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The term Spaghetti Western was originally a derogatory expression given by American reviewers to the boom of Italian produced Western films in the 1960s. Since then it has become an accepted term for the hundreds of Italian made Western films shot in Europe between 1964 and 1978, and the films have also been known as Maracroni Westerns and Westerns Al'Italia. Spaghetti Western is sometimes used as a catch-all term for the broader Euro-Western genre, which includes films shot by Spanish, British and German filmmakers, as well as some Italian films that pre-date, and followed the real Spaghetti Western era. For simplicity, this guide to Spaghetti Westerns covers all of the European Westerns as well, except for the German Karl May Westerns which are discussed on their own pages.

The History

Since the earliest days of moving pictures, the Wild West has been a popular source of cinematic inspiration - a legendary period of history filled with heroes and villains - plenty of action and horse riding - and in some highly impressive landscapes. Although Westerns were shot in Europe as far back as the silent movie era, they met with little sucess, and the Americans ruled, to the extent that the Western was described (along with jazz) as a completely original American art form.

The early seeds for the Spaghetti Western boom were sown in 1959 when Italian directors Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci were filming sword-and-sandal epic The Last Days of Pompeii (1959) in Spain and realised the potential for shooting a Western in the Spanish deserts - however at the time there was no real interest from producers or audiences for Italian made Westerns. Things changed in 1962 with the highly sucessful German production Treasure at Silver Lake (1962), based on the popular Karl May Old Shatterhand novels, which soon spawned a whole series. Known as the Karl May Westerns, the films used the dramatic Jugoslavian landscapes to represent the Old West and included big action and adventure scenes - however, although popular, these big budget productions were hard for other companies to replicate.

More important was the smaller British production Savage Guns (1962) that used the Almeria desert area of Spain to represent the American West and introduced the familiar Spaghetti Western storyline of a lone mysterious gunslinger. While the film performed poorly and the British lost interest in the genre, the Italian co-production company Tecisa went on to shoot several small Westerns including Duello nel Texas (1963) in the Spanish desert regions. Although the background cast were Spanish or Italian, the films still boasted American lead actors and often Anglicised the names of the cast and crew to pass of the film as an American production. Several more films were shot with varying sucess, in both Spain, and alongside the German films in Jugoslavia, but little attention was paid until Sergio Leone was finally given a chance to shoot his own Western. Entitled For a Fistful of Dollars (1964) and starring imported American TV Western actor Clint Eastwood, Leone himself was even credited as Bob Robertson to give the production a more American feel, but the film itself was completely different to any Western ever produced, on either side of the Atlantic and proved amazingly sucessful, playing around the world. Suddenly the genre, which some critics had called dead at the beginning of the year, was the becoming hottest thing around and pretty soon, everyone wanted in...

The next two years however, saw the European Western facing an identity crisis - audiences were slowly coming to accept the notion of a European Western, but the films had not created an identity of their own, and many of them retained a very American feel, still relying on imported actors. Duccio Tessari, a co-writer on Fistful of Dollars, wrote and directed A Pistol for Ringo (1965) - a relatively minor film, but notable for being the first appearance of the infamous Ringo character who would later evolve into Django, Sabata, Sartana and many more iconic and repeated characters that would come to help define the Euro-Western. Come 1966 the genre had finally achieved its identity when Sergio Corbucci wrote and directed Django (1966) for Tecisa films, directly countering the typical American Western look with a grim, muddy townscape and anti-heroics and providing a lead role for Italian actor Franco Nero who would quickly become a fan favourite, and made all European casts acceptable. Later that year, Sergio Sollima presented The Big Gundown (1966), introducing politics and all Mexican settings that would become a genre mainstay.

Unfortunately, as was typical in Italian cinema at the time, every original and well made film was matched by several derivative and generic entries - and ultimately this oversaturation meant that by the 1970s, audiences were tiring of seeing the same thing over-and-over. Although the early 1970s saw some stand-out films, including comic/political mix Companeros (1970) and clever American/Spaghetti Western parody My Name is Nobody (1973), most of the productions were mere exploitation pieces, with endlessly repeating storylines - producers even restored to gimmicks like the Kung-Fu Western - merging the newly popular martial arts movies with the Wild West, and various self-parody and slapstick comedy films. Production slowed until 1976 when, influenced by the sucess of Sam Peckinpah's revisionist American Westerns, Spaghetti Western stalwart Enzo G. Castellari returned to the genre and directed the sucessful Keoma (1976). However, despite a small flurry of copycat titles, it was to prove a one-off success and by 1978 the genre was finished. While American Westerns slowly returned to the screens during the 1990s and into the new Century - the Spaghetti Western has remained dormant, punctuated only by a few tribute films.

The People

For 5 years the Euro-Western was the complete focus of Italian and Spanish cinema, and every actor and director worth their salt got involved.

Two of Euro-cult cinema's biggest names, Franco Nero and Tomas Milian gave their debut lead roles in the Spaghetti Westerns Django (1966) and The Bounty Killer (1966) respectively, and went on to become the most popular stars in the genre, appearing in over a dozen each. Action/Crime favourite Fabio Testi's first cinematic role was as a stunt man on Sergio Leone's Western trilogy and his first leading role came in One Damned Day at Dawn... Django Meets Sartana! (1970). The infamous Klaus Kinski, despite later scorning his work in the genre, was one of the most prolific Spaghetti Western stars, appearing in over 20 films, and being brought to international fame by Sergio Leone's For a Few Dollars More (1965).

Many American Western actors made one-off appearances in the genre, but only a few actors made the full transition from the American to the Spaghetti Western. Clint Eastwood was best known as the star of TV Western Rawhide (1959-66), but when he was shipped over to be the star of Leone's Dollars Trilogy he became the iconic face of the Spaghetti Western and later returned to America to star and direct in a decade of Classic and Revisionist Westerns. Lee Van Cleef was a retired Western actor before being brought over to Europe by Leone; unlike Eastwood, Van Cleef chose to stay in Europe and became the star of dozens of Euro-Westerns and the subsequent boom in action films. Jack Palance was one of the few actors to sucessfully alternate between the American and European Westerns through the late 1960s and early 1970s.

There were a lot of directors involved in the Spaghetti Western: Segio Leone (Fistful of Dollars (1964)), Sergio Sollima (Run, Man, Run (1966)) and Sergio Corbucci (Django (1966)) were the biggest, their films becoming some of the most respected genre titles. Many of the up and coming names in cult Italian cinema also tried their hands at the genre - Lucio Fulci (Four of the Apocalypse (1975)) and Mario Bava (Roy Colt and Winchester Jack (1970)) both shot three Westerns with limited sucess. It also saw the start of many directing careers - Enzo G. Castellari's directoral debut was on Johnny Hamlet (1968) after he cut his teeth with a variety of assistant director roles in the genre, while future Italian horror maestro Dario Argento made his break in cinema with a writing credit on Sergio Leone's epic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).

The Style

Compared to the earlier Classic American Westerns, the Spaghetti Westerns were often violent, politically charged and nihilistic. The lone anti-hero was a staple of the genre; a man who would ride out of nowhere, solve all the problems, get revenge on some people who wronged him in the past, then ride away - beginning in 1965 with A Pistol for Ringo the characters of Ringo, Django, Trinity, Sabata and Sartana and their kin, would appear in over half of all the Spaghetti Westerns, often unofficially. Although fans of Euro-cinema would be used to films being re-titled in different markets, with the Euro-Western, it became commonplace to alter a film's title and dub track to completely rename the lead character - there were over 70 Django films, but only a few of these were actually penned as Django stories, most were redubbed as such by distributors.

There were other recurring themes in the Spaghetti Western, a series of films known as Zapata Westerns was set during the Mexican Revolution, including A Bullet for the General (1967) and Run, Man, Run (1968) - and a number of other titles used the various internal Mexican conflicts as a background for a traditional story, including the iconic Django (1966). Many of the more eccentric European cinematic influences showed strongly on the genre, with twisted surreal titles including If You Live Shoot... (1967), Death Sentence (1968) and horror Western Django the Bastard (1969) being a million miles from anything seen in the American Westerns. Music was often a key and distinctive component of the Spaghetti Western - while the American Westerns had survived with orchestral scores, the Europeans added lively songs and even jazz themes. As with all the European film genres, Ennio Morricone was the leading name and scored many of the genre's best films.
 
The Legacy

The Spaghetti Western was the second of the big Euro-Cult genres, following on from the Sword and Sandle Pepla films of the late 1950s/early 1960s. Compared to the often family friendly pepla, and marking the increasing liberalisation of the era, the Spaghetti Westerns saw Euro-Cult cinema becoming firmly adult orientated, with blood and nudity becoming increasingly common, particularly into the 1970s when the sucessor genres, the Giallo and Crime films took these exploitation elements to new levels.

The sucess of the films meant that an entire industry was built up in Southern Spain, and producers from outside Italy were quick to catch on to the genre's profitability and the ease of shooting there - the British film Hannie Caulder (1971) and even a few American produced Westerns, including 100 Rifles (1969) and two of the Magnificant Seven sequels were shot in Southern Europe. Around the world as well, this European Western boom proved that Westerns were viable outside the USA, and genre films were shot in East Germany, Russia and even Turkey over the next decade.

American Western filmmakers, most famously Sam Peckinpah, quickly responded to the European titles with the Revisionist Western, which similarly questioned the clear good/bad divides between characters, and also aimed for more realism in their depiction of the Old West - something generally missing from the Spaghetti Westerns where many of the lead gunmen could shoot a target from a mile away, and never seemed to run out of ammunition. 

All text on this page written by Timothy Young - December 2005 - July 2007.
Text from this site not to be used without authorization.

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