesting to see an example
of the emergence of Italian westerns.

Another interesting thing about this film is
that most of the English dub cast is largely

unknown except for the character Slim, who
is purportedly voiced by actor Daws Butler,

the voice of the original Yogi
Bear and Huckleberry Hound.

As far as I know (wink wink),
the full film is up on YouTube.

And it's worth a watch. It's a cute
film, and it has some funny moments.

"Well, Slim, look who's come back to town."

"Our handsome cowboy all done
up in basic black like a crow."

"Caw. Caw."

*RAUCOUS APPLAUSE*

My favorite character is definitely Slim.

"I like that laugh."

"hA hA hA"

Most spaghetti westerns, aside from the Leone
films, are already on tier with B movies.

So you can only imagine what the plethora
of even cheaper rip-offs were like.

For every big spaghetti western there
was, Italian directors did everything

in their power to capitalize on that success by
using similar titles and character archetypes.

"In fact, Clint starred in the sequel For

a Few Dollars More with Lee Van
Cleef; an even bigger success."

"Well, that set the trend. 'Dollar,'
it seemed, was the magic word."

"So, all the films had 'dollar' in their titles."

"Then, somebody discovered Ringo, changed
Giuliano Gemma's name to Montgomery Wood,

and made a bundle on a yarn
called A Pistol for Ringo."

"Now, Ringo was the magic word."

In addition to the “Dollars” and “Ringo” films
mentioned, some other rip-offs included those

in the vein of Django (especially Django),
Sartana, Sabata, and the Trinity films.

While some films are direct rip-offs, I admit
that the term “rip-off” may be a bit misleading.

Most of these films and their
characters were not rip-offs,

but rather renamed to capitalize on the
success of what was popular at the time.

Some of these aren’t even spaghetti westerns,

they just feature actors like Franco Nero and
Terrence Hill and are renamed as a result.

A good example of this phenomenon is Keoma being

renamed to Django Rides Again in France
and Django’s Great Return in Germany.

There were also a lot of Django and
Sartana crossovers for some reason.

Some fun titles are Django’s Cut Price Corpses,

Django Kills Softly,

Don’t Wait Django, Shoot!,

Django Forgives… I Don’t! (which is
actually God Forgives… I Don’t!),

Sartana Does Not Forgive,

Sartana Kills Them All,

Trinity and Sartana Are Coming,

There’s a Noose Waiting for You… Trinity!,

Trinity Sees Red,

Ringo, Pray to Your God and Die,

$100,000 for Ringo,

and Django and Sartana Are Coming... It's the End.

That was just one small sampling
of some of these titles,

and I tried to pick some of the funnier ones.

If you’d like to see just how many
of these renames/rip-offs exist,

the Spaghetti Western Database
has a great page for it.

As the page itself says, it is
incredibly confusing to count

just how many rip-offs and retitles there
were, especially since it varies by country.

Lastly, if you’re particularly
interested in the Django film names,

YouTuber and absolute madlad Eric Zaldivar made
a video where he ranks all 85 Django-named films.

It’s a good video, and I have huge respect for him

because I personally don’t have the time
or patience to watch all of these films.

I could barely get through
some of these movies as it is.

Unlike the rip-offs I just
listed off, Django Strikes

Again is the only official
Django sequel in existence.

It’s… not very good.

Directed by Nello Rossati under the pseudonym
Ted Archer, the film released in 1987 and

is the only Django film in which Franco
Nero reprises the role of the character.

The story focuses on Django
coming out of retirement to

rescue his long lost daughter from a slave trader.

Also starring is spaghetti
regular William Berger and…

Donald Pleasance???

It seems that the producers/filmmakers hoped this
film would spark a spaghetti western revival.

While I can’t find any information about it’s box

office, it seems that the film was
a critical and commercial failure.

From what I can find, Sergio Corbucci
originally planned to direct the film,

but dropped out after another spaghetti western
revival film Tex and the Lord of the Deep flopped.

Franco Nero himself said in an interview that he

was not happy with the film
because he found it “flat.”

Modern reviews of this film are mostly negative,

but some say that it keeps the same
heart of classic spaghetti westerns.

Others say it isn’t worth a watch.

My opinion, just from looking at the trailer,

is that is looks more like a bland action
movie rather than a spaghetti western.

Pretty disappointing…

In December 2013, Franco Nero announced that he

would star as Django for a third and final
installment in the official Django series.

Since that time, the film has
been stuck in development hell.

According to a 2014 Guardian article,
the film’s plot centered around Django,

now an aged western-film consultant,
fighting against racketeers.

Joe D'Augustine, an editor who worked on Quentin

Tarantino’s Kill Bill films and
Death Proof, was supposed to direct.

A Facebook dedicated to Django Lives!
hinted that filming started in late 2015.

For some reason, the film
was delayed. But in 2016,

director John Sayles was now
writing and directing the film.

According to one article, the plot now
changed so that Django was an extra on

the set of the infamous silent film The Birth of
a Nation and fought against white supremacists.

By 2017, Christian Alvart was
now in the director’s chair,

but John Sayles was still the head writer.

Again, things were quiet until about 2020.

In an interview, Franco Nero said that
the film crew was ready to start filming

when the Covid-19 pandemic halted production.

Now, from what Nero said, Django was no
longer a consultant for western films.

But he was still going to
fight Klansmen, however.

The last update on the film, unfortunately,
appears to have been in August 2021,

when the Django Lives Facebook page
posted, “Django Lives! is COMING SOON!”

Additionally, there is an IMDb page for the film,
with a short description that reads, “The renowned

gunslinger fends off racism in 1914 America.
He's up in years but still as deadly as ever.”

Will Django Lives! ever see the light of day?

For now, I can’t say.

Upon hearing this title, you might think
this is just another Django rip-off.

But this is technically a
“semi-official” Django film.

This movie came out in 1968 and features
none other than Terence Hill as Django.

The plot revolves around Django
saving men from the gallows and

assembling a team to go after the men
who framed them and killed his wife.

Horst Frank and George Eastman
also star in this film.

It’s nothing to write home about. But
some of the comedic timing is great.

“Garcia, I got something
real important to tell ya."

"Well?"

"Forgot what it was."

"Garcia, I remembered what it was now!"

"Tomorrow, they’re gonna hang your wife.”

The story behind this film’s
production is quite interesting.

When Franco Nero signed on to Django, he agreed
to make three films with the production company.

The first was Django, the second was another
spaghetti western called Texas Addio,

and the last was Django, Prepare a Coffin.

However, in 1967, Nero took the
role of Lancelot in Camelot,

so he dipped out before he could
fulfill his contractual obligation.

As a quick note, Sergio Corbucci
did not direct this film,

but rather Ferdinando Baldi,
who also directed Texas Addio.

And it features the cinematography of Enzo
Barboni, director of the Trinity films.

Whether you want to consider this film an
official Django sequel or not is up to you.

I definitely wouldn’t consider it a rip-off,

but it seems that Sergio Corbucci
didn’t have anything to do with it.

Also, I like how the trailer
calls him the “real” Django, like,

they knew what they were doing,
they were playing with people.

I was just gonna tack this
on to the prior segment,

but I figured this topic
deserved its own explanation.

This fact is relatively well-known now thanks
to a video that JarredJermaine posted on TikTok

(at least, I think it was originally on TikTok)
where Jermaine demonstrates the use of the sample.

The sample comes from the song “Last Man Standing”
which plays during the film’s final scene.

Danger Mouse stated in an interview that
“Crazy” “is a straight spaghetti western”

and cited Ennio Morricone as
one of his biggest influences.

CeeLo Green also explained how Django, Prepare
a Coffin influenced him in a recent interview.

"Movies and cinema always play a big part
because to me I have to be able to see the song."

"The track itself has to give me
some type of cinematic quality

more than I write radio songs, I
feel like I'm scoring if anything."

Just goes to show that what’s
old is new (and spaghetti).

Navajo Joe is another Sergio Corbucci film.

Released after Django in 1966, the film is notable

for featuring a yet-to-breakout
Burt Reynolds in the leading role.

And starring as the main antagonist is none
other than spaghetti regular Aldo Sambrell.

The film is about a group of outlaws who
slaughter Native Americans for money.

Now, they’re plotting to steal
a train containing $500,000.

But there’s one man standing in their way,

and it’s Navajo Joe (AKA Burt
Reynolds with a very bad fake tan).

He’s not going to let them get away with it.

But is he fighting just for the
sake of morality, or something more?

From the information I can find about this
film, it appears that Burt Reynolds and

Sergio Corbucci hoped that the film
would break out into international

stardom the same way A Fistful of Dollars
had for Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone.

There’s a lot of talk about how Burt Reynolds
absolutely hated working on this film,

which I believe, but I can’t find
any direct sources about this hatred,

at least not in Reynolds' available interviews.

Apparently, Clint Eastwood,
a good friend of Reynolds,

recommended he get on the spaghetti
western craze after his success.

So, when a “Sergio” offered Reynolds a role
in an Italian western, he jumped right on it.

I can’t find any box office data for the
film, but it sounds like it wasn’t a big hit.

At least, it certainly wasn’t the big
hit the studio and Reynolds hoped for.

However, the film has garnered quite
a cult following over the years.

And it is considered one of the best
“alternative” spaghetti westerns. And

it's one of Quentin Tarantino’s
personal favorite spaghettis.

Of course, the score is by Ennio
Morricone and reused by Tarantino

in Kill Bill Vol. 2 because why wouldn’t it be?

"Burt, you're very..."

"Yes, I am."

If you couldn’t tell based on the title,

this spaghetti is a retelling of Shakespeare’s
Hamlet in a post-American Civil War setting.

The main character’s name isn’t Johnny Hamlet,

but rather Johnny Hamilton, a Confederate
veteran who returns to his hometown after

the war only to find his father dead
and his uncle married to his mother.

Conspiracy and intrigue ensue as Johnny tries to

unravel the mystery of who
really killed his father.

Released in Italy in 1968, Sergio
Corbucci initially came up with the story.

Ultimately, the reins fell to Enzo G.
Castellari, who was very taken with the story.

According to Castellari, he wanted to
release it under the name Johnny Hamlet.

However, at the last minute, the studio
changed the name to That Dirty Story

in the West because they felt it would do
better if it had an obviously western title.

As far as my research tells me, it did not perform
well upon release, much to Castellari’s upset.

This one I’ve seen, and it’s one of my
personal favorite spaghetti westerns.

When people aren't talking about Keoma,

many consider this film to
be Enzo G. Castellari’s best.

It has some highly artistic and creative
cinematography as well as musical direction.

It’s still on a B-movie level, but there
is a lot of effort put into this film.

There are also some spaghetti
regulars and newcomers to the film.

Johnny is played by Andrea Giordana, who starred
in two spaghetti westerns prior to Johnny Hamlet.

Horst Frank plays the evil Uncle Claude.

And then you have Gilbert Roland, a bonafide
American actor with a long list of credits

to his name and a place on the Hollywood
Walk of Fame, as Horace, Johnny’s mentor,

best friend, and the one of the bro-est
of bros in spaghetti western history.

Tell me who the best character
is, and tell me why it’s Horace.

So aside from the films in the first two
tiers, I would highly recommend this one.

I’m probably overhyping it,

but I genuinely enjoyed this film and
it has some great direction and style.

And I cannot, of course, forget
Franceso De Masi’s soundtrack.

The opening theme “Find a Man” features the

great Maurizio Graf and is one of the
best spaghetti western themes ever.

Fulci

is best known for giallo, or stylized
Italian thriller/horror, films.

The most famous of these is perhaps
The Beyond from 1981; he also directed

City of the Living Dead, The House by the
Cemetery, The Black Cat, and 1979’s Zombie.

Like pretty much every director on this list,

his critics and fans consider his work to
be excessively violent, gorey, and perverse.

In addition to his giallos, Fulci also made
three spaghetti westerns (technically three,

but we’ll get into that in a bit).

The first of these is Massacre Time
with Franco Nero and George Hilton.

Then came the infamous Four of
the Apocalypse with Tomas Milian.

And finally, we have one of the last
hurrahs of the spaghetti western,

Silver Saddle with Giuliano Gemma.

These three are assuredly spaghetti westerns,

but Fulci made two other films in
Italy with none other than Franco Nero.

These two films are White Fang,
based on Jack London’s novel,

and its sequel Challenge to White Fang.

Both of these films are listed on
the Spaghetti Western Database,

but they’re more action-adventure
films and not necessarily western.

I can’t even say these were marketed as
Django films because from what I can find,

surprisingly, the studios
never retitled them as such.

I guess it wasn’t in style
by the time they came out.

Though Fulci was mainly a master
of horror, his spaghetti westerns

are quite notable since he tackled the
genre in its early and twilight stages.

He had an incredibly prolific and
successful career as a filmmaker,

working right up until his death in 1996.

And it cannot be understated that he created
some truly intriguing and controversial films.

Speaking of…

This film is like a mix between
a giallo and a spaghetti western.

And, much like when it debuted in 1975, it remains
controversial among spaghetti western fans.

Earlier in this video, I discussed the
fact that films like Django and The Great

Silence went unreleased or censored in
other countries due to their violence.

So when Four of the Apocalypse came out, I
can’t imagine what the censors thought of it.

After the outcasts of a town are massacred,
four residents manage to survive and escape.

These four are Stubby, Bunny, Clem, and Bud.

Together, they travel across the
desert to try and find a new home.

Along the way, however, they are
stalked by a mad bandit named Chaco.

Aside from Tomas Milian as Chaco and
Donal O’Brien in a brief role as the

sheriff, most of the cast are not
typical spaghetti western actors.

Fabio Testi plays Stubby; funnily enough,
before this film, he started his career

as a stuntman for what else but
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Lynne Frederick, who famously married Peter
Sellers shortly before he died, is Bunny.

Michael J. Pollard, who is most notable for his

supporting role in the film Bonnie
and Clyde, plays Clem, the drunkard.

And Harry Baird is Bud, the man who see ghosts.

Baird is a particularly interesting figure because

his career was just starting to
pick up before he did this film.

But he tragically suffered
from glaucoma and went blind,

so Four of the Apocalypse was his final film.

As for the movie itself, it
is, in a word, disgusting.

It’s gorier than the average spaghetti western,

features a graphic rape scene,
and has stuff like… well… this…

"It's in the movie."

"He is a magnificent actor."

"He is a magnificent actor."

"The best there. Better than me."

"Nah, I don't think he's better
than me. I was trying to be nice."

Still, many spaghetti western
fans are divided on this one.

Some people love it, and others don’t.

Whatever you might think, it is
certainly not for the faint of heart.

One review from the Spaghetti Western Database
marks Four of the Apocalypse as the first of the

Twilight Spaghettis, or at least the first
sign of the bleak and dreary films to come.

It is also as trippy and bizarre
as it is violent and depressing.

Music wise, the score is by music
group Bixio, Frizzi, and Tempera.

It’s definitely atypical
for most Spaghetti westerns,

but typical for the Twilight
spaghetti with it’s trippy vibe.

Not my favorite, but much more
pleasant than Keoma’s soundtrack.

Red Sun is a 1971 film that some might
not consider a true spaghetti western.

Terence Young, known for directing three James
Bond films, wound up directing this film.

However, it was an Italian production.

The starring cast includes Charles
Bronson, Ursula Andress, and, in an

interesting twist of fate, Toshiro Mifune
in his first and only spaghetti western.

With this very international cast and crew,
one review from the New York Times called it,

“the first Spanish British‐American
French‐Japanese‐Swiss Western.”

The plot revolves around
Mifune’s character Kuroda,

who serves as a Japanese diplomat’s bodyguard.

While accompanying the diplomat in
the United States, a prized sword,

intended to be a gift to the U.S.
President from the Japanese emperor,

is stolen from the diplomat by Link
(Charles Bronson) and his partner Gauche.

Gauche backstabs Link, so Link and
Kuroda team up to get the sword back.

The film was, as the Spaghetti
Western Database puts it,

“predictably” successful in Europe and Japan.

Of course, it didn’t have much impact in the U.S.

Modern critics in particular
are pretty harsh on this film.

However, spaghetti western fans fondly
remember it for its light-hearted nature.

Mifune and Bronson actually have some
pretty good chemistry as leading men.

Also, random side note, but people like
to point out the irony of how one of the

Seven Samurai stars alongside
one of the Magnificent Seven.

As I write and record this video,
I have yet to see this film,

but a good friend of mine who saw it
dubbed it, “Republican comfort food.”

It may have some stereotyping (but basically
every film on this list does so what’s the

point of even talking about it?) but, overall,
it seems like a fun picture with an unusual cast.

Another film with an unusual cast.

This one is a 1969 Zapata directed by Giulio
Petroni, the man behind Death Rides a Horse.

In the lead roles are Tomas
Milian and, wait for it,

Orson Welles.

The film is about Mexican
Revolutionary leader Tepepa.

After he is captured by the evil
Colonel Cascorro and sentenced to death,

Tepepa is ultimately rescued by Dr. Henry Price.

But this doctor isn’t here to continue
the revolution; he’s seeking revenge

against Tepepa because the revolutionary
supposedly killed the woman he loved.

But Price won’t kill him until
the Colonel stops pursuing them,

so, until they stop the Colonel, the
doctor’s revenge will have to wait.

This film is largely forgotten save
the fact that it featured Orson Welles,

but those who have seen it consider
it one of the best Zapatas.

Giulio Petroni himself called it his best film,

and it features an excellent
soundtrack by Ennio Morricone.

If Petroni had his way, this film would
be far more beloved than it is and was.

Part of the problem with this
film, according to reviews,

is that it is lengthy (over two
hours) and particularly pessimistic.

There was also conflict on
set between Milian and Welles.

Welles and Petroni got along
well, but, according to Petroni,

Welles referred to Milian as, “that little Cuban.”

Wikipedia says, however, that Orson
supposedly called him a “dirty Cuban.”

If there’s one good thing I can assuredly
say about Tepepa, it is ambitious.

One of the most common “factoids” you’ll hear
about For a Few Dollars More is that actor Gian

Maria Volonte dubbed his own lines for the film’s
English release due to a contractual obligation.

He did not know any English, so a translator
helped him say his lines phonetically.

This piece of trivia is one you can find on
IMdB, and, as late as December 2020, TV Tropes.

However, this is not true, or
at least, not entirely true.

The voice you hear in the English version
of A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few

Dollars More is not Volonte’s,
but rather actor Bernard Grant’s.

From what I can find, this legend
about Volonte doing his own dub

started in Sir Christopher Frayling’s book
on Sergio Leone Something to do with Death.

The trivia has since been corrected on TV Tropes,

but remains one of the top
pieces of trivia on IMdB.

It’s possible that Volonte may have
recorded some lines for the English version,

but it’s pretty clear once you listen that Grant
is largely responsible for Indio’s English voice.

If you’re not convinced and think that Volonte
did his voice for A Fistful as well, you can

clearly hear Grant’s voice work as Captain
Clifton in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

"When you hear the music finish,
begin. Or do you think you can?"

"Headquarters has declared we must
take that ridiculous flyspeck."

"Even if all of us are killed."

"Otherwise the key'll get rusty
and just be a spot on the wall."

The reason I bring up this myth and will
address a few others is just to show how

little information there is about
some of these spaghetti westerns.

Not only is it difficult because I am
not a native Italian or Italian speaker,

but there’s a lot of misinformation
and misinterpretation of things.

That’s why you’ve heard me express some doubt and

uncertainty in some of the facts
I’ve said in the iceberg so far.

Anyway, with that little spiel out
of the way, I’d like to address a

couple more spaghetti western myths and
legends that I have been able to debunk.

Another common legend you’ll hear
about is that Franco Nero worked

at a gas station when he was first
hired to play the lead role in Django.

Sergio Corbucci got gas, saw Nero, and
thought he was perfect for the role.

In reality, Nero was already an actor and took

on the Django role under the
advice of director Elio Petri.

My theory is that this rumor started
because Nero’s first ever film role

was a small part in a movie called I Knew
Her Well where he plays a garage attendant.

A final myth that user Extranjero brought up on
the Spaghetti Western Database Forums is that A

Fistful of Dollars broke the Hays Code by showing
a shooter killing a victim in the same frame.

But this wasn’t true, as films like The
Magnificent Seven showed such violence.

The Hays Code enforced certain moral protections,
and when it comes to gun violence the only thing

the Code says is that the usage of the
firearm should not be shown in detail.

So, the myth that A Fistful of Dollars violated
the Hays Code because of the framing is not true.

Did it violate the Code in other ways?
Probably, but not in the way the rumor suggests.

There are definitely more
spaghetti western myths out there,

but these are the ones I could
debunk beyond a reasonable doubt.

If anyone has any other myths they could clear up,
feel free to post your knowledge in the comments.

This tier marks the point where you’ve gone
past the fringes of regular spaghetti western

fan knowledge and gone into the deeper
content. The stuff that is not as popular,

and the facts that aren't as
well discussed or researched.

Originally, I attached this to
the Recurring Actors segment,

but I found that these female actresses tend
to be more unknown compared to the male ones.

One of the unfortunate things about
spaghetti westerns is that most of

the films fall flat when it
comes to female characters.

Let’s be real, these films are sausage fests,

and most of the notable actresses within
the genre only have one or two appearances.

Not that it’s a huge problem for me,
but I hate to say that the Western,

Italian Style documentary is right
when it comes to women in these movies.

"As for the girl, well, she's not very important."

"She's often Mexican, young,
and well-constructed."

"Usually being raped in front of the camera."

That being said, I’m gonna do my
best to highlight a few actresses.

Vonetta McGee was an American actress
whose film debut was actually in The

Great Silence as Pauline, the widow who
hires Silence to avenge her husband.

After The Great Silence, she starred in several
Blaxploitation films and the 1984 film Repo Man.

Mariannce Koch is probably one of
the best-known spaghetti western

actresses due to her role in A
Fistful of Dollars as Marisol.

She hails from Germany and was a successful
German actress until she retired in the early 70s.

Then she became a television host, and
finally, a doctor of internal medicine.

She is no longer in the medical practice but
continues to write books about healthy living.

Lorella De Luca (often billed as Hally Hammond)
was an Italian actress who starred as the

sheriff’s fiancee and Ringo’s wife in the
first and second Ringo films, respectively.

One cool fact about De Luca is that she actually

married the director of the
Ringo movies Duccio Tessari.

As far as I can tell, they met on the set
of the first film and married in 1971.

Martine Beswick is an English-Jamaican actress who

is best known for starring in the James Bond
films From Russia with Love and Thunderball.

However, one of her other big roles was
Adelita in A Bullet for the General.

Linda Veras is a former Italian actress
who starred in films like Face to Face,

Run, Man, Run, and the first Sabata film.

In Run, Man, Run, she plays
the Salvation Army sergeant

and gets into a catfight with Chelo
Alonso which was great for the plot.

Anyway, the Spaghetti Western Database claims

that she dated Sergio Sollima as they
made Run, Man, Run and Face to Face.

I have no idea if this is true
because the Database is the only

place I can find this but I thought
it was interesting enough to share.

Nieves Navarro (sometimes billed as Susan Scott)

is an Italian actress who was born
in, of all places, Almeria, Spain.

She tended to be cast as the bad
girl, girl boss in these films.

She starred in the Ringo films,
The Big Gundown, Adios, Sabata,

and Light the Fuse, Sartana is Coming.

She also married the producer of
the Ringo films Luciano Ercoli.

Nicoletta Machiavelli was an Italian actress,

and one of the craziest people
I have researched so far.

She was a descendant of the Niccolo
Machiavelli and ultimately disliked

her association with him, at least for a while.

Nicoletta Machiavelli began acting in the
mid 60s and starred in spaghetti westerns,

most notably as Estella in Navajo Joe.

One of her other notable spaghetti westerns was
Garter Colt, a spaghetti western where she stars

as the main protagonist, making it one of the only
films in the genre with a woman in the lead role.

She retired from film in 1977, save one final
film in 1983. All of this isn’t the crazy part.

The crazy part is that, in 1984, she
became a follower of Rajneesh/Osho.

I cannot find when she left,
and one source implies that

she remained in the group until her death.

But this aside, she moved to
Seattle, Washington around 1986.

Starting in 2005, she taught Italian
language at Bellevue University.

She passed away in 2015, and,
man, did she have a history.

I felt the need to elaborate on her because
she just had a super fascinating life.

Remember how I brought this film up
10 or 20 seconds ago as one of the

only spaghetti westerns with a female lead? Yeah?

Well, the Spaghetti Western Database describes

this film as “...a kind of
feminist Zapata Western.”

As I mentioned previously, this film
features Nicoletta Machiavelli in the

lead role, if you can even call it that, of Lulu,

a gambler who drifts into a town beset by
Mexican Revolutionaries and the French Army.

Also featured is Claudio Camaso,
the brother of Gian Maria Volonte,

as Red, the main antagonist of the film.

He’s just as wacky as his big bro.

I would describe more of the plot here,
but, truth be told, there really isn’t any.

If you look on IMdB, the synopsis reads,
“A young gambling woman defends herself

from the attack of a fearsome bandit.
Falling in love with a young Frenchman,

he asks her to give up gambling
and start a quiet and normal life,

but when the young man is killed by the
bandit, she is determined to seek revenge.”

But this is a lie, a clever tactic to trick
you into thinking this film has a story.

It doesn’t.

All this film is is a mishmash
of disconnected side stories,

exploitation of the actresses, and
a few okay scenes here and there.

There’s cuts between scenes of another
French soldier as he falls in love with

the town beauty Rosie while Lulu
romances Carlos, her Frenchman.

And then you have the scene that drags
on for about 10 to 15 minutes where the

evil bandit Red tries to rape Rosie while
her love interest flails around uselessly.

To deboonk the IMdB synopsis,
Machiavelli’s character doesn’t

fall in love with Carlos until
about halfway through the film.

And I don’t think any of you will care about
spoilers here, but Lulu does not get her revenge.

Carlos is killed by the Revolutionary
leader at the very end of the film.

And when Lulu finds out Carlos
is dead she just… leaves.

There is one decent scene: the gambling scene
where Lulu uses a midget disguised as her baby

to get the upper hand, only for the two of
them to get called out by a talking parrot.

Yeah.

You see, I know all this because I went out of my
way to buy this film because it’s kind of rare,

and the synopsis intrigued
me enough to want to see it.

And you also have this poster
which makes you go, “Y’know,

this probably has a lot of fanservice but it
looks like it could be cool enough to watch.”

Again, this is another trick.

It seems an English-subbed version of the

movie may have been on YouTube at
one point, but no longer exists.

The film was never dubbed in English and
somehow, managed to evade German dubbing as well.

Germany, where they were obsessed with westerns.

I feel like there are times where this film is
self-aware, like one scene where this dude is

just going back and forth kissing between
two girls while the town is being raided.

But this film doesn’t work as a comedy either.

It’s too disjointed, and it's obvious most

of it is just to show off Nicoletta
Michavelli and her female co-stars.

But yes, the director who made
this film, Gian Andrea Rocco,

only has three film credits to his name, and
it appears this is his only directorial credit.

"You. You vile, disgusting, foul human being."

Not long after this film, Machiavelli broke the

studio contract she was under because
she hated the films she was making.

And after seeing Garter Colt, I don’t blame her.

As one final note for all you
lost media people out there,

according to some sources, it sounds
like 15 minutes of this film is missing.

Could these lost 15 minutes
improve Garter Colt’s story?

I highly doubt it.

Santi is most notable for being Sergio
Leone’s assistant director on The Good,

the Bad, and the Ugly and
Once Upon a Time in the West.

Apparently, he served as the assistant
director on Death Rides a Hose as well.

You might also remember that I brought up Santi
earlier in the iceberg when I mentioned that Leone

chose him to direct Duck, You Sucker! before
Leone was forced to direct the film himself.

Funny thing about that too.

I didn’t go into detail about Santi’s involvement
with the film, but the common legend is that

Santi shot the film for the first few days
before he was ultimately replaced by Leone.

Well, Santi didn’t shoot any scenes for the
film, and that’s according to the man himself.

From what he says, Leone made an
announcement before filming began

that Santi would be the director of
the film… without Santi’s knowledge.

So the agents of James Coburn and Rod
Steiger plus the producers said, “Uh,

no no no, you gotta do this,
this is what we paid for.”

And Leone began filming before Santi
had any idea what had happened.

Now, it could be that this wasn’t what
happened but considering this is what

Santi himself said in an interview, I’m more
inclined to believe his side of the story.

I bring this up because other than this
legend, Santi is a fairly mysterious figure.

There aren’t a lot of interviews with him.

Apparently, there is at least
one on some DVD versions of

his film The Grand Duel, but I don’t have that.

At any rate, I find his obscurity
and history with Leone interesting.

Especially because Santi would go on to
direct, by himself, only one spaghetti western.

This is the one spaghetti western
directed by Giancarlo Santi.

Released in 1972, it features our
boy Lee Van Cleef as the protagonist.

The plot focuses ex-sheriff Clayton (played
by Van Cleef) as he pursues Philip Wermeer,

a man who has been accused of killing the
head of the rich and powerful Saxon family.

But Clayton doesn’t think Wermeer is guilty;

he believes he’s innocent, and wants to
prove it to the Saxons and the townsfolk.

But the Saxons are convinced that
Wermeer is guilty and want to hang him.

This mystery must be solved, and it’s clear
that someone knows more than he is letting on.

I probably could have brought this
film up earlier in the iceberg,

but I feel that the story behind it and Santi’s
background are more obscure than the film itself.

So it made sense to me to put
the film lower in the tiers.

According to Santi, he did
not write this film himself,

but producers approached him with a script
already prepared and Lee Van Cleef guaranteed.

When he accepted the project, producers pressured

him to emulate Sergio Leone’s style,
so he didn’t enjoy it too much.

As it stands, this film is okay.

Some of the mystery elements
are well-incorporated:

almost in a way that I wish
The Big Gundown had done.

Plus, it has Lee Van Cleef.

And it also features Horst Frank in yet another
villainous role as the eldest Saxon brother.

The last thing of note is the
immaculate soundtrack by Luis Bacalov.

If you’re a Tarantino fan,

you may recognize it because he reused it
in Kill Bill, which I did mention earlier.

It is by far the best thing about this film.

Other than the music, the film is
pretty standard spaghetti western fare.

This 1972 film is James Coburn’s
second and final spaghetti western.

This one is directed by Tonino Valerii, the
director of Day of Anger and My Name is Nobody.

It features a typical action set-up where

a rag-tag team of troubled
men have to work together.

In this film, the men are Union prisoners
led James Coburn, who plays a Union colonel

that surrendered Fort Holman to the Confederacy.

Now, it’s up to the Colonel to take back the fort,

and the Union prisoners are going to help him
in exchange for their freedom and payment.

From the reviews I’ve read,
this film isn’t very good.

Still, it managed to make almost 2
billion lire at the Italian box office,

but it didn’t seem to make a splash elsewhere.

It is also cool for featuring not only
James Coburn, but also Bud Spencer and

American actor Telly Savalas, best known for his
roles as Kojak and Maggott from The Dirty Dozen.

I also bring up this film because it
has some intriguing trivia behind it.

There are several different cuts
of this film with varying lengths.

Some versions are 90 minutes to 92 minutes long,
and others are 112 minutes to 118 minutes long.

I don’t know why this is.

I do know, however, that there were two
English-language cuts of the film at least.

The 92-minute version features James Coburn
dubbing his own voice, but, according to the

Spaghetti Western Database, longer versions of
the film feature another actor dubbing Coburn.

Shorter versions of the film
appear to be more accessible,

while the longer version is not lost but rare.

Lastly, the film features a score by Riz Ortolani.

From what I listened to, it sounds
like an average spaghetti soundtrack.

A book about Tonino Valerii’s films says that

the music in this movie actually
reuses scores from Day of Anger.

I poked around both soundtracks, and I couldn’t
find any songs that sounded that similar. So,

I don't know, but I could be wrong.

This film is notable as a spaghetti western
because it was created around the same time

as A Fistful of Dollars and even shared some
production time with the more famous film.

Two companies produced both films: Constantin
Films of Germany and Jolly Film of Italy.

Not only did they share the same companies, they
also filmed on at least part of the same set.

Within the first five minutes
of Bullets Don’t Argue,

you’ll clearly see the village
of San Miguel from A Fistful.

To top it all off, Ennio Morricone
made the score for this film too.

The only thing I’m slightly skeptical of is
the claim that producers cared more about

Bullets Don’t Argue, thinking that it would
be more successful than A Fistful of Dollars,

and subsequently gave it a higher budget.

I’m inclined to believe it, but I don’t
have a direct source to back up that claim.

Anyway, Bullets Don’t Argue, was, of course,
not as successful as A Fistful of Dollars.

Storywise, it is a more traditional
western than a spaghetti western.

It is about a sheriff named Pat Garrett
played by Canadian actor Rod Cameron,

who was notable for his
western roles in television.

On Garrett’s wedding day, he has
no choice but to ride off and catch

two bandits who robbed the bank while
everyone in town was at his wedding.

Funnily enough, one of the bandits
is played by our boy Horst Frank.

As a film, most reviews say it’s nothing special,

and the only notable thing about it is the fact
that it was made alongside A Fistful of Dollars.

I do really like this one Letterboxd review where

it calls the film the spaghetti
western equivalent of Applebee’s.

All right, I think it’s finally time
for me to talk about White Comanche.

Technically, this film is a Eurowestern:

specifically, a paella western because
the production was primarily Spanish.

HOWEVER, I first came across it on a box set
of 20 spaghetti western films and, as we have

established at this point, Spain served as the
filming location for several spaghetti westerns.

So, it counts.

This film is rather infamous, not only
because it gets featured in spaghetti

western DVD collections even though it’s
technically not a spaghetti western,

but because it features the legendary
William Shatner in two main roles.

He plays two brothers Johnny

and Notah.

I’m sure you can already tell where this is going.

The brothers are half-white and half-Comanche.

Johnny embraces his white ancestry, while
Notah embraces his Native American ancestry.

People keep trying to kill Johnny
because they think he is Notah.

Notah is a serial murderer and rapist.

Johnny has had enough of
these attempted lynchings,

so he challenges Notah to a showdown
to settle things once and for all.

Also, Notah regularly consumes
cacti with psychoactive properties.

The consumption of this cacti makes
Notah think he is the Comanche’s messiah.

Yeah, yeah problematic

but also

hilarious.

So hilarious, in fact, that it made its
way into The Official Razzie Movie Guide.

This film is badly shot.

The soundtrack goes from being passable
to not matching the tone at all.

Shatner, who is personally one
of my favorite actors, is awful.

In my opinion, this is so
offensively bad it’s funny.

However, I can understand someone
being genuinely offended by it.

But how could I not talk about this film? When

else are you ever going to
get to hear about this film?

Oh, and Joseph Cotten was in it too.

In 2015, Sky Studios, a
primarily European company,

announced production of a Django TV series.

It seems that the series was untouched
until about 2021 when filming finally began.

Apparently, filming took place in
Romania because it was easiest to

film there when some countries were
still shut down by COVID protocols.

Anyway, Francesca Comencini directed the show,

and the first two episodes were screened at the
International Rome Film Fest in October 2022.

Yep, not that long ago, and the show is set
to release on February 17th of this year.

So what’s the plot?

Well, the show is interesting in that,
supposedly, it combines elements of the

original Django, the 1987 sequel, and
Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained.

It takes place after the
Civil War (like the original),

Django is seeking his long-lost daughter
(like the official sequel), and commentary

on slavery and modern-day diversity
will feature (like in Tarantino's film).

To give more detail, Django’s daughter went
missing after bandits seemingly killed his family.

Eight years later, he travels to the
town of New Babylon–a place open to

people of all backgrounds–,
where he finds his daughter.

She is now set to marry the town’s founder
and wants nothing to do with her father.

However, when the town is
beset by a ruthless gang,

Django agrees to protect the
town alongside the mayor.

On the surface, it sounds like
a typical spaghetti western.

Now, this is just my opinion, but, I
think the show looks pretty generic.

And I don’t fully understand
how you can make a western

set in the 1860s “contemporary.” But I digress.

The show drops on Sky Atlantic,
a UK channel, on February 17th,

like I mentioned. So, my European
viewers will have to tell me how it is.

In the US, this 1973 film is also
known as My Name is Shanghai Joe.

I know you see that title, and you’re probably
worried about another round of White Comanche.

But fear not!

Our titular character is
played by an actual Asian.

Buuuut the actor was supposedly Japanese

and not Chinese (I’ll get into
that whole debacle in a bit).

As a white wahman, I don’t think I can speak
about whether or not this is super offensive.

But I feel confident saying that this is at least
more appropriate casting than White Comanche.

Anyway, this is another interesting little
spaghetti with an Asian protagonist.

I’d say it’s certainly more obscure than Red Sun,

and the casting is not as
recognizable as the former film.

Except for Klaus Kinski in a villainous role.

This is yet another Mario Caiano film,
and the role of Joe is played by Chen Lee,

who unfortunately, I couldn’t
find a lot of information on.

To go off on a bit of the whole
Japanese-Chinese casting tangent,

as a matter of fact, no one actually
seems to know who Chen Lee was.

It’s highly speculated by spaghetti western fans

that he was really a Japanese
guy, but no one knows for sure.

The name that gets brought
up on the spaghetti western

database as his real name is Myoshin
Hayakawa, but that is not confirmed.

There also is a database forum post
that says this same actor was in two

other spaghetti westerns, but
I can’t confirm that either.

He is credited for some other
films besides this one, but,

again, I’m kind of speculative on
how accurate these credits are.

Maybe one of you Internet
sleuths could figure it out.

Anyhoo, the story is about Joe, a Chinese
immigrant who is seeking a fresh start in TEXAS.

From the get-go, he faces
racism and discrimination.

His martial arts skills help him
beat his harassers, of course.

After displaying his skills,
he is hired to work on a ranch,

but he quickly discovers that the owners are not
dealing in cattle, but rather enslaved Mexicans.

Joe vows to free the slaves,

but not before his employer hires four
bounty hunters to try and stop him.

This one is just pure action nonsense.

Joe can cut people’s hands
off with just a karate chop.

Which is pretty sick. This film is one of the
goriest spaghetti westerns I’ve ever seen,

and that’s just going off the trailer.

I also wanna mention that Klaus
Kinski plays a dude named “Scalper

Jack,” and that’s… that’s just a really cool name.

Yeah, of the last few films I’ve mentioned, this
might be the one I’d be willing to watch the most.

There actually seems to be some pretty
mixed feelings on this film in particular.

Some people love how over-the-top it
is while others find it really dull.

As a last note, the score is by Bruno
Nicolai, and it’s actually quite pretty.

This is a sub-par Twilight spaghetti
that, like many films on this tier,

is more interesting for its production
and figures than actual film content.

Shooting for this film took
place in Israel, but its status

as an Israeli and Italian co-production
technically makes it a spaghetti western.

At least, the internet keeps telling me that it

was an Italian co-production but I can’t
find any sure proof that it was Italian.

Meh, Lee Van Cleef is in it, so it counts.

Golan-Globus Productions
primarily produced this film.

If you know your film companies,

you’d know then, that that makes
Kid Vengeance part of Cannon Films.

For those who don’t know, Cannon Films is the same

company that produced the certified hood
classic Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.

They also made the infamous Masters of the
Universe movie, Superman IV, and The Delta Force.

This guarantees Kid Vengeance is cursed.

Also, Kid Vengeance is the second of two spaghetti
western films made by Cannon/Golan-Globus.

The first one is God’s Gun.

Production for both took place within the
same time frame and around the same locations.

I thought about giving God’s Gun
its own section on this iceberg,

but I didn’t find it as
interesting as Kid Vengeance.

Plot-wise, this film is about Tom, a young boy who

watches helplessly as bandits murder
his parents and kidnap his sister.

Tom teams up with a prospector named Isaac
to hunt down the bandits and save the day.

The plot sounds decent enough, but the lack of a
Wikipedia page for this film as well as numerous

negative reviews show that this film may be
the next worst thing since White Comanche.

One review poignantly notes that the film is

too violent for children but
also too juvenile for adults.

Tom pulls a Home Alone where he mainly
defeats the bad guys by setting traps.

It’s a shame this film doesn’t sound
very good since it features Lee Van

Cleef as the main villain and
Jim Brown as the prospector.

One of the last notable aspects
about this film is that, supposedly,

Gianfranco Parolini of Sartana and
Sabata fame, was set to direct.

He even directed the first
Cannon spaghetti film God’s Gun.

For whatever reason, Joseph Manduke
replaced him as a director.

As a final note, those of you who know your 70s

teen heartthrobs may have recognized
Leif Garrett as the main character.

If you don’t know Leif Garrett, he was a
teen actor and singer throughout the 1970s.

Tragically, his career went off the
rails when he began abusing drugs.

But, in the last decade or so, he’s reportedly
sobered up and seems to be doing a lot better.

When I talked about Django 2, I
mentioned that it was part of an

attempted spaghetti western revival in the 1980s.

The first film in this series
was Tex and the Lord of the Deep,

released in 1985 and directed by Duccio Tessari.

The “revival” wasn’t, as far as
I can tell, an organized project.

Attempts to make a film adaptation of Tex went

as far back as the golden age of
spaghetti westerns in the 1960s.

Now you might be wondering who Tex is.

He is a Texas Ranger from a
series of Italian comics called…

Tex.

These comics were very popular in Italy, so
it only made sense to adapt them to film.

By the time production finally happened,

producers hoped they could make a TV show
out of the film if it was successful enough.

Unfortunately, what came to be was a
tad worse than people were expecting.

Just by looking at the poster, it’s obvious that
Indiana Jones had a large influence on the film.

The mix of Indiana Jones, the fantastical
elements and various stories of the comic itself,

and the development hell the film was
already in made for a lackluster movie.

From everything I can find, it did
not do well at the Italian box office.

According to one review on the
Spaghetti Western Database,

people bought tickets for the film
just so they could go in and boo at it.

At least it features some cool stunts by Gemma.

And he was almost 50! He looked darn good!

Nowadays, the film is looked at a lot
less harshly by spaghetti western fans.

However, it is nowhere near a fan favorite.

In the end, what makes this film quite tragic is

that it was the last western
Gemma and Tessari ever made.

This film is a 1981 comedy with Bud Spencer that I

think could be considered the
last true spaghetti western.

Obviously, it came out well after the
genre died, but it was the last “big”

Italian western that came out before the
attempted revival in the mid-late ‘80s.

Other than being what I call
the last spaghetti western,

there’s nothing particularly
interesting about this film.

Bud Spencer stars in the leading role as Buddy,

a crook who is mistaken for a doctor by
the residents of the town he is visiting.

There seems to be a lot of mistaken
identity with Spencer’s characters!

As a result of this mistake, Buddy is dragged

into conflict with the local gang
who is terrorizing the nice folk.

The film features many instances of
Spencer’s famous open-hand punch and

the usual slapstick comedy of Fagioli westerns.

It was directed by Michele
Lupo–who directed Arizona Colt–,

the soundtrack is by Ennio Morricone in
what would be his last spaghetti western,

and Spencer’s sidekick is a Moroccan-Frenchman
playing a Native American so… as always,

nothing will ever be as bad as
William Shatner in White Comanche.

In a way, I think it’s sort of
pleasant for the original era of

spaghetti westerns to end with
a comedy, if that makes sense.

Some might see it as insulting to the genre,

but I think it’s full circle because
its alternate title is A Fist Goes West.

Apparently. I can’t actually verify
that it was called this at some point.

The Italian title is Occhio alla penna,

which roughly translates to “Eye on
the Pen." Make of that what you will.

This tier is dedicated to the darkest stories
I discovered while researching the iceberg.

These stories are largely unknown and also very
tragic. Unlike the other parts of this video,

there will be no jokes or light-heartedness
in this segment. I will make mention of

the following topics: murder, suicide, drug
abuse, and sexual themes. You’ve been warned.

Sean Flynn was the son of famed actor
Errol Flynn and his first wife Lili Damita.

Flynn was an actor himself, starring
in two Italo-Spanish productions:

Seven Guns for Timothy and
Sharp-Shooting Twin Sisters.

It could be argued these are just
Eurowesterns and not spaghetti

westerns but they were at least
partly Italian productions and

the Italian name for the latter film
was A Woman for Ringo. So they count.

Anyway, Flynn’s acting career
was quite brief, and he is far

more famous as a photojournalist,
one who covered the Vietnam War.

In 1970, Flynn traveled to Cambodia
to cover the War for Time magazine.

On April 6th of that year, Flynn and
fellow photojournalist Dana Stone

heard about a checkpoint that
was being manned by Viet Cong.

Eager to interview these men, the
two set off to the checkpoint.

As they approached, according to a set of
French journalists who were on the scene,

Viet Cong soldiers began to surround the area.

Flynn and Stone were captured
(in some reports, willingly).

The two were led off by the
troops and were never seen again.

No one knows what happened to
either man, and, eventually,

their families declared them legally dead.

that punk band The Clash wrote a song
about him with his name as the title.

In 2010, a group searching for Flynn discovered
remains that they hoped could be his.

Testing of the remains, however,
showed that it was not him.

Karin Schubert is a German former
actress who began acting around 1969.

She was making films in Italy by
1970 and had roles in spaghetti

westerns like Companeros and The
Three Musketeers of the West.

As her career went on, she began to star
in more exploitative and sexual films.

Around the mid-1980s, Schubert was
getting fewer and fewer acting gigs.

To make matters worse, her marriage was falling
apart and her son had become addicted to drugs.

Feeling like she had no other options,
Schubert began starring in pornography;

eventually, hardcore pornography.

Schubert was incredibly unhappy with
her life and left the industry in 1994.

That same year, she attempted suicide.

She survived, and said in an interview not
long after, “I did it because I have no family,

no friends, no money, no future… I make the news:

ladies and gentlemen, look how
star Karin Schubert has fallen.”

After a second suicide attempt in 1996,

Schubert disappeared from the news and
is reportedly living a life of solitude.

No one seems to fully know what’s become of
her, but we can only hope that she is at peace.

Alfred Mulock was a Canadian character
actor who had roles in The Good, the Bad,

and the Ugly, Day of Anger, and
Sergio Corbucci’s The Hellbenders.

The final film he starred in was Once
Upon a Time in the West as one of

the three henchmen who ambushes
Harmonica at the train station.

Tragedy struck not long after Mulock
filmed his scenes for the movie.

It is unknown what day this happened,
but sometime during May 1968,

Mulock committed suicide by jumping out
of his hotel window in Guadix, Spain.

He was rushed to the hospital but passed away.

Screenwriter and translator Mickey Knox
claims that Mulock fell past his hotel window.

Knox said in an interview that he knew Mulock

was troubled but didn’t exactly
know why he committed suicide.

Later on, in his book, though, he
claimed that Mulock killed himself

because he was a drug addict and didn’t
have access to any substances in Spain.

A last, sad legend, which
Mickey Knox has asserted,

claims that Mulock jumped while still wearing
his costume for Once Upon a Time in the West.

As the man lay dying, Sergio
Leone reportedly demanded that

his costume be taken off because
they still needed it for the film.

Claudio Camaso, AKA Claudio Volonte, was
the younger brother of Gian Maria Volonte.

As I mentioned earlier, he followed
in his older brother’s footsteps and

acted in spaghetti westerns like Garter
Colt, Vengeance is Mine (also called One

Hundred Thousand Dollars Per Killing), $10,000
Blood Money, John the Bastard, and Vengeance.

While Gian Maria Volonte was known
for his left-wing sympathies, Camaso

grew up with right-leaning, fascist sympathies.

This came to a head in 1965
when Camaso was accused of

planting a bomb that damaged a Vatican City gate.

Camaso denied his involvement, and
his older brother even defended him.

Ultimately, he was cleared of the charge
and renounced his fascist beliefs.

His acting career took off shortly
after, though he never reached

the same popularity as his brother.

Instead of fading into obscurity, Camaso’s
legacy would end in tragic infamy.

In 1977, Camaso got into an argument with his

estranged wife as he visited her
and their 6-year-old daughter.

Vincenzo Mazza, a friend of the
couple, attempted to intervene.

As he did so, Camaso fatally stabbed him.

Some sources claim that Camaso’s
daughter witnessed the incident.

After stabbing Mazza, Camaso went on the run
for 10 days until he was captured by police.

Camaso seemed guilt-ridden
over the incident, writing,

“I’ve spent days in hell;” he claimed
that he did not mean to kill his friend.

Not long after his capture, on September 16th,

1977, Camaso committed suicide in
his cell, allegedly by hanging.

Originally, I planned to make
Tier 6 my last tier. However,

my test readers informed me that was incredibly
depressing. So, instead of doing that, I have

this last tier for the weirdest facts that I
could scrounge up. The things on Tier 5 are

simple enough to find if you put in the effort.
But, these topics are even more obscure and,

like I said, weird. Trust me, it’s
a much more positive tier to end on.

The original Italian title for this
1968 film is Il Mio corpo per un poker,

which literally translates to My Body for a Poker.

If you know your cowboy history, you’ll know that

Belle Starr was a real-life American
outlaw whose murder remains unsolved.

This film is not a retelling of
her life but just uses her name.

The actual story of the
film is about Belle Shirley,

a gung-ho girl boss gang leader
gambler played by Elsa Martinelli,

who gets into a rocky relationship
with Blackie, played by George Eastman.

After their relationship is established,
the film’s plot is pretty inconsistent.

It flashes back to Belle’s tragic past
where she was abused by her uncle.

And then it moves back forward to Starr getting
involved in a jewel robbery led by Blackie.

Like a lot of the films on the last
few tiers, it’s not well-liked.

Again, it’s more a point of interest
due to the fact that, like Garter Colt,

it features a female protagonist.

It is also interesting because
it is, as far as anyone knows,

the only spaghetti western directed by a woman.

Specifically, by Lina Wertmuller.

She was, believe or not, the first woman to
be nominated as a director for an Academy

Award for her film Seven Beauties, which
doesn’t seem to have aged particularly well.

The Belle Starr Story is exploitative in some
ways, which you might be surprised by considering

a woman directed it, but, from what I gathered,
exploitation seemed to be Wertmuller’s thing.

But she uses these seemingly exploitative
films to criticize things like Italian

culture and the male gaze, at
least, that’s what she said.

However, she was not the original director
or writer of The Belle Starr Story and was

put on after the initial director
was fired, so sayeth the Internet.

Another piece of trivia about this film is,
according to an interview with George Eastman

(which I can’t actually find because it’s
on a DVD version of the film apparently,

and I learned my lesson with Garter
Colt to not buy these films),

he said that he replaced actor Robert Woods
on the film because he kept getting into

arguments with Wertmuller about the number
of close-ups she was giving Elsa Martinelli.

The scenes that Wertmuller filmed with Woods
were reused for the flashback sequences.

So, The Belle Starr Story might
not be worth a watch, but,

like everything else on this iceberg,
the history behind it is compelling.

Remember back in the third tier
when I talked about Terence Hill

and Bud Spencer’s success as a comedic duo?

Well, like the many Django ripoffs
we previously discussed, there was

another comedic duo that attempted to
copy the success of Hill and Spencer.

These two actors were Michael Coby (born
Antonio Cantafora) and Paul L. Smith.

Coby was an Italian actor who mainly stuck
to making films in his native country.

Smith was an American-Israeli actor who
starred in movies like Midnight Express,

Popeye, Dune, and Red Sonja.

Coby and Smith made approximately five
films as a duo, each one imitating the

Hill and Spencer comedy style that
was extremely popular in the 70s.

Two of these films are direct
ripoffs of the Trinity series.

Those films are Carambola (1974) and
its sequel Carambola's Philosophy:

In the Right Pocket (1975).

Ferdinando Baldi, who directed Django,
Prepare a Coffin, directed both films.

The first film reeks of Trinity where Coby’s
character is a lazy billiard champion who teams

up with his old, brutish friend to investigate
weapon trafficking between the U.S. and Mexico.

Scheming, slapstick, and
drawn-out fight scenes ensure.

The second film is more or less
the same where Not Terence Hill

and Not Bud Spencer steal a gatling-gun-equipped

motorbike from the Confederates. And
everyone starts chasing after them.

If you already dislike Fagioli westerns, you’re
really not going to like this one either.

I’ve only watched a few scenes, including
the most famous one from the first film

where a sped-up Coby slaps a guy while
flinging a cigarette in and out of his mouth.

The actual slapstick doesn’t
last long at all, and it's meh.

It’s just a cheap (even by Italian
standards) cash-in on the Trinity films.

The main characters are dressed the
same as Hill and Spencer’s characters,

and the first film even has a bean-eating
scene. Barely anyone has seen the second film.

The last interesting thing I’ll say is
that Smith filed a lawsuit against one

of the companies distributing the
Coby and Smith films in the 1980s.

He did this because the company sneakily
changed the actor’s name for marketing purposes.

What did they change his name to?

Bob Spencer.

Yeah, no subtlety there.

Ultimately, Smith won the case.

It is also rumored that the company changed
Michael Coby’s name to Terrance Hall, but I

haven’t found any evidence to back up that story.

Pheeeeew.

And that is the spaghetti western iceberg.

Making this video was fun (despite all
the stuff I talked about in tier six).

I hope it helped you, my dear viewer,

come to appreciate this strange
little film genre as much as I do.

There are plenty of films and trivia that I didn't
cover, so I encourage you to visit places like

the Spaghetti Western Database or Once Upon a
Time in a Western if you want to learn more.

I’ve got nothing else. So,
thank you all for watching.