A Fistful of Awesome

What was the best location to shoot a western movie in the sixties? If you said "Arizona," you'd be wrong. The answer was "Spain," of all places. In the 1960's, a number of Italian directors shot western films in the Tabernas Desert, located near the southeast coast of Spain. The location so closely resembled the American southwest that a number of films were made there.

They were called "Spaghetti Westerns." Although they were shot on location in Spain, they were directed by Italians. The most noteworthy films in this genre were directed by Sergio Leone, and they were known as the Dollars Trilogy. This consisted of three movies, of which most of you have probably at least heard the titles: A Fistful of Dollars; A Few Dollars More; and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. They starred Clint Eastwood as the Man With No Name; he and Mario Brega are the only actors who were in all three films, and Eastwood is the only actor who played the same character in all three.

Most of you are probably familiar with at least the first movie in the trilogy, A Fistful of Dollars, from this classic scene. In addition to being iconic in and of itself, it was featured in the classic eighties flick Back to the Future Part II, in the scene where Biff Tannen is in the hot tub with some of his [wenches].

Several of the villages that were used in the filming of the Spaghetti Westerns are still there, and that's area of the Tabernas Desert is your satellite picture for today. If you zoom out a bit, you can see two other mock villages to the north and northeast. According to one of the descriptions, you can actually go visit... That is, if you can stand Spain. Me? I'm not sure I can ever bring myself to do that.

How did I find out about all of this in the first place? Well, famed director Quentin Tarantino has said that his greatest creation, Kill Bill... Well, I'll just quote it for you:

Oh yeah, initially I was thinking this would be my "Dollars Trilogy". I was going to do a new one every ten years, but I need at least fifteen years before I do this again. I've already got the whole mythology: Sofie Fatale will get all of Bill's money. She'll raise Nikki, who'll take on The Bride. Nikki deserves her revenge every bit as much as The Bride deserved hers. I might even shoot a couple of scenes for it now so I can get the actresses while they're this age."
- Quentin Tarantino

So, one question remains: why, Fly, did you decide to dedicate this entire post to this topic in particular? You guessed it: the Tabernas Desert, in one way or another, is going to be one of the components of my spy novels.

Have a great day, folks!