Also a lot of them were shot in Italy, with Italian extras.
Fun fact: Sergio Leone would shoot his movies after the score had been composed.
He would shoot scenes with the soundtrack for the scene playing over loudspeakers.
Then, the dialogue and other sounds would be dubbed in.
This was how such perfect synchronization with the soundtrack was achieved.
EDIT 2: fun fact 2,
My favorite quote of Sergio Leone
When I was young, I believed in three things: Marxism, the redemptive power of cinema, and dynamite. Now I just believe in dynamite.
Weren’t most actually shot in southern Spain? That’s vast desert country, lots of different spectacular backgrounds that don’t repeat in different scenes and even different movies.
Even Stanley Kubrick went there in the late 50s, to shoot epic battle sequences for Spartacus that would have been way beyond the film’s budget if he had filmed in California.
Almeria in southern Spain still has a tourist attraction cowboy town in a desert like region that looks like the American midwest. I’ve been near there several times, told about it, read the brochure but never got a chance to visit it.
Look up the filming locations for ‘The Good, The Bad, The Ugly’ … it was filmed all over Spain
For those who are even more curious, Carlo Verdone (who was a friend of Leone) made some documentaries called “Verdone racconta Leone” (see for example this yt video). These documentaries are packed with anecdotes (Verdone told lots of stories in other occasions too!) and fun stories.
One of my favorite is how Leone convinced Clint Eastwood to use the cigar, which is probably now an unforgettable part of the way we remember Eastwood’s character.
I was informed that Japanese people often referred to these as “Macaroni Westerns” which I think is even even better as it effectively also implies that they are cheaply made
I don’t see how macaroni implies being cheaply made and spaghetti doesn’t. Both are just pasta.
Macaroni generally has an association with cheap Mac & Cheese box meals. I do agree that, on a broader scale, they are both pasta and not really functionally much different.
A very American association. Here in Germany for example, macaroni are among the more premium pasta variants (not expensive but not the cheapest around). The cheap (and most common) noodles are actually usually spaghetti, fusilli and penne. Mac n cheese box meals are not really a thing here.
Congrats on being one of today’s lucky 10,000!
Kinda surprised you just ran into this, but only because I’m so damn old that I grew up watching this kind of thing on broadcast TV lol
Also, if you haven’t, check out Eastwood in rawhide, back when he was a practical infant
If I remember correctly it was supposed to be a little bit of an insult.
Hardly. Sergio Leone reinvigorated the Western genre. Compare A Fistful of Dollars by Sergio Leone to The Quick Gun or Bullet for a Bad Man both by R.G. Springsteen and released the same year. There is simply no comparison in terms of style or pacing. Wife wants to go to dinner so I might add some later.
Edited for spelling.
