Saturday, September 9, 2017

The Spaghetti Western Cliché

I have called this page Sad Hill after the cemetery from my most favourite movie of all time, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (as you all perfectly know, don't ya?), because originally I wanted it to be a blog about spaghetti westerns. But then I changed my mind and continued writing about those on my normal blog (Oik's blog). Recently I discovered the website gialloscore.com, where someone rates gialli according to their content of things, that are present in most of them, that are for them somewhat typical. The black gloves, the Italian location, the razors, blades and so on, not forgetting the J&B whiskey. I have realized, after watching some 180 spaghetti westerns, that in a lot of them there are such repeating motives as well. I'll try to make a list of some of them. Maybe rating at least the most well known spaghettis based on the content of these elements would be interesting too, but now I'm too lazy for that :)
Italian director
Spanish location
Elios western town
Animated opening credits
Colt Peacemaker, even before its invention
Sharp and very loud unreal sounds of weapons
Final showdown
Extreme close-ups
Huge shots of the landscape
Mexican villain
Gang of Mexican bandits
Funny Mexican sidekick
Django / Ringo / Sartana / Sabata in the title
Dollars / Death / Gold / Pistol in the title
Evil bankers
Mexican femme fatale
Prostitutes
Morricone / Nicolai / Ortolani music
Multiple kills during one shootout
Death count > 10
The hero is a Confederate soldier, not Union
Murdered / raped / slapped woman
Corrupted sheriff
Bounty Hunters
Crazy villain
Funny old guy
A stagecoach robbery ending with a massacre
Torture of the hero
Saloon singer
Saloon fistfight
A fistfight in the water

Well, that looks like a much longer list than I expected.  And I could go on and on and on, which wouldn't be good for anything. Just wanted to remind some of the most often clichés used in these movies. Lots of them - and I forgot a lot more I believe.

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