Sergio Leone!

Rewatched Once Upon a Time in the West and think it's my favorite now. I could watch Fonda and Bronson stare at each other all day. Which I guess is what I did.

Does bug me how Bronson doesn't even feign blowing while playing the harmonica. Seems intentional tho?

Harmonica : The reward for this man is 5000 dollars, is that right?

Cheyenne : Judas was content for 4970 dollars less.

Harmonica : There were no dollars in them days.

Cheyenne : But sons of bitches... yeah.

OUATITW German title: Play Me The Song Of Death

I recently rewatched The Good, the Bad and the Ugly for the umpteenth time, only this time I looked up some of the making-of. Apparently Wallach's classic scene at the gun shop was mostly improvised! I also saw this incredible fan video comparing filming locations:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjDBUL_zhqs

I hate knowing that almost nothing was actually filmed in the West, though the locales are pretty good facsimile obv. Likewise kinda bugs me when Ford would literally plant a few saguaro in Monument Valley shots when they don't grow there naturally. That's movies for ya tho eh.

lol that's kind of awesome that you didn't know his movies were made in Italy and Spain!

no I knew that. and I saw that video a couple weeks ago, it's p cool.

on one of the dvd commentaries they mention how you can tell they're not US horses based on their gait

for me it's the flora that makes it obvious it's not in the Americas

It's actually one of my favorite facets of those films. there's nothing like the over familiar monument valley to take you out of them. they're all vaguely familiar but not specific.

I can see that. And mon valley def overused to point where it just looks like a generic set.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a fantastic film

Too bad the sequel with Eli Wallach's character Tuco in the lead role never happened. That's one of my all time favorite movie characters.

The Rod Steiger character in "Fistful of Duck You Sucker" pretty much is Tuco.

Wallach's Tuco was a great character. I liked the unfamiliar landscapes. Eastwood has always been confident but I like that he seemed so comfortable in this role. The music was as iconic as I expected

I need to watch the 1st 2 in the trilogy again but I think my favorite is Few Dollars More. Love how they flesh out the villian's character, and they actor does a great job. And I prefer Van Cleef as a vengeful hero to a sadistic baddie. His unique face gets mentioned a lot as his appeal but man that voice is incredible too.

Watching "My Name is Nobody". Majority of it shot in US but I bet none of the landscapes look familiar even to those who've seen a lot of westerns.

(Not directed by Leone. Based on an "idea" of his, w a Morricone score)

Sergio that's not Sergio. This movie is a trip and the theme song is an all time WTF?.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j46FDG8UeXw

The Fall should have covered 'Captain Apache', that would have been excellent.

Never heard of that one! There's some channels over here that show spaghetti westerns all the time, though usually really early in the morning, and they're generally pretty bad but there's the occasional good one.

From the wiki for "Captain Apache":

The vocals of the opening and credits song were performed by Van Cleef.

!!!

My fave campy Ennio deep cut is this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewtB8GPqWLw

It's from a movie called "Duello new Texas," or "Dual at Red Sands." apparently the first western with a Morricone score.

Ugh, autocorrect. The movie was called "Duello nel Texas," aka "Gunfight at Red Sands."

Was just looking around on wiki and realized how few non-Leone spaghetti westerns I've actually seen. I've seen, say, A Bullet for the General, and My Name is Nobody, but do any/many more of them approach the mastery and majesty of Leone?

Rick Dalton's spaghettis are supposed to be great.

I've seen dozens of spaghetti westerns so I'll try to answer. The first four Leones are undeniable and there's a reason they each topped the Italian box office in their respective years. I'd maintain there are a good handful (a fistful?) of non-Leones that are great in their own way and not too imitative of him - depending on taste, perhaps a bit more than a handful.

My non-Leone POX would look something like this (in chronological order):

A Pistol for Ringo
The Return of Ringo
Django
The Ugly Ones (aka The Bounty Killer)
A Bullet for the General
The Big Gundown
The Great Silence
Cemetery Without Crosses
Tepepa
The Price of Power

I've seen a lot of them but they were usually released under a dozen different titles so it's difficult to distinguish them. One of the best is the one with Jean-Louis Trintingnant that's set in winter, The Big Silence, I think? Also the first (or second?) Django with Franco Nero.. there's dozens of films with Django in the title though. A particularly memorable one, I think called Requiescant, has Pasolini on it, playing a priest

... The Great Silence (xp)

Saw quite an entertaining one the other day with Klaus Kinski as the unluckiest gambler in the west - possibly one of the Sartana (sp?) films.

Requiescant is great, good call

Thanks! How far do a lot of these veer from style into exploitation film grit and grime, sex and violence qua sex and violence? I'd like to avoid that, if possible.

The ones I mentioned all have more going on than gross-out/shock elements. Most have some sort of political angle. Fwiw spaghettis tend to downplay sex (as opposed to sexual assault, which may be what you mean)

My Name is Nobody score sounds like a Morricone compilation that couldn't get the rights to the actual original compositions

xpost Yeah, sexual assault (or its threat) is pretty prevalent even in stuff like "Once Upon a Time in the West" and "For a Few Dollars More," but I never got the feeling they were playing for shock, just legit gross man menace. A la Mann's "Man of the West," which goes pretty far down that road for 1958 - Jack Lord's character is like a spaghetti western villain prototype - but which is just too old fashioned to make the impact that the sweaty, dirty spaghetti stuff does, imo. The women in these movies are often so sad, tired and tragic, stuck in this macho world that doesn't value them as much more than servants or playthings.

The most objectionable spaghetti I've seen in terms of ugliness and base pandering is Blindman (1971)

Violence and misogyny are pretty much a constant.

For sure (see also: most movies with guns). But Leone offers a real sense of poetry and vision that helps escape the gravitational pull of that particular gutter. A lot of action movies, esp. low budget action movies of that era, struggle to pull that off.

The rape of the rich white woman at the beginning of duck you sucker is treated so casually

(I quite liked the film by the end - some amazing scenes - but it was a drag in places and rod steiger is fucking terrible as the annoying caricature mexican)

His accent is abysmal and you need a tolerance for his customary scenery chewing, which I've got tbh.

He’s so one-note and shouty, I just wanted him to fuck off. Didn’t have this reaction to wallach

finally watched For a Few Dollars More, liked it but not nearly as much as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Eastwood was very charismatic in the Dollars trilogy

and the ponchos he wore

Same poncho in all three. I think his entire outfit is identical.

is it the same poncho? he wore it so well

It was pointed out to me somewhere that The Good, Bad, & Ugly is actually the film where he gets the poncho, despite being the third in a "trilogy."

I like the vest or undercoat he wore with wool lining in For a Few Dollars More

El Indio as Volonté portrayed him was a great character

Volonté was a marxist who basically despised the movies. There's an anecdote of him turning to another lefty crew member and going "we're Italian communists making these capitalist movies in fascist Spain, does this make any sense to you?".

Great portrayal tho yeah.