Greetings Lagos,
Very interesting to hear your response to SWs, because I’m sure many of us who grew up with them wonder how much of our enthusiasm is nostalgic. Nice to know how you picked up on the unique atmosphere, because that does seem to be what sets them apart. The best of them have a kind of lyrical quality created by the synthesis of music and visuals which you rarely get in other genres. I think Laurence Staig got it right with his title Italian Western: The Opera of Violence. Their operatic aesthetic can make other plot and technical deficiencies rather irrelevant.