If I go back far enough, it might have been A Fistful of Dollars but the most clear memory I have is watching The Good, the Bad and the Ugly with my grandfather. I wasn’t really aware of it being a “spaghetti western” at the time and I didn’t become hooked on the genre until I watched Django Kill on ITV4 when Alex Cox did his “Once Upon a Time” presentations. I think the first one they showed was Django but I missed that. After Django Kill, I remember watching Vengeance, Texas Adios, My Name is Nobody, A Bullet for the General, They Call Me Trinity, The Grand Duel and Keoma (I think that was the order). I remember being disappointed when it didn’t continue but Django Kill became the first spaghetti western DVD I ever owned. I had a very modest collection for a while since Woolworths and HMV were the only places I bought DVDs. Woolworths used to sell a few import DVDs. For a long time, my collection only included the following films:
Django Kill
Django
The Dollars Trilogy
A Fistful of Dynamite
Texas Adios
A Bullet for the General
Acquasanta Joe
Some Dollars For Django
A Man Called Django
Return of Sabata
Django Shoots First
Vengeance Trail
Django the Bastard
They Call Me Trinity
Trinity is Still My Name
Once Upon a Time in the West
My Name is Nobody
Death Rides a Horse
A Genius, Two Partners and a Dupe
The Good Die First
A Mill Creek bargain set
A DVD+R of Those Dirty Dogs
A DVD+R of Jonathan of the Bears
A DVD+R of Fury of the Apaches
A VHS of Challenge of the Meckennas
A VHS of Django Strikes Again
A VHS of Return of Ringo
And finally, a VHS of Sabata
After I’d acquired this batch, I stopped collecting spaghetti westerns and lost interest until I saw Taste of Killing on movies4men. That film reminded me why I fell in love with the genre in the first place. I went looking for it only to discover the limited Wild East label. For better or worse, it inspired me to join the database and embrace the inner lunatic by building up my collection.
My first ever experience with the SW genre was back when I was 5 or 6 years old and Il Bouno, il Brutto, il Cattivo (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly) was being shown on TNT (back when American TV stations still showed good movies and TV). I only saw a little bit of it with my Dad and I recall vividly the scenes of Blondie and Tuco in the desert, and them learning of the gold, and the scene where Angel Eyes smashes Tuco’s fingers with Bill Carson’s tabacco pouch.
Like any kid I had no idea what in the world I was watching, but those scenes stayed with me for sometime. When I rediscovered my passion for film in high school, it was the Leone classic that brought me back when AMC used to air it for a while.
I was lucky to catch them in the right order, albeit on the small TV screen.
Fistful of Dollars was a revelation - so witty and ironic. Although I adored its Latin flavour, I don’t think I knew it was Italian. My response was very much conditioned by growing up on a diet of American westerns and western TV series.
The rest of the trilogy followed, then later, Five Man Army, then Sabata which I hated. Its kitsch qualities appeal a little more now.
when I was a little kid I guess Lucky Luke - Daisy Town (1971) and The Ballad of the Daltons (1978) were my first western.
Those were animated movies of course but they have that gritty atmosphere and great music… very influenced from the spaghetti western genre…
They had a bit of violence in them, people getting killed and Lucky Luke was smoking cigarette… I probably watched those about 100 times back in the day.
But obviously the dollar trilogy were my first true italian westerns.
It was one of the 3 Eastwood/Leone ones but have no idea which. And on tv.
Many years later started watching other SWs. I had never heard of Once Upon A Time In the West until within the past decade. Until a decade ago, never heard of Franco Nero, much less Steffen, Hilton, Lawrence or Corbucci, etc… Knew Morricone’s music in Eastwood movies but not his name. I had never even heard or seen images of Alain Delon until about 7 years ago but knew of Bridget Bardot most my life but only through photos.
Americans have largely not been exposed to SWs even to this day. Or a lot of European movies…
It was the same in the UK and Ireland when I was growing up - there would be an occasional SW or Euro genre movie on TV … but not many. Today there are almost none on mainstream TV, just Hollywood and Brit movies from the last decade or so.
There is movies4men channel, which screen some SWs but rarely change the output … the last ‘new’ to TV being 3 of the Sartana films, which was over 8 months ago.
Off subject a bit: My first SW was ‘Kill them all and comeback alone’ in the cinema, summer of 1974 or 5 … I remember posters up for ‘coming attractions’ being, ‘Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry’, ‘The Mackintosh Man’, ‘The Four Musketeers’, ‘When 8 Bells Toll’ … all fantastic artwork. Cinema foyer was like an art gallery to me, a young budding artist.
Loved the movie with Chuck Connors, thought Alberto Dell Acqua as ‘Kid’ was the coolest guy I’d ever seen … and was upset when the gang gets killed off. I had no concept that it was non American, but felt it was very different and exciting.
A few years later I’d see the Leone Dollar movies on TV, fell in love instantly and have never looked back.
When i was around 11 i saw the first Trinity film but wasnt impressed by it much at the time since i didnt like westerns much as a kid but western in general that would be probably the winnetou films when i was around 6 but again as a kid i didnt like westerns i started liking westerns after seeing the original 1966 Django and fell in love with the brutality of it i was around 13 or 14 when i first saw Django few years back.
‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’, (pan & scan), broadcast on BBC1, Easter Monday, 1976…a very happy memory indeed, and one that undeniably changed my life for the better.
It’s still my favourite movie of all-time.
I think the first SW I saw was Death Rides a Horse. I was around 14 years old. Then I saw the Dollars trilogy and was mind blown by seeing so many familiar faces when comparing those films
It was either A Fistful of Dollars or The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The film that really got me interested in exploring the genre, however, was Django Kill.
I remember watching the spaghetti western season on ITV4 and that really got me hooked. Alex Cox introduced each film before it started and I loved getting information about the productions. He would also talk about other spaghetti westerns and that would get me interested in exploring more titles.
I wonder if anyone has all of the intros recorded. I’d love to see those again!
He introduced:
Django (missed that one)
Django Kill
Vengeance
Texas Adios
A Bullet for the General
They Call Me Trinity
My Name is Nobody
The Grand Duel
Keoma
Later on they showed The Great Silence but I don’t remember it being part of the same season.
It has to be either Spencer/Hill western or something from Dollar Trilogy. Then Django. Definitely one of these. But it is sooo many years. Who can possibly remember the first one…
For a Few Dollars More on TV (Possibly Channel 4 UK)
When Manco and Mortimer shot the apples off the tree, I was hooked for life. It was just so insanely different to the US westerns I’d typically see on a Sunday afternoon on Channel 5.
. He was 6’6", same with Bo Svenson and Clint Walker.
