Definitely, the villains were pretty sparse character wise
and those studio sets looked great!
That's good though, right?
I have to disagree about the sets - I thought they looked too modern, tame and wholesome.I love the Spanish and/or Mexican look of the sets in the Dollars trilogy, the style perfectly complements Leone's style.
I don't think you ought to assume a literal interpretation of anything in FAFDM Joe. Going by Eastwood's age and your timeline, Manco would have been a gunslinger at age 7 for your idea to be feasible.
Well, lets push it say he's 45 at the oldest that would put him at 17 in 1873, I guess ol' Uncle Blondie taught him pretty good, no.
No not the only reason, Tucumcari incorporated as a town, that is just one of them, the other is the railroad, there was no Railroad to El Paso until after 1885, and the railroad through Tucumcari didn't connect through to El Paso until 1901. Mortimer is wearing a tie tied in a knot that became popular after 1880. Groggy tosses El Indio a Colt SAA revolver with gutta percha grips available from Colt post 1885.And again, Mortimer is looking for evidence of Manco, he flipping through a binder In the El Paso Newspaper Office of all the past newspapers published by the paper, its about a 1 1/2 thick binder, he FINDS an article about Manco dated 1873 in about the MIDDLE of it that means there is about 3/4 of the binder yet to go to get to the PRESENT day issue, ergo you'll have a good 20-25 years of newspaper issues to get to the present.The El Paso set is fine, I like it too.
I know Leone loved historical accuracy when it came to the sets and costumes, but if I had to bet, (not basing this on any fact whatsoever), I'd guess that he wasn't particularly concerned about what year a particular railroad passed through a particular town, etc.