:07:00
which actually was
an existing set 35km north of Madrid,
:07:05
at a place called Hoyo de Manzanares.
:07:07
The set was built in 1962
for a series of Spanish Zorro films.
:07:12
It resembled a ghost town,
wasn't used for a while.
:07:15
It was redressed
by the designer, Carlo Simi,
:07:17
who put new frontages
on part of the town.
:07:20
Basically it was a pre-existing set.
:07:22
They really hadn't got
any money to play with.
:07:25
Lots of references
to Easter and resurrection,
:07:29
and the idea of a town
of widows, a town of death.
:07:31
There's coffins,
there's bells, bell-ringers,
:07:34
there's Eastwood crucified
on the cantina sign.
:07:37
There's a resurrection towards the end.
:07:40
There's a Last Supper, when
the baddies all get together for a meal.
:07:44
It's riddled with Catholic iconography,
:07:48
which wasn't, I think,
a deep decision by Leone,
:07:51
simply that it would be recognisable
to a largely southern Italian audience,
:07:56
at which this movie
was originally pitched.
:07:59
The bartender, whose name
is Silvanito, is played by José Calvo,
:08:03
a well-known Spanish actor
who'd appeared in Italian Westerns.
:08:06
Fistful of Dollars was not the first
Italian Western, as people think.
:08:11
There had been about 25 Spanish
and Italian and West German Westerns
:08:15
made between 1962 and 1964.
:08:18
But they were copy American Westerns.
:08:22
Where Fistful of Dollars scored was it was
the first distinctively Italian Western.
:08:26
The critics compare copyists to
Italianisers, and Italianisers begin here.
:08:31
The distinctive features are those
of an Italian movie applied to the West.
:08:35
And this came through
in Fistful of Dollars for the first time.
:08:45
José Calvo had, in fact, been making
movies since the early 1950s in Spain,
:08:49
and bore a startling resemblance to Walt
Disney's Geppetto in the film Pinocchio,
:08:54
which endeared him
to audiences in the west.