No. 227 - Spaghetti Western

I met a guy named Juan today who is from Almería, Spain. He told us some interesting things about his hometown, and said that many films were shot in the area.

The wikipedia entry for Almería said that "due to its arid landscape, numerous spaghetti westerns were filmed in Almería."

I learned that spaghetti western, also known as Italo-western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western film that emerged in the mid-1960s, so named because most were produced and directed by Italians, usually in co-production with a Spanish partner. The partners would insist some of their stars be cast in the film.

The films were typically shot in inexpensive locales resembling the American Southwest, primarily the Andalusia region of Spain, Almería, Sardinia, and Abruzzo.

Because of the desert setting and the readily available low-cost southern Spanish or southern Italian extras, typical themes in spaghetti westerns include the Mexican Revolution, Mexican bandits, and the border region shared by Mexico and the United States.