For true fans of spaghetti westerns its most striking stars were not Clint Eastwood, who became famous for his role in Sergio Leone’s "Dollar trilogy" or Charles Bronson, from Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West who portrayed the avenger Harmonica, but actors such as Giuliano Gemma, Franco Nero and Lee Van Cleef who acted in the biggest numbers of such films and were most responsible for the popularity of the genre



In early October 2013, Giuliano Gemma, an icon of spaghetti westerns, died in a tragic car accident. We reminisce this undeniably gifted actor, who was often unfairly criticised for his lack of talent, through three films from his more than half a century long career - two representative and one somewhat less so. These are Giorgio Ferronis Blood for a Sliver Dollar from 1965 and Ducci Tessari’s Alive Or Preferably Dead from 1969, as well as Michael Lupo’s romantic adventure comedy Africa Express filmed in 1976, when the popularity of spaghetti westerns was already in decline. For true fans of spaghetti westerns its most striking stars were not Clint Eastwood, who became famous for his role in Sergio Leone’s "Dollar trilogy" or Charles Bronson, from Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West who portrayed the avenger Harmonica, but actors such as Giuliano Gemma, Franco Nero and Lee Van Cleef who acted in the biggest numbers of such films and were most responsible for the popularity of the genre. Mainly, Spaghetti westerns were produced with low budgets in Italian language, directed by Italian director and shot at locations in Italy, in the Cinecitta studios and on Sardinia, or in the Spanish province of Almería. The main characteristics of these films are the demystification of conventional and classic westerns’ traits and the genre’s conventions. They often included only minimal directing method, hypertrophied violence and machismo, numerous close ups, attractive gun-slinging scenes and often trivial plots. Following names stand out among the many directors: Tonino Valerii, Sergio Corbucci, Enza G. Castellari, Sergio Solima, Ducci Tessari and Georgio Ferroni. Georgio Ferroni’s film Blood for a Sliver Dollar, which he directed under the pseudonym Calvin Jackson Padget, and Duccio Tessari’s Alive Or Preferably Dead are representative examples of the sub-genre, once quite popular with the domestic audience. Blood for a Sliver Dollar, Ferroni’s first spaghetti western in which Gemma had his first major role in the boundaries of the sub-genre under the pseudonym Montgomery Wood, has a rather conventional plot with a somewhat underplayed story about a former confederate officer Gary O´Hare’s revenge who is trying to earn a living for his family. The story has some interesting twists and turns, there is less violence than there would be in the later films from the sub-genre, and the fight and action scenes are excellently directed. In this sense Tessari’s Alive Or Preferably Dead, a story about two brothers, Monty and Ted Mulligan who feud over their 300 thousand dollar inheritance left to them by their late uncle, is a weaker piece. The film that was distributed in the US in 1970’s under the associative title Sundance Cassidy and Butch the Kid is full of clichés, relatively slow in direction but on the other hand unpretentious, humorous and sufficiently entertaining.

The casual, dynamic and charming romantic adventure comedy Africa Express is aa typical film by Michele Lupo, director that the Croatian audience will remember from a series of very popular action comedies starring Bud Spencer (Uppercut, The sheriff and the Satellite Kid, Bomber). Gemma plays an American trucker in Africa John Baxter, who has a pet chimp named Biba and who dreams of opening a petrol station in Detroit. He helps the mysterious and attractive Madeleine Cooper (Ursula Andress), pretending to be a nun, to run away from the dangerous Robert Preston played by Jack Palance. If you are not overly demanding, solid entertainment is guaranteed. (Josip Grozdanić)