You did know the "spaghetti western" term originated from their Italian production and locations didn't you? Cause I didn't till about 4 years ago. Here's a little fyi c&p. So why did the Italians produce so many of these movies? Well, basically the Italians love their westerns and with the import of American westerns drying up by the early sixties, Italian film makers started to produce their own home-grown product - initially the true roots of the films disguised with the use of Anglicised names for cast and crew. But, as was the case with many Italian film genres, once the ball started rolling and the commercial possibilities realised, many other film-makers jumped on the bandwagon, with the result that close to 600 Spaghetti Westerns were made - the majority of these in the mid to late 60s. The Italian Western boom also gave many up-and-coming young film-makers, who had previously worked as assistant directors on the earlier 'Sword and Sandal' epics, their first opportunity to take full artistic control of a movie. The term Spaghetti Western also brings to mind the unique style of these films. More violent than the traditional western, and with the morality of the American west less clear-cut - many of the heroes of the Italian Western are in fact 'anti-heroes'. And it is not uncommon for the all the principle characters to be completely annihilated by the end of the movie. The Italians drew inspiration for their westerns from such diverse sources as the Japanese Samurai movies, classical Greek literature, Sicilian morality plays, and their own operatic traditions. And perhaps not surprisingly for the product of a strongly Catholic society, the films are often rich in religious allegory. The influence of the Spaghetti Western was also incorporated back into many American-made westerns - for example Clint Eastwood's post-Leone westerns and Sam Peckinpah's ultra-violent 'The Wild Bunch'. And one other important aspect of a Spaghetti Western - the soundtrack. Never before or since has a film genre been so closely associated with its music.
