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A sub-genre of western movies, Spaghetti westerns came of age in the 1960s. Between 1960-1975, some 600 "next-generation" westerns were created by European production companies to satisfy popular global demand for a dwindling supply of the Hollywood-variety cowboy epic. Often shot in Spain and financed in Italy (hence the "spaghetti" designation), these violent, low-budget productions featured an international crew of young actors, speaking a multitude of languages, which was hastily dubbed into English in post-production. The genre peaked with the Dollar series by Italian director Sergio Leone. In 1964, the first of Leone's
classic trilogy, A Fistful of Dollars, launched Clint Eastwood's film career. Leone was inspired by Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, starring Toshiro Mifune as a wandering, out-of-work samurai swordslinger looking for a profitable fight. Leone borrowed heavily from Yojimbo's screenplay, and hired his old schoolfriend, Italian composer Ennio Morricone to write the distinctive score. Eastwood plays a disheveled drifter -- The Man with No Name. Fistful was
followed by For a Few Dollars More in 1965 and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in 1966. These movies are often credited with inspiring the bloody, brilliant directorial styles of later action filmmakers Sam Peckinpah, John Woo, and Quentin Tarantino. The year 1966 also marked the release of Sergio Corbucci's Django, which kicked the violence level up another notch, introduced the revenge theme, and inspired a host of brutal sequels and imitations. The spaghetti western genre can also be appreciated for the graphic arts style associated
with perennially popular posters and DVD and album covers. Can't get enough pasta in your movie diet? Try a macaroni western from Japan or a soundtrack anthology by composer Ennio Morricone.
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