AMC has been running the old Sergio Leone Spaghetti westerns, and I’ve always loved them. A few questions I’ve always had:
-these flicks were filmed in Sicily-it really looks like the American SW! Anyway, the english-speaking actors (Eastwood, Eli Wallach, etc.) how did they know what the italian-speaking extras were saying? The dubbing was pretty good, but you could tell that it wasn’t perfect.
-In “THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY”-were there REALLY any Civil War battles in Arizona/New mexico? In the prison camp (when Tuko is being savagely beaten by the sadistic sergeant), the prisoners are playing music-what song were they singing?
-did bounty hunters of that era actually deliver corpses to the local sheriff (to collect their bounties)? Must have been nasty in that heat!
I’ve heard that Sergio Leone made a fortune off these movies-how much were Eastwood and lee van Cleefe paid for them?
There were several small battles in the New Mexico territory. Confederates invaded with the idea of capturing the thinly defended area, but were repulsed. This site lists two: The Battle of Valvede and the Battle of the Glorieta Pass, which put an end to the invasion.
I’ve heard a lot of these movies were shot in Spain, just with Italian casts and crews. I thought for years they were made in Italy until someone yelled at me over it.
I have my soundtrack packed away, but the song is included; here is a setlist from the most recent CD release .
From what I understand, most of the cast and crew were Spanish and Italian (many of the soldiers in the film were real Spanish militiamen), and stuntman Benito Stefanelli acted as interpreter for Clint Eastwood between him and Leone and the rest of the Italian crew.
Of the trilogy, I like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly best (crikey that final scene in the cemetary!) – it’s a prequel to the other two, and watch how Clint Eastwood’s character slowly acquires over the course of the film his distinctive clothing!
It’s not a trilogy; these are three stand-alone movies. The confusion arises from the titles of the other two, but they’re not intended to be related.
Lee Van Cleef portrays two completely different characters in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and For a Few Dollars More. The actor (I can’t recall his name offhand) who plays the heavies in A Fistfull of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More is also doing different characters (who both die).
The only thing all three have in common is the presence of Clint Eastwood. I also firmly believe that The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly would have been terrible without Eli Wallach. As it is, it’s brilliant.
Some of these Spaghetti Westerns were filmed in Spain. Two favourite “Arizona” locations for Spain are the Almeria deserts in Southern Spain and the Bardenas desert, which is very close to my home town, in the north. Recent movies have used the Bardenas again (one of the last 007’s, I think it was the one before Die Another Day).
From what I have experienced of Texas, Arizona and Northern Mexico, it really does look very similar. The whole Ebro River Valley would be very much a sandstone desert without the river. Texan residents who have visited my home town tell me that when they saw the Bardenas from the highway they said “heck, so this is why these people settled in that freakin’ oven, to them it feels like home!”
Run a google picture search on Bardenas, there are some real neat pics out there but not a lot. If you look for Almeria you’ll probably get the beaches.
Glorieta is theoretically preserved as a battlefield, but 50 runs (or at least did run) right through it. I’ve been up there a few times (couple of family trips, couple of school field trips) but I can’t remember if I’ve ever been there while they were doing a reenactment, though I want to say I have. There’s something else nearby as well (as in they’re both near Santa Fe), one of those living history museums.
Oh yeah. El Rancho de las Golondrinas. No wonder I couldn’t remember the name.
Anyway, there was also (not Civil War, of course) Pancho Villa’s incursion into Columbus in southwest New Mexico in 1916. Though that was more of a quick raid by Villa’s forces followed by a lot of time spent in Mexico by the US cavalry.
Fair enough! Having seen them (and the other Eastwood westerns, especially High Plains Drifter) a bajillion times since I was a wee Boodie in the late 60s, I tend to think of them as a set.
Both A Fist Full of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More have Gian Maria Volante as the baddie, playing Ramon Rojo in the former and ‘El Indio’ in the latter. The ‘El Indio’ character is by far the stronger and more menacing.
FFOD was based on the Japanese film Yojimbo, by the way.
And the Bruce Willis/Christopher Walken movie Last Man Standing was based both of those, but they are all based on the Dashiell Hammett story Red Harvest.
Yojimbo was based on Red Harvest?
That’s Posionville, right?
There’s a funny bit from the TV Series, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” where the gang is going to a costume party and one of them is dressed as a Clint Eastwood character from a spaghetti western. Buffy doesn’t recognize the costume and asks him where he’s supposed to be from. He replies, '“I’m from the country of ‘Leone.’ It’s in Italy pretending to be Montana.”
Slight hijack for a story…
When I was a teenager, my family used to take long driving vacations out West. We were driving past Mono Lake and it was around lunchtime, so we’re looking for anything remotely resembling a town. In the distance, around the edge of the lake, we see what appears to be a village…so we head for it. Hmmmmm, not much movement…and the road is blocked with a cable. There’s a small trailer nearby.
We exit the car and walk up to the cable and the sign which says, “Lago”. Then a security guard steps out of the trailer, and asks us what we’re doing there. We tell him we’re looking for a restaurant…and why is the road blocked?
“It’s not a town, it’s a movie set. They’re makin’ a Clint Eastwood movie called ‘High Plains Drifter’. There’s no restaurant here…”
After a bit of conversation, he allowed us to walk through the “town”, with him accompanying us. Pretty much gave us a tour. No one else was around; they were already done shooting for the day. They had shot the scene in the barbershop where Clint blows some guy through the window, and the broken “glass” was all over the place…so I snagged a large chunk as a souvenir. When the movie was released, we went to see it…and my family NEVER went to the movies together.
Just a story…sorry for the hijack.
That is a pretty cool story! And I live in L.A. so usually I am pretty jaded by these kind of stories.
The movies are thought of as a trilogy because The Man with no Name was the star in all of them.
New Mexico and Arizona were one big territory at the time. In what is now Arizona the only Civil War action was the Battle of Picacho Peak. A bunch of Texans were passing through on their way to (presumably) California. A platoon of Union troops from Papago Villages (now Phoenix) intercepted them near the peak. About six Union troops were killed, including the lieutenant who was leading them. I don’t know how many (or if any) Texans were killed but they skedadled back to El Paso, and that was that.
DD
Actually, his name was Joe: never could figure out why they called him “Blondie” - Eastwood ain’t blonde. Gotta love TGTGATU, if only for the line {and apologies if I’m misquoting} “There are two kinds of people in this world. Those with guns, and those who dig. You dig.”
That should, of course, read TGTBATU.
I thought Yojimbo was an original story that A Fistfull of Dollars and Last Man Standing copied. Pretty damn suprising to hear the same story originated from a Hammett story.
Consider Red Harvest added to my To Read list 
.
Echoing what Nava said, the Eastwood spaghettis were definitely filmed in Almeria, Spain. The vast majority of all spaghetti westerns were filmed in southern Spain. In those cases when the directors/producers were Spanish instead of Italian the term “paella western” may be used.