A Town Called Hell / A Town Called Bastard (Robert Parrish, 1971)

I bought it from Amazon.uk under used & new. The seller was called visiondirect.
By the way I found a review of it here.
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/spaghettiwesterns

Thanks for that, I will do a search now.

i have a U.K. dvd. do you know if it is uncut or not?

If it runs 93 minutes and is widescreen it is uncut. The version I have is from Stonevision Entertainment, I only paid 1,5 £ for it so I did not expect much, but I was surprised it’s a film way above average.

Is this actually a “Spaghetti Western”, I’ve always considered it to be, but looking at the IMDB I cannot see an Italian connection. There isn’t even a page for it on the SW wiki. I don’t want to start the whole SW/notSW debate off again but would be interested to hear other peoples views and if so perhaps a page could be created.

We already have two topics here for this movie. the first topic was moved to western board because it was considered not to be sw. I personally count it as a spaghetti even if it’s not “officially” one.

http://www.spaghetti-western.net/forum/index.php/topic,238.0.html

Well its Spanish/English in production terms, but in style I would say its italian/spanish. I my opinion it should count as a SW.
In order to decide wether its a SW or not the term SW has to be defined, if its defined to films of italian production or co-production only its not a SW.
I my opinion the term SW should be stretcht to include spanish productions and co-productions, and maby a few other european productions, that is if the film is made in the style of a SW only.

I agree, the film is great, looks fantastic (everything/everyone really grubby), extremely violent, weird (vampire woman?) and has great music. Even though it isn’t directed by an Italian, it does have an International cast and is shot in Spain (the three criteria I use to define a SW). I would guess a lot of people (myself included) have it as part of their SW film collection, other than Italian funding what difference is there between it and “Red Sun”.
That “Stonevision Entertainment” DVD is great value even though (except for the title sequence) it has been cropped, they also have “Bad Man’s River”, “Captain Apache” and “Pancho Villa”, all great value too.

I completely agree with Dorado and The Halitosis Kid, well spoken! Those are the definitions we should have for spaghettis, not only that the films are italian or italian co-productions.

SW’s should be:

  1. European productions, but not necessarily italian.
  2. Be shot in Spain, partly at least.
  3. Have a european director.
  4. Be to some extent at least in the style of sw’s. Winnetou movies are not sw’s for example.
  5. Be made after A Fistful of Dollars in 1964.

All other westerns shot in Europe are eurowesterns, but not sw’s :wink:

This would include; Winnetou movies, pre-Fistful italian westerns, US westerns in sw style shot in europe, east german DEFA westerns, etc.

Makes sense to me, eurowesterns I like that term, and I suppose alot of westerns fall into this bracket.

I have to disagree about pre-fistful movies, I still think they can be cosidered as spags. About european diroctors I agree partialy, because I think Italian productions with non-european directors can be also counted as SW (for example “Chino” or “China 9, Liberty 37”). What about movies that are italian productions but weren’t shot in Spain? Some of the spags were shot in Italy (for example “They call me Trinity”), but they are clearly spaghetti westerns. Ialso consider “Guns for San Sebastian” to be a spag and it was shot in Mexico :slight_smile:

Yes there are always some exeptions you could find, like Monte Hellman and sw’s shot only in Italy for example. You’re right about that. But maybe all 5 criterias don’t always have to be met? Maybe 4 out of 5 is enough sometimes?

Anyway the debate goes on… :wink:

[quote=“Silvanito, post:32, topic:232”]Yes there are always some exeptions you could find, like Monte Hellman and sw’s shot only in Italy for example. You’re right about that. But maybe all 5 criterias don’t always have to be met? Maybe 4 out of 5 is enough sometimes?

Anyway the debate goes on… ;)[/quote]
Yeah, the idea of at least 4 out of 5 cryterias is a good one, it fits my examples nicely :slight_smile:
And yes, the debate could go one like that forever :stuck_out_tongue:

there are still some good spaghettis made before A fistful…

Richard Harrison made some good ones for instance :wink:

I haven’t seen any pre-Fistful film which had the Spaghetti style, even the most up to Django in mid 66 haven’t the style.

But that’s a very good definition, Silvanito. Couldn’t have said it better. It should be published on the main page.
Only #2 has to be altered because many, many SWs were shot soleyly in Italy. I would even say that much more SWs were shot in Italy than in Spain. All the cheap ones, and not only the Fidanis, also many classics like the 4 Sartanas with Garko and all the others of Carnimeo, or Keoma etc.

Only #2 has to be altered because many, many SWs were shot soleyly in Italy. I would even say that much more SWs were shot in Italy than in Spain.

Ok I didn’t know this, I thought most of them were shot in Spain.

Do you know which part of Italy they usually used when filming?

I much prefer the original title though of ’ A Town Called Bastard’, this was the title on my old original U.K pre-cert VHS Tape.

These pussies today though , with all this political correction shit, A Town Called Pussies more like!

Yes I think it’s a much more fitting title too, even Telly Savallas says the line “let me welcome you to Bastardo” in the film.
Even more confusingly, not all westerns shot in Italy are “Spaghetti Westerns”, there is a “Golden Age” 1964 - 1970’s, perhaps some people don’t count later films as true Spaghettis either. Ultimately it’s up to the individual what films they have in their SW collection. I personally think this film could be on the wiki though, maybe with a note saying unsure technically if it is a SW but a lot of people consider it to be.

Even more confusingly, not all westerns shot in Italy are "Spaghetti Westerns", there is a "Golden Age" 1964 - 1970's, perhaps some people don't count later films as true Spaghettis either.

Is this your opinion or something you’ve read?

I think the later ones are true spaghettis as well, but the genre changed a lot over the years as we all know.

In the 70s there were above all comedy sw’s, starting with the Trinity films, that became enormously popular.

Other new genre entries were kung fu-sw’s, and also the “twighlight”-sw’s like “Keoma” and “Mannaya”.

So the genre went in a lot of different directions from its start to finish. But sure I can understand your point too.

Well I’ve not seen any recent Italian Westerns personally so I’m not sure, if they were more “American Western” in style perhaps not. I think there is a definite “look” or “feel” to the Spaghettis I enjoy and most of these come from the “Golden Age”. I have seen the “Trinity” films, “Keoma” and “Mannaya” which I do consider to be true “Spaghettis” though.