SL Encyclopedia

[dave jenkins]

The ABC TV Prologue to AFOD. In order to broadcast AFOD on U.S. TV, the American Broadcasting Corporation commissioned a new prologue for the movie. Its purpose was to provide the amoral main character with a moral purpose for his visit to San Miguel. Shot by Monte Hellman (Two Lane Blacktop), it featured Harry Dean Stanton as a government official who charges the hero with the task of cleaning up the town. Clint Eastwood was doubled by a noticeably shorter (and non-speaking) actor who, beneath hat and poncho, kept his face hid (shades of Ed Wood!). The same close-up of Eastwood's eyes, taken from the movie proper, are inserted twice to help sell the idea he is in the scene. Sergio Leone had nothing to do with this introduction, which was used only for the film's American broadcast premier on August 29, 1977 (but is now available as an extra on DVD versions of the film).

Abrolat, Werner. Slim, a member of Indio's gang, in FAFDM (uncredited).

Age-Scarpelli (Agenore Incrocci and Furio Scarpelli). Famous writing team for Italian film comedies commissioned by SL to do an early script of GBU. Little or nothing of their work survives in the finished film.

Agua Caliente (lit. "Hot Water"). The town of white stucco buildings in FAFDM where Indio's gang hides out after the El Paso bank job, played by Los Albaricoques. The name was probably derived from the town of similar name in The Last Sunset (1961).

Aiello, Danny. Police Chief Aiello in OUATIA. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000732/

Alabiso, Eugenio (b. 1937). Co-editor on GBU (with Nino Baragli). Alabiso worked in Madrid preparing dailies while filming was being done on Spanish locations . During post production in Rome, Baragli was brought in to meet the Christmas deadline (Hanley 209). Alabiso appears in the documentary Sad Hill Unearthed (2017).

Alamogordo Jail. In FAFDM, jail from whence Monco helps Sancho Perez escape, thus enabling Monco to join Indio's gang. The exterior was filmed in Cortijo de los Genoveses.

Aldrich, Robert. Seminal American director who made Vera Cruz, the prototype for many SWs, including FAFDM. In 1961 he directed Sodom and Gomorrah at Cinecita, where SL worked as his second-unit director. SL, in spite of having achieved full director status, took the job because of his respect for Aldrich, but found the experience disappointing.

Alessandroni, Alessandro (1925 - 2017). Guitarist and whistler, best known for his performances on Morricone soundtracks for SL's Westerns.

Almeria, Spain. Area where many of the exteriors (and a few interiors) in Leone's Westerns were filmed.

Almeria station. Location for the Mesa Verde train station in DYS.

Alonso, Chelo (b. 1933). Stevens' wife in GBU (uncredited). Dancer and actress, originally from Cuba, who appeared in Italian peplum films and SWs. Prominent in Run, Man, Run. She has a webpage dedicated to her here: http://www.cultsirens.com/alonso/alonso.htm (hat tip: CJ).

The Alphonse Dub of Fur Eine Handvoll Dollar. The second German dubbing of FOD, made for the film's re-release in 1970s using a jokier--but in fact unfunny--translation. (In this version, Eastwood's mule has the name Alphonse). Purists prefer the original German dub, which is the one currently available on German DVDs.

Amapola (Joseph M. LaCalle). Morricone incorporated this 1924 standard into the score of OUATIA. It is the song that plays while the young Deborah practices her ballet, and thereafter is used as counterpoint in Deborah's Song.

Andersonville Camp, Georgia. Referred to by name in GBU, a Confederate POW camp notorious for its ill treatment of Union  prisoners. Betterville, the fictional Union POW camp in GBU, was partly based on it.

Angel Eyes/Sentenza (Lee Van Cleef). A ruthless pistolero in GBU who tortures and kills to find a cashbox holding 200,000 dollars in Confederate gold coins. Although identified as "the Bad" he actually only kills 3 people in the film (contrast that with Eastwood's "the Good"who kills nine in the original cut of the film, ten in the 2003 restoration). Fans who insist Eastwood plays a continuing character in all three Dollars pictures almost never feel the need to explain why Angel Eyes is the spitting image of Col. Mortimer in FAFDM. The two, both played by Van Cleef, are of course different characters: Angel Eyes is ruthless where Mortimer is merely stern; Angel Eyes dies at the end of GBU, years before the events in FAFDM. Still, how to account for two characters in a linked narrative who look exactly the same?  Might not Angel Eyes have been Col. Mortimer's evil twin?

Arch Stanton's grave. The putative hiding place for the gold in GBU. Interestingly, the skeleton revealed there is female.

Arco, Freddy. Jesus, Marisol's annoying child, in FoD.

Argento, Dario. Film director who is credited with contributing to the story on which the OUATITW screenplay was based.

I started work on the screenplay at home, with Bernardo Bertolucci. We began with nothing except an idea of Sergio's: he wanted to have a woman as lead for the first time. I would write on my own, then Bernardo would write on his own, then we would write together. Once a week Sergio would come to see how we were getting on, and offer his thoughts. He was incredible at generating ideas. He made me realize the director should always be involved in some way with the screenwriting.

Bernardo and I studied many films over three or four months. The one with female leads, like Johnny Guitar, were important. But we were not working on a script: it was a treatment. It was very long, very free, full of ideas, dreams and descriptions. It was full of fantasies. And then Sergio and Sergio Donati turned our work into a screenplay.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/may/14/sergio-leone-dario-argento

Ariznavarreta, Roman. Red Cavanaugh's half-shaved gang member in FAFDM. Also the blond bounty hunter in GBU.

Arlanza monastery, near Burgos. GBU location for the hospital interior of Brother Ramirez' Franciscan friary.

Arlanza River (Rio Arlanza). The body of water Tuco and Blondie have to cross to get to Sad Hill Cemetery.

Arlecchino Cinema, Rome. Cinema where SL saw Yojimbo in late 1963.

Armstrong, R.G. Honest John in My Name is Nobody. American character actor who appeared in a number of films by Sam Peckinpah. It is undoubtedly his association with Peckinpah that made him desirable casting for MNIN.

As a Judgement/ Come una sentenza (Ennio Morricone). Cue in OUATITW associated with both Frank and Harmonica. It plays first during the massacre of the McBain family.


Azucareza San Torcuato, Gaudix, Spain. Disused sugar factory used for the sequence in DYS/Giu la Testa where firing squads execute victims in long concrete trenches.

[dave jenkins]

Bacci, Silvana. Actress from the deleted Socorro sequence in GBU. She did a bed scene with Clint Eastwood, but all that survives of it are production stills (taken, perhaps, by Angelo Novi?). She had parts in other SWs, including Texas, addio and Django.

The Bad, the Ugly. In GBU, Tuco is identified as the Ugly, Angel Eyes as the Bad. However, UA inadvertently switched designations on the film’s 1967 American trailer, causing confusion to this day.

Baldassarre, Raf. Frequently misidentified as Juan De Dios in AFOD, his true role in that film remains a mystery.

Baragli, Nino (1925 - 2013). Editor on all SL films beginning with GBU. On GBU he shared duties with Eugenio Alabiso.

Barboni, Enzo.

Barboo, Luis. Baxter gunman in AFOD (uncredited).

Bateria San Ramon. Location for the Confederate Fort Scene.

Bartha, John. Sheriff in GBU who pays Blondie the first bounty on Tuco.

Baudrillard, Jean. French philosopher. Reportedly applied “first post-modernist director” label to SL (for OUATITW). (Frayling p. 492).

Baxter family in FoD. The enemies of the Rojos.

Beauregard, Jack (Henry Fonda). Aging gunfighter trying to retire and sail to Europe who keeps being deflected in his purpose by Nobody in MNIN.

Benvenuti, Leonardo (Leo) and Piero De Bernardi. Scriptwriting team hired by SL to do an early treatment of OUATIA.

Bertolucci, Bernardo. Filmmaker who contributed to the script of OUATITW.

Betrayal. A constant theme in SL’s work. GBU plays it for comedy, DYS treats the matter seriously, OUATIA makes the theme its central concern.

Betterville. A fictional Union POW camp Blondie and Tuco are taken to in GBU, modeled partly on Andersonville, the notorious Confederate POW camp. (The musicians who play during the torture scene, however, may have been inspired by the use of imprisoned Jewish musicians in Nazi concentration camps.) By the time Blondie and Tuco arrive, Angel Eyes is the camp’s ranking non-com and the de facto commandant, in spite of the fact that elsewhere in the film he is clearly a civilian. The film does not explain this, but it is popularly supposed that Angel Eyes is impersonating an actual sergeant, one he met and killed prior to his arrival at the fort. Cpl. Wallace (Mario Brega), his henchman, may also be impersonating a soldier.

Bicycle Thieves (De Sica). Also known as The Bicycle Thief. Italian neo-realist classic; includes a cameo by SL as a priest.

Blanco, Tomas. Santa Cruz telegrapher in FAFDM.

Blasetti, Alessandro.

Blondie (Clint Eastwood). Although identified as "the Good" in GBU, he actually has a larger tally of kills than Angel Eyes, "the Bad."

Bogdanovich, Peter. American film critic and filmmaker, hired by SL to direct DYS (they immediately fell out). He later wrote about the experience.

Bonnard, Mario. (1889-1965). Italian director and friend of SL's father, Vincenzo Leone. SL worked as Bonnard's assistant before becoming a full director. In fact, SL took over Bonnard's most famous film, The Last Days of Pompeii, after pre-production, when Bonnard fell ill.

The Bounty Killer. A story treatment by Enzo dell’Aquila and Fernando Di Leo that was the basis for FAFDM. Grimaldi purchased the treatment for SL; one condition of the sale was that the writers would renounce screen credit.

Boys will be boys. The hat-shooting scene in FAFDM essentially sums up the relationship between male characters in SL movies. A similar contest occurs between Juan Miranda and Firecracker in DYS, with Coburn countering Steiger's threats with nitro explosions. It can be argued that the action of the entire movie is sustained by the contest, that Firecracker involves Juan in the revolution simply to get back at him after Juan blows up Firecracker's employer (and livelihood). Similarly, the relationship between Max and Noodles in OUATIA plays out as a deadly game of brinksmanship.

Brana, Frank. Baxter gang member in FoD (uncredited), Blackie, a member of Indio’s gang, in FAFDM (uncredited), a bounty hunter in GBU (uncredited), Frank’s gang member (with pipe) at the auction in OUATITW (uncredited).

The Bravados (Henry King). Gregory Peck Western that employs themes and devices later appropriated by SL (a pocket watch that holds the image of a murdered woman, Roman Catholic iconography). Peck plays a rancher on the trail of desperadoes (one played by Lee Van Cleef) he holds responsible for the death of his wife.

Brega, Mario. Chico in FoD, Nino in FAFDM, Corporal Wallace in GBU, bumbling thug in MNIN, Mandy (very hard to spot) in OUATIA . Screen caps of him in OUATIA can be found here: http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=1280.msg88079;boardseen#new.

Bright, Richard (1937-2006). Chicken Joe in OUATIA. Best known for the role of Al Neri in the Godfather movies.

Bronson, Charles. Harmonica in OUATITW. American character actor who had his first leading role in this film. Later went on to great success with the Death Wish movies. Based on his performance in The Magnificent Seven, SL had considered him for the role of Joe in AFOD. Bronson didn't like the script and turned Leone down.

Bronston, Samuel. Taught the world how to make motion picture epics affordable by shooting in Spain.

Bullets don't argue/Le pistole non discutono. Directed by Mario Caiano and starring Rod Cameron, this was the other Western Papi and Columbo were producing at the time AFOD was shot to take advantage of costs averaging. The two productions used "the same locations, most of the same crew, the same costumes, the same kind of screenplay, and even some of the same actors" (Frayling 131). Considered at the time the more promising of the two films (and with a larger budget), it is almost completely forgotten today.

Burgos, Spain. A nice place to shoot a movie.

Buchanan Rides Alone (1958). Budd Boetticher Western starring Randolph Scott. The hero in a corrupt border town pits two factions against each other, making this something of a precursor to AFOD (to say nothing of Yojimbo).

Il Buono, il bruto, il cattivo (1966). Italian original of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, with Italian voice actors dubbing Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach. This was not cut as the English-language version was, so provided the missing scenes used for the 2003 restoration of GBU. A direct English translation of the title would be “The Good, the Ugly, the Bad.”

[dave jenkins]

Calhoun, Rory. Dario in The Colossus of Rhodes. American leading man, famous for his roles in Westerns (film and television).

Calvo, Jose. Silvanito in FoD.

Camardiel, Roberto. King Serse in The Colossus of Rhodes, station clerk in FAFDM.

Canalejas, Jose. Rojo gang member in FoD; Chico, a member of Indio’s gang, in FAFDM (uncredited).

Canby, Col. Edward. Mentioned by name in the Confederate fort scene in GBU (one of the scenes restored to the film in 2003). Union officer responsible, in part, for frustrating General Sibley’s New Mexico campaign.

Canon scene in GBU (reconstructed). Originally, Blondie and Tuco had a duel with canons just prior to their arrival at Sad Hill. Some of the footage for this can be seen in the French trailer for the film. The sequence has been reconstructed with stills here: http://imgur.com/Nsjcgv3

Cantori Moderni di Alessandroni. The folks who performed Morricone's wonderful Western scores.

Carazo, near Salas de los Infantas, Spain.

Cardinale, Claudia(b. Tunis, 1938). Jill in OUATITW. Cheesecake: http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=6421.0

Carotenuto, Bruno. Antonio Baxter in FoD.

Casas, Antonio (1911-1982). Stevens in GBU, also in COR as the Phoenician Ambassador. Respected Spanish actor with over 40 years of screen credits.

Casale, Antonio. Jackson/Bill Carson in GBU, notary on stagecoach in DYS.

Cats. Cats appear in all three Dollars pictures. There's the cat in the little house when Joe frees Marisol (right before he throws the machete), and there's one in FAFDM when Monco and Mortimer begin to pick off Indio's at the end (one runs across the street). Also, Blondie is shown playing with the "large one" in GBU.

Catena, Victor A. & Jaime Comas Gil Authors of the FOD script, in Spanish. http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=13667.0

Cattle Corner Station. Setting for the opening scene in OUATITW. The platform surrounding the building is made up entirely of loose railroad ties, or "sleepers," as they're known in the UK.

Cattle Corner Coda. In the present "International" version of OUATITW (the one on the R1 DVD), this is the shot of Harmonica rising from the ground after his shoot-out with Knuckles et. al. This bit of film is not present in what has been called the Director's Cut of the movie (what was theatrically released in France and Germany in 1968). The story goes, it was an outtake re-inserted back into the original U.S. theatrical cut of West once the trading post scene had been cut. With the trading post scene gone, the fact that Harmonica was still alive was left un-revealed, making his later re-appearance in the film something of a head-scratcher. Putting back the shot of Harmonica rising from the dead (as it were) eliminated any doubt as to his fate. However, when the trading post scene was restored to the U.S. version, the Cattle Corner coda was left undisturbed. By leaving the CCC in, some have argued, the filmmaker's intentions are not being honored.

Cemetery Without Crosses (1969) A Western by Robert Hossein. SL directed the sequence in which Manuel and The Rogers are seen eating together.

cemeteries and coffins. Both are present in AFOD and GBU, appropriate for films about violence and death.

Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. Experimental Film Center or the Italian National Film School: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centro_Sperimentale_di_Cinematografia

C'era una volta il West(1968). Not merely OUATITW dubbed into Italian, it is actually an extended cut of the film with shots not present in the International version. Those scene extensions are detailed here: http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=734.0

Cerra, Saturno. Bounty hunter in GBU.

Cheyenne (Jason Robards). AKA for Manuel Gutierrez, loopy bandit in OUATITW hung up on Jill McBain. Although he is supposed to be Mexican, Robards doesn’t play up the character’s ethnicity. He thus avoids stereotyping, but communicates nothing of the character’s cultural background. Cheyenne is therefore much like other roles the crusty Robards has played.

Ciavarro, Luigi. Angel Eyes’ gang member in GBU.

Cinecitta Studio, Rome. Most interiors for SL's films were shot here.

Cigarillo. In GBU, Blondie's smoke of choice and his trademark. Famously, he uses one to punctuate the ending of the scene in which he and Tuco meet: after confirming the bounty on Tuco's head, Blondie sticks his cigarillo in Tuco's mouth. After a cut we see Tuco, now tied up and hanging over a saddle, defiantly spitting the cigarillo out. Later, when tracking Blondie, the presence of a still-lit cigarillo at a campsite tells Tuco he is close behind his prey. After convalescing at the friary, Blondie passes his cigarillo to Tuco to signal the resumption of their partnership. It is a cigarillo that Blondie shares with the dying Condederate soldier, and a cigarillo that Blondie uses to ignite the cannon that brings Tuco to ground at the entrance to Sad Hill Cemetery. All attempts to see the object as a phallic symbol have failed. General information on the small cigars can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarillo

Cigoli, Emilio (1909 - 1980) provided the voice for Sentenza in BBC.

The Civil War and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. More than a backdrop to the action, actual historical events of the American Civil War impinge upon the action of the film. There are times when the war intrudes to alter the destinies of the three leads, once in Blondie's case to save his life (when Tuco attempts to hang him). A timeline integrating the events of the War with the episodes in GBU is instructive, and can be purused here: http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=4191.0

Coburn, James. John (or Sean) Mallory in DYS. Became a star after appearing in The Magnificent Seven as the knife-wielding Britt. Based on that performance, SL offered him the part of Joe in AFOD. Coburn's price, however, was $25,000, and the budget-conscious producers decided to find someone cheaper. This turned out to be Clint Eastwood.

“Cockeye’s Song.” In OUATIA, the piece of music that features the pan flute (performed by Gheorghe Zamfir). There is actually a scene in the film where Cockeye can be seen, rather improbably, playing the instrument.

Colmenar, Viejo. Mock town constructed for filming Westerns outside of Madrid. It is used to film the exterior of White Rocks in FAFDM and plays the town under artillery bombardment in GBU. It was demolished in 1973. https://swmadrid.blogspot.com/p/colmenar-viejo.html

Colombo, Arrigo. Producer.

Il colosso di Rodi/Colossus of Rhodes (1961). SL’s first feature film, a “peplum” (sandals picture) starring Rory Calhoun and Lea Masari. Already at this point Leone was able to demonstrate some of the visual flair he would become known for.

Colt, an American Legend. SL’s unrealized project for a TV mini-series (based on Sergio Donata’s story, “Gun”).

The Comancheros (1961, Michael Curtiz). John Wayne actioner. The names McBain and Sweetwater come from this film, as does the image of a man drinking two-handed from a vessel and slowly revealing that he is handcuffed. All found their way into OUATITW.

Confederate fort scene (Bateria San Ramon). Scene in which Angel Eyes, hoping for information about Bill Carson, visits a group of defeated Confederate soldiers. Deleted from the original English-language version of GBU, the scene was later included in the 2003 restoration of the film. The episode occurs between Blondie's escape from Tuco (due to cannon fire) and the sequence showing Tuco tracking Blondie. The scene provides important plot information--it reveals to Angel Eyes that Carson is likely a Union prisoner (helping explain AE's later presence in Betterville). Some have also felt the scene shows a kinder, gentler side of AE, as he appears to view with pity the wounded men--although this may be just a projection of viewer's own feelings onto the character.

Connelly, Jennifer. Academy Award winner who, when still a girl, played Young Deborah in OUATIA. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000124/

Conroy, William. Confederate soldier in GBU.

Constantin Film Producktion. German production partner on the three Dollars films.

Conversations avec Sergio Leone. A book of interviews done by Leone's friend Noel Simsolo after 1986. Published in France, it has never been translated into English. Discussion of the book and a summary of its content can be found here: http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=7868.0

Coppola, Francis Ford. American filmmaker who directed The Godfather after SL turned the project down.

Corbucci, Sergio. The second-most famous director of Italian Westerns, he made a particularly popular one in 1966 that starred Franco Nero.

Cortijo de Los Frailes, near Los Albaricoques. A nineteenth-century chateau used in the filming of FAFDM and GBU. In FAFDM it provided interiors for the night-time scenes where Monco and Mortimer escape from Indio's gang. In GBU it served as the exterior for Father Ramirez's mission. The scene with Chelo Alonso, at least in part, was also shot there.

Cortijo de Genoveses, San Jose, Almeria. Location for Alamagordo Jail in FAFDM.

Cortijo El Sotillo, San Jose. Location used for AFOD. It provided the well and the nearby adobe dwellings that open the film.

Cumbow, Robert C. Author of Once Upon a Time: The Films of Sergio Leone (1987).

[dave jenkins]

Dakota Lil - 1950 Western that contains the line "He never starts a job he doesn't finish." This was perhaps adapted for GBU by Leone.

Dallamano, Massimo. Cinematographer on AFOD (as Jack Dalmas) and FAFDM.

D'Amario Battisti, Bruno. Guitarist on the scores for FAFDM ("Indio's Theme") and GBU.

Damiani, Domiano. Italian director of A Bullet for the General and Nobody's the Greatest.

Dante, Maggio. Indio’s cell mate in FAFDM.

Daves, Delmer. Filmmaker of such famous Westerns as 3:10 to Yuma and Jubal.

De Gemini, Franco. Played harmonica on the OUATITW soundtrack.

De Laurentis, Dino.

De Niro, Robert. David “Noodles” Aaronson in OUATIA.

De Paulis. Roman studio where some of the interiors for OUATIA were shot: Fat Moe's Speakeasy and diner, the gang's office and the room where young Deborah dances , as well as 1930's Max/ Noodles/Max (hottest spot in town) and the 1930's scene where Noodles runs down the alley and enters Fat Moe's and presses the lift button. Two hundred metres of 8th Street South and surroundings were duplicated by production designer Carlo Simi and his team on the outskirts of Rome (near Prietralata) on the Via delle Messid'oro. According to Luca Morsella this location belonged to De Paulis Studios - producer Arnon Milchan purchased the land for the production. Simi, who was in charge of customizing the real life period streets in Brooklyn, measured these buildings himself to be certain the duplicates in Italy would match. [Thanks, LITTLE BIG MAN]

Death Rides a Horse (Giulio Petroni). Lee Van Cleef and John Michael Law chase down a band of outlaws who, having pulled a bank job, are hiding out in a Mexican town. The Spaghetti Western for people who, having finished watching the Dollars pictures, want more. From a script by Luciano Vincenzoni. Includes appearances by Mario Brega, Luigi Pistilli, and (uncredited as usual) Jose Terrón.

Deborah's Theme An important musical motif in OUATIA.

Deleted Dynamite scene in FOD. http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=13588.0

Delli Colli, Tonino. Cinematographer for GBU, OUATITW, and OUATIA. With Delli Coli's camera work, the SL style was fully formed.

[On GBU] Leone explores shapes and spatial relationships in expansive ways which make his previous work seem almost understated. For much of the film, the camera will simply not keep still. As gunslingers get off their horses, the camera starts below their stirrups, then rises to be level with their faces by the time they reach the ground. Panning shots explore horizontal shapes: a Colt's barrel, a Henry rifle. Objects appear from out of frame, beneath the camera's field of vision. Often, the camera 'reveals' things to us startlingly, which the characters should have been able to see already. . . . Blondie and Tuco are walking, with their map, through a deserted landscape; suddenly the rifles and bayonets of Northern sentries appear at the bottom of the frame; equally suddenly the camera cranes over to a high angle shot of the huge and crowded battlefield which was just on the other side of the hedge. Cinematic space in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is full of surreal juxtapositions of his kind, to trick the eye and keep the audience intrigued. (Frayling 230)

dell'Orso, Edda. Soprano on soundtracks for FoD, FAFDM, GBU, OUATITW, DYS, MNIN, OUATIA and other Morricone compositions.

Dexter, Rosemary. Col. Mortimer's murdered sister in FAFDM. Monco, studying her pocket watch photo, purports to see a family resemblance between the two.

Django. Sergio Corbucci's 1966 SW that began one of the most lucrative franchises in Italian cinema history.

Dogs. Three appear, in three separate scenes, in GBU. Interestingly, SL's first use of a dog is in COR, where one trots the empty streets of Rhodes just prior to the final cataclysm.

The Dollars pictures. Term applied to the three films SL made with Clint Eastwood, FoD, FAFDM, and GBU (although Dollars is not in the title of the last, the film is about a quest for dollars). The characters Eastwood played in each film, though similar in look, manner, and costuming, are clearly different (and have different names: Joe, Monco, and Blondie, respectively). This has not stopped fans from seeing a trilogy of sequential adventures in the movies (abetted by The Man With No Name campaign). According to this view, GBU, although produced last, must be chronologically first as it is set during the Civil War. Supporting this view is the fact that Blondie, who goes through most of GBU in a variety of outfits, eventually acquires the distinctive poncho Eastwood wears in the other two films.

Donati, Sergio. Filmmaker who helped tighten the script for FAFDM. Wrote the OUATITW screenplay and the story (with SL) for DYS.  He also did an early treatment for MNIN.

"Don't tell me about revolutions!" Juan Miranda delivers the director's political message in DYS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-cZWVChgYk&feature=related

Door Motif in OUATIA. Doors are featured in OUATITW, but seem to be emphasized solely as an homage to John Ford and, more particularly,  The Searchers. But by the time of OUATIA, the recurring door motif seems to have taken on a life of its own: http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=6937.0

Duck You Sucker, see Giu la testa. SL’s sixth feature film.

"Duck you sucker" vs. "Short fuse" There are different English language versions of Giu' la testa. For example, in the scene where Juan is saved from the firing squad, Malory first warns Juan that the wall he's standing against is about to blow. In one version he says, "Duck, you sucker" but in another he says, "Short fuse." Most home video releases use the former audio, but the latter was on the MGM laserdisc released in 1996.

I Due Magnifici Straccioni/The Two Magnificent Tramps. The working title of GBU, used for the German language version of the film (Zwei glorreiche Halunken). Which of the three principals the title meant to exclude is unclear.

[dave jenkins]

Eastwood, Clint. Joe in FoD, Monco in FAFDM, and Blondie in GBU. American  TV actor who came to international prominence in SL’s Dollars pictures.

“The Ecstacy of Gold”/ “L’estasi Dell’Oro” (Ennio Morricone). The music that plays behind Tuco as he searches Sad Hill Cemetary. It is one of the most popular movie cues of all time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ecstasy_of_Gold

Egger, Joseph. Piripero in FoD, Prophet in FAFDM.

Elam, Jack. American character actor, famous for his unique brand of cross-eyed menace. At the beginning of OUATITW he is Snaky, one of the three killers waiting for the train (the fly molester).

El Paso, Texas. The city where Indio plans to rob the bank in FAFDM. El Paso also makes appearances in GBU.

"Every gun makes its own tune." Blondie's statement late in the film after hearing gunfire in the town destroyed by cannonade, indicating that he now knows Tuco is close by. But the gun Tuco is using at this point is one he acquired after parting company with Blondie, so Blondie has never heard it fired before. How then is he able to recognize Tuco's weapon by its sound? Hanley offers a solution: it is not the sonic properties of the pistol, but the rhythmic firing pattern that gives Tuco away. "A distinct pattern of pistol shots is heard, five shots in rapid succession, a pause, then a final shot [this 5:1 pattern is the signature of Tuco . . . ]" (p. 313). Hanley hears that pattern in the film's opening shoot-out (involving Al Muloch and company), and sees it demonstrated in Buffalo Wallow when Tuco takes target practice with the wooden Indians. Perhaps, then, Blondie's later reference is not to Tuco's weapon; Tuco himself is the "gun."

Eye For An Eye/ Occhio per occhio (Gaspari-Nohra-Morricone) Tie-in single (7 inch vinyl ARC AN 4083) released in Italy in 1967 to take advantage of the popularity of For a Few Dollars More, it used one of Morricone's themes as the setting for some impassioned crooning by Maurizio Graf . The A-side English version was in stereo, the B-side was in Italian mono. Currently available on the expanded edition of the Italian soundtrack CD (GDM 2038). The English lyrics, by M.G. Gaspari and Audrey Stainton Nohra, are:

Curse the dark and evil day that ever I was born
Curse my mother's loving care that made me safe from harm
Curse the day I grew to be a man and learned to love
Curse the love that made me learn to hate all men
Curse the day that I became what I was born to be
Curse the happy men on earth who are not cursed like me

Take an eye for an eye, they say
But an eye for an eye won't pay
All that's due
All that's due to a man with nothing left but hate

Let the sun shine upon the sins of men
Let the sun shine upon my dead long stray
Let the stars go by in the black night sky
It's a world of darkness night and day for me

Curse the day that I was born into the world I know
Curse the day that I became what I was born to be
Curse the happy men on earth who are not cursed like me

[dave jenkins]

Faenza, Diana. Tomaso’s wife in FAFDM.

Fawell, John. Author of The Art of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West: A Critical Appreciation.

Fender Jaguar. According to Bruno Battisti D'Amario, "the electric guitar on all the Morricone films" (Hanley 258).

Ferzetti, Gabriele. Morton in OUATITW. Italian actor who did impressive work in the 60s, and appeared in such high-profile films as L'avventura and On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Firecreek (film). Western starring Jimmy Stewart as a 2-dollar-a-week lawman who must find the courage to confront a fearsome outlaw played by Henry Fonda. Fonda’s character is undoubtedly a prototype for OUATITW's Frank, whom Fonda played the following year.

Fistful of Dollars. SL’s second feature film, a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo.

A Fistful of Dynamite see Duck, You Sucker/Giu la testa.

Flashbacks. SL used them in FAFDM,OUATITW, DYS, and OUATIA. One can use the flashback in DYS as a way to demonstrate Leone's development as a filmmaker. Compare Leone's use of flashbacks in FAFDM and OUATITW. In those earlier examples, Leone uses flashbacks for essentially the same purpose, to fill in backstory details. That is, they are concerned mainly with plot. Leone uses this kind of flashback in DYS as well, but the final flashback is of a new and different kind. It exists, I submit, less for plot and more as an index of Sean's inner state (and maybe as a foreshadowing of his Final State). That is, the final flashback is mostly about character. Sean is a more developed character than either Mortimer or Harmonica, and part of the reason for that is Leone's more developed use of flashback (also, the plots of FAFDM and OUATIW, which are revenge stories, don't require avengers of any great psychological complexity).

flies. At the beginning of OUATITW, Jack Elam plays with a fly while he and his two partners wait for the train. It has been suggested that this is an homage to Buster Keaton, but flies figure prominently in Leone's Western films (as documented here: http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=6132.0), lending a quality of desuetude to the scenes in which they appear. As a practical matter, Almeria, where Leone filmed his exteriors, is naturally thick with them. The presence or lack of same in a scene can be an indicator of where the scene was shot, on location or in the studio.

Fonda, Henry. Iconic American actor who played Frank in OUATITW and Jack Beauregard in MNIN.

For a Few Dollars More (film). SL's third feature film, about a pair of bounty hunters who join forces to take on a gang of outlaws led by the mad El Indio. Contains a scene, late in the picture, where Monco (Clint Eastwood) and Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef) are savagely beaten by Indio's gang. Home video versions of the film usually cut much of it, but the full scene has been reassembled from different versions and can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCQp9rnsuEk&mode=related&search= Another scene, deleted from all existing prints, has been reconstructed here: https://theeditroomfloor.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-lost-scene-from-for-few-dollars-more.html

Ford, John. American film director.

Fornari, Oreste de.

Forty Guns (Samuel Fuller). A loose retelling of the Earp brothers story, with Barbara Stanwyck in the Pa Clanton role. An early example of a cinemascope Western, it employs several devices that would become SL staples, notably the ultra-close close-up of a character’s eyes. The film also ends with the title re-appearing; SL would later adopt and adapt this practice, making his audience wait for the conclusions of OUATITW and DYS to see those films christened.

Frank (Henry Fonda). The blue-eyed stone-cold killer in OUATITW (“People scare better when they’re dyin’.”)

Frank’s victims. Prior to his massacre of the McBain family, Frank had a long career as a murderer. According to Harmonica, Frank’s list of victims included Dave Jenkins, Calder Benson, Jim Cooper, and Chuck Youngblood. Harmonica offers these names when Frank asks him to identify himself, the implication being that Harmonica is acting to avenge them. In the final flashback, the identity of another past victim is revealed.

Frayling, Christopher. Sir Christopher John Frayling (born 25 December 1946) is a British educationalist and writer, known for his study of popular culture. He is especially known for his study of spaghetti westerns and specifically director Sergio Leone. He has written a very popular biography of Leone, Something To Do With Death (2000); helped run the Los Angeles-based Gene Autry Museum's exhibit on Leone in the summer of 2005; and has made DVD commentaries and has appeared in numerous documentaries about Leone and his films. Significant works on film other than his Leone biography include:

• Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio Leone (1981)
• American Westerners (1984)
• Clint Eastwood (1992)
• Sergio Leone: Once Upon a Time in Italy (2005)
  
• Once Upon A Time in the West: Shot By Shot (2017)

Christopher Frayling was awarded a knighthood in 2001 for "Services to Art and Design Education".

Frees, Paul (1920 - 1986). American voice actor mistakenly associated with English-language versions of Leone films. See Bernard Grant.

Fridkin, Howard. On August 29, 1977, using an early Betamax purchased for $1,500, recorded the U.S. television premier of FOD, thus capturing on tape the infamous ABC TV prologue. Fridkin's tape was the source for the prologue that was used on the FOD SE DVD.

Friendship. An important element in most of SL's films.

[dave jenkins]

Garbage truck. This mysterious vehicle makes its appearance near the end of OUATIA. Senator Bailey disappears near it, then the truck starts up and moves off, revealing the compactor in the rear in operation. The question is then, What happened to Bailey? Was he thrown into the back of the truck and crushed to death? Did he throw himself in? Did something else happen? The ambiguity is never resolved. This type of truck was no doubt used because of its association with stories about the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.

gauntlet. A leather sheath worn by Monco to protect his arm when fanning his revolver.

La gazza ladra/The Thieving Magpie [/b](Rossini). The overture is used on the OUATIA soundtrack (for the baby-switching scene).

The General (1926, Buster Keaton). Set during the American Civil War, it contains the most expensive scene ever shot in the silent era, one in which a flaming trestle collapses, under the weight of a locomotive, into a river. Frayling suggests this inspired the exploding bridge scene in GBU.

Giuffre, Aldo. Alcoholic Union Captain in GBU.

Giu la testa/"Keep your head down, balls." SL's sixth feature, it begins with one of the most unpromising starts in film history: a guy peeing, close-ups of people eating, a rape, a wagon-load of naked people thrown into a pile of dung. If you showed me just the first 20 minutes and nothing more I'd have to conclude that this was one of the worst movies ever made. But an amazing transformation ensues: by stages, Leone works the material up from its vulgar beginnings to one of the most sublime endings ever put on film. The distance crossed from first to last is galactic. An amazing feat, even for a genius.

“God Bless America” (Irving Berlin). Song used at the beginning of OUATIA.

Gone With the Wind (1939, Victor Fleming). The famous crane shot of Confederate wounded may have inspired shots in Leone's work.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966/67). SL’s fourth feature film. Soon after the premier of the Italian language version, a cut of the film that removed 14 minutes was dubbed into English. This version was the only one known to the English-speaking world until 2003, when a restored cut was released at the original length (including newly dubbed tracks for the scenes that were never done in 1967).  Although the established English dub of the film was, historically, 14 minutes shorter than the Italian version, connoisseurs of the film often preferred it as it featured the actual voices of Eastwood, Van Cleef, and Wallach. Regardless, the title of the English language version is superior to that of the Italian (it is not a direct translation): the terms Good and Bad come sequentially, in an apparent attempt to contrast moral categories. With the introduction of the third term, Ugly, however, another category (aesthetics) is suggested; it's as if, while mapping a certain space, the x and y coordinates were suddenly joined by a z, adding a new dimension. The title has become an English idiomatic expression, independent of its source, a process that began in 1968 when Robert F. Kennedy used the expression as part of his campaign stump speech. A thorough treatment of the film is given here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good,_the_Bad_and_the_Ugly

GBU deleted scene. http://theeditroomfloor.blogspot.ca/#!/2017/08/a-lost-scene-from-good-bad-and-ugly.html

GBU film locations 50 years later. An interesting site: http://lieuxdetournages.over-blog.com/2015/08/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-il-buono-il-brutto-il-cativo-1966.html

La Grande Guerra. A 1959 film by Mario Monicelli from a script by Luciano Vincenzoni, about two not-so-magnificent tramps who try unsuccessfully to avoid getting caught up in WWI. Vincenzoni may have recycled elements (there is, for example, a climactic river-crossing battle) for GBU.

Grant, Bernard. Voice actor who dubbed Volonte in English-language versions of FOD and FAFDM, the Union Captain in GBU, and Morton in OUATITW.

Greene, Graham. English novelist and early defender of OUATITW.

Grey, Harry. Pseudonymous author of The Hoods, the basis for OUATIA. Leone met with him several times.

Grimaldi, Alberto. Italian film producer of FAFDM and GBU.

Groggy (Luigi Pistili). Indio's henchman. A little smarter then the others, he's able to survive until almost the end of FAFDM.

Grotte di Salone, Rome. The scene in FOD in which Clint Eastwood recuperates from a beating was shot here. The location is written on one of Carlo Simi's sketches in the Carlo Simi booklet from the Cinema Mediterranean Montpelier, 1998. The same location was used for the Tuco in the Cave scene (also known as "The Grotto Scene," see below). The caves are located on the corner of Via di Salone and Via Case Rosse, adjacent to the Autostrada Roma-L'Aquila.

The Grotto Scene in GBU. The scene, filmed in the Grotte di Salone, in which Tuco recruits the three men who are later killed by Blondie when he hears their spurs on the hotel floor. This was included in the Rome premier of BBC but subsequently cut. It has never been restored to the Italian version of the film, but was finally included in the 2003 Restoration print (and subsequent DVD release) of GBU.

Guadix, Spain.

Gunfight at the OK Corral (John Sturges). Another entry in the Earp story sweepstakes, with Burt Lancaster as Wyatt and Kirk Douglas as Doc Holiday. The use of actress Rhonda Fleming as a gratuitous love interest for Lancaster earned SL's ire.

The Gunfighter (Henry King). Gregory Peck vehicle about an aging gunfighter trying to retire, but unable to do so because of a wannabe trying to make his rep. The prototype for a thousand TV episodes, the central conceit was nicely parodied in MNIN.

Guns. Details on the hardware used in Leone's films is here:
A Fistful of Dollars

For a Few Dollars More

The Good The Bad and The Ugly

Once Upon a Time in the West

Once Upon A Time In America

Guzman, Jesus. Carpetbagger in FAFDM, Hotel owner in GBU.

[dave jenkins]

Hanley, Peter J. Author of Behind-the-scenes of Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (2016).  www.gbu-book.net

Harmonica (Charles Bronson). Mysterious stranger in OUATITW, he is never properly identified but given this designation (by Cheyenne) for the instrument he frequently plays. Throughout the film his motivations remain mysterious, until a final showdown with Frank reveals all.

Harmonica's beating scene. A deleted scene reconstructed here: https://theeditroomfloor.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-lost-scene-from-once-upon-time-in-west.html

Harmonica's harmonica. Bronson's character is shown with a diatonic harmonica, but what we hear played on the soundtrack can only come from the chromatic type. Cigar Joe glosses the apparent discrepancy:

The thing to remember is that Harmonica is just playing what we hear Frank play at the end, that is what the characters in the film hear, like the German title translation which is  "Play Me The Song Of Death",  but WE hear Morricone's "music of the gods" superimposed upon it, hence we hear the chromatic harmonica.

High Noon (Fred Zinneman). Talky civics lesson disguised as a Western. The opening scene of OUATITW echoes the basic situation of the earlier film: desperados waiting for a train.

Hill, Terrence. Screen name after 196? of Mario Girotti. Nobody in MNIN. Came to prominence in the Trinity pictures

The Holy family. The family Joe helps in FoD, which includes Julio, Marisol, and Jesus.

Honest John (R.G. Armstrong). Broadly played dynamiter in My Name is Nobody.

Hombre (film). A Western starring Paul Newman. Although it has nothing to do with SL's work, it is a very good 60s Western.

The Hoods (novel). A semi-autobiographical account of a Jewish gangster’s experiences in the 1910s, 20s, and 30s, the basis for OUATIA. The novel ends in 1933; the 1960s material in the film is the invention of SL and his script writers. Other differences are outlined and discussed here: http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=5648.0

Hour of the Gun (Sturges). A kind of sequel to Gunfight at the OK Corral, this time with James Garner as Wyatt Earp and Jason Robards as Doc Holiday. Robards next role was Cheyenne in OUATITW.

How the West Was Won (film).

Huerta. Historical Mexican general, sometimes misidentified as the Governor in DYS, but in fact, not a character in the film. He took control of Mexico after Madero. Madero, who served as president of Mexico from 1911 to 1913, was well known for his generocity toward the lower classes and he gave huge shares of land to the poor. He was even given the nickname "the Apostle of Democracy" after he won the election against Porifio Diaz, a leader who was despised and seen as a dictator. In 1913, General Huerta, leader of the armed forces and sympathizer of Porifio Diaz, along with Porifio Diaz's nephew conspired against Francisco Madero. Huerta offered him protection from the forces of Diaz but betrayed him by kidnapping Madero's brother and killing him. Madero was forced to resign, making Huerta president of Mexico. Once in power, Huerta established a fierce military dictatorship and took back the land reforms Madero had created. This ultimately led to the Mexican Revolution and the events depicted in DYS.

"Incident of the Black Sheep." Rawhide episode about a cattlemen-and-sheepherder conflict, featuring Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates. SL screened this before offering Eastwood the lead in The Magnificent Stranger.

Indio also El Indio. The psychotic villain in FAFDM played by Gian Maria Volonte. Some have commented on the substance he frequently smokes. Frayling insists it is marijuana, but a likelier candidate is Jimson weed. How to read his final moments? One interpretation: when he closes his hand around the watch, he is affirming receipt of a prize long sought. Why is the watch, and the memory it evokes, so important to Indio? What is the longing at the heart of his obsession? It would be hard to argue that the dead girl is the chief object of interest; he may not have even known her. It can't be regret, either for what happened to the girl or for his unfulfilled lust. Indio is incapable of regret. The failed rape is the defining moment in Indio's life. He had intended to deliver the girl to la petite mort, but she chose its greater cousin instead. Ever after, Indio has been obsessed with death, following it, watching it in the eyes of those he kills. After this prolonged flirtation, MORTimer, with il Monco officiating, brings Indio to the point of consumation.

Indio’s gang. In FAFDM, the band of cutthroats assembled by Indio (Gian Maria Volonte) to help him rob the bank at El Paso. Nino (Mario Brega) appears to be his lieutenant, and it is he who leads the group that frees Indio from jail. The gang immediately after the breakout consists of Slim, Paco, Cucillo, Yuri/Huey (Benito Steffaneli) Wild, the hunchback (Klaus Kinski), and several unnamed characters. They are then joined by Groggy (Luigi Pistili) and another man, bringing the number of members to thirteen. It is this group of unholy disciples that Indio addresses from the pulpit of the ruined church when explaining his plan. In a bid to infiltrate the band, Monco breaks Sancho Perez out of jail and delivers him to Indio. Both men are accepted into the gang. Eventually, at Agua Caliente, even Col. Mortimer briefly joins the group. Indio’s gang members have an exceedingly high mortality rate. The first three to go are Blackie, Chico and Paco killed by Manco en route to Santa Cruz for the decoy bank job. Next is Wild, gunned down by Mortimer in Agua Caliente over an insult. After Monco and Mortimer are exposed  as bounty hunters, Nino kills Slim, under orders from Indio, and Indio himself kills Cucillo. These two deaths are blamed on Monco and Mortimer, who have been allowed by Indio to escape. Indio sends the remaining gang members after them, hoping his men will be killed (he intends to share the bank loot only with Nino). Groggy, suspicious, kills Nino and confronts Indio. Mortimer and Monco kills everyone else. Two, including Sancho, are shot jointly by Mortimer and Manco in the street.  Then Mortimer turns the tables on Huey and another unknown bandit by shooting through the wagon's anchor rope. Frisco and the third unknown bandit are then killed by Manco from the swivel chair. Finally there is the showdown which disposes of Indio and then the aftermath in which Groggy is finished off.

The Informer (John Ford). Victor McGlaughlin plays an IRA member who rats out his comrades. Inspiration for the backstory in DYS.

The Iron Horse (John Ford). The prototype for all railroad building Westerns, inevitably quoted in OUATITW.

Israel, Victor. Sergeant at Confederate fort in GBU.

[dave jenkins]

Jenkins, Dave. In OUATITW, one of Frank's past victims, the first name Harmonica gives when asked to identify himself.

Jill (Claudia Cardinale). Arguably, the central character of OUATITW. Given that SL despised the presence of women in Westerns, an interesting concession and an indication, possibly, that he was out to make a film less like a Spaghetti and one more in the classic American mold. She is essentially passive throughout the movie. Then, at the end, she shows she's changed by actually taking the initiative: she gives the boys a drink. At that moment, she transforms from archetypal whore to archetypal mother figure. Jill is a stock character, "the tart with a heart."All the characters in OUATITW are well-known types: the implacable avenger, the black-hearted nemesis, the corrupt tycoon. The psychology of such characters is less important to an audience than the need for those characters to fulfill their respective roles. Tarts need to be tarty, avengers need to avenge. Motives are little more than stage properties.What is interesting about Leone's use of these different types is the unique way they interact. To take one example, Harmonica's "courtship" of Jill: his midnight "serenade" recieves gunshots in reply; next morning, Harmonica seems on the verge of ravishing Jill when in fact he is only altering her clothing to make her a fit decoy; later, he enters her bathing chamber, but instead of seducing her he fires out windows to kill Frank's men. In this way, Harmonica, even while appearing to fulfill his role as suitor, is disqualified as a potential mate. He has "something to do with death," as do all his encounters with Jill. There is, then, no basis on which the two can build a life together (as Cheyenne observes), so they must go their separate ways. Still, genre conventions have been satisfied: the avenger has exacted his revenge, the hooker has been redeemed by her love for the hero.

Jill McBain couture. The traveling attire Jill is wearing when she steps off the train in Sweetwater is similar to this dress from 1873. Bonnets from the previous decade had given way to small hats. Ribbons hanging down in back were standard, not merely for decoration, but also possibly to shield the back of the neck from the sun. A square of patterned fabric was folded into a triangle to create a shawl. Dresses were usually brown or light colored, never black, as black would show dust (railway journeys were dusty). Jill's dress in OUATITW is in fact black, a bit of artistic license taken by SL, no doubt, so that Jill could appear in the appropriate color later at the McBain family funeral.


Jimson weed. Some have commented on the substance Indio frequently smokes in FAFDM. Frayling insists it's marijuana, but a likelier candidate--given the symptoms it produces--is Jimson weed. http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/ethnobot/images/jimsonweed.html

Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray). Silly faux Western starring Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge. Some elements of it found their way into OUATITW.

"John Wells." Pseudonym for Gian Maria Volonte, used for promotional purposes on SL's early films. John being the anglicized form of Gian, Frayling suggests the last name was derived in this fashion: Volonta, orthographically similar to Volonte, translates as "will," which in turn was transmuted into "wells."

Joe (Clint Eastwood). The protagonist in FOD. A mysterious stranger who is motivated chiefly by money, it would seem, but is capable of moments of altruism (e.g. saving the holy family).

Jubal (film). A film by Delmer Daves, starring Glenn Ford, an itinerant hand who takes a job with a crude rancher (Ernest Borgnine).  Valerie French plays the rancher’s wife with a wandering eye that soon begins wandering in Ford’s direction. Ford remains loyal to his employer, even going so far as to give the man some sound marital advice.

--You know much about women?
--I can’t say I do. Why?
--Mae. Things ain’t right between us. You’ve been around. You’ve seen us. You know anything I can do to make her like me better? Of course, I can’t change this ugly face none but maybe some things I do, I don’t do right.
--There’s a lot of things a man does that bother a woman.
--Like what?
--Like slurping coffee out of a saucer.
--Yeah?
--Spitting. Scratching. Whacking her on the behind when she isn’t looking.
--Why, I always do that.
--You mean, in front of company?
--Why sure, if I just swat her in private—
--Do you think she likes being swatted?
--Don’t all women? Shows them you love them, don’t it?
--There are other ways, you know, Shep.
--Of course! Why, that’s exactly what’s been bothering her.
--That’s right. She’s just fed up with being whacked on the rump.
--Thanks for the tip, Jube.

It’s likely that SL used the following speech, from Cheyenne to Jill in OUATITW, as his response to the above:

You know what? If I was you I’d go down there and give those boys a drink. Can’t imagine how happy it makes a man to see a woman like you. Just to look at her. And if one of them should, uh, pat your behind, Just make believe it’s nothing. They earned it.

[dave jenkins]

Kaminsky, Stuart. New York writer of crime fiction who supplied dialogue for OUATIA.

The Killers (film). Crime drama with a flashback structure similar to the one used in Citizen Kane. Perhaps influenced the chronologically fractured structure of OUATIA.

Kinski, Klaus. Wild, the hunchback, in FAFDM. German actor of striking appearance who often channeled insanity. Best known for his roles in five feature films of Werner Herzog: Aguirre, the Wrath of God; Nosferatu, Phantom der Nacht; Woyzeck; Fitzcaraldo; and Cobra Verde. After the actor's death, Herzog made a documentary about him, My Best Fiend.

Knox, Mickey (1921-2013). Born Abraham Knox. Supplied English dialogue for FAFDM and GBU. Wrote an interesting memoir, The Good, the Bad and the Dolce Vita: The Adventures of an Actor in Hollywood, Paris and Rome.

Koch, Marianne. Marisol in FoD. German actress in many European films of the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

Krug, Jordan. God bless him. http://theeditroomfloor.blogspot.ca/#!/2017/08/a-lost-scene-from-good-bad-and-ugly.html

Krupp, Mara. Mary in FAFDM.

Kubrick, Stanley. Spaghetti director wannabe. When adapting Barry Lyndon, Kubrick rewrote Thackeray's novel so there’d be an extra gun duel at the end.

Kurosawa, Akira. Japanese film director who made Yojimbo, the basis for FOD. SL appropriated elements of Kurosawa's style into his own, notably the use of long build ups to duels that then finish quickly. The convention of characters not being able to see things immediately off camera but only after those things have entered the frame, much in evidence in GBU, may have also come from Kurosawa (see examples in The Hidden Fortress).

La Almadraba de Monteleva, near San Jose.

Ladd Company, Hollywood. American distributor of OUATIA. When SL did not meet the target length he had contracted for (165 minutes), the Ladd Company ordered the assembly of the infamous 144 minute "chronological" cut which eliminated the flashback structure.

Landis, John. Stuntman on OUATITW, later the American director of Animal House, Blues Brothers, etc.

Lardani, Iginio ("Gigi")(aka Luigi Lardani, Eugenio Lardani). Mysterious title designer and animator who worked on the Dollars pictures and a few other SWs, including Face to Face, Tepepa, and Run, Man, Run. Title design was something of a sideline, however; he began in the Italian film industry designing posters, later working as an editor of film trailers up until his death in 1986. Frayling mistakenly gives his last name as "Lardini." Further info and examples of his work are here: http://www.watchthetitles.com/designers/Iginio_Lardani And here: http://www.artofthetitle.com/feature/a-fistful-of-titles-the-westerns-of-iginio/

Last Days of Pompeii (1960). A peplum credited to Mario Bonnard, on which SL was the assistant director. Because Bonnard got sick on the first day of shooting, it is widely supposed that the film was in fact directed by Leone.

The Last Sunset (film). Western starring Kirk Douglas and Rock Hudson who square off for a duel at the end. Some feel that this was the model for the showdown between Harmonica and Frank at the end of OUATITW.

Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean). Panoramic film famous for its exotic locations, including Jordan and Morocco. Most of it was shot in Spain, however, including several scenes in Almeria. For an oasis scene Lean had water and some palm trees brought in. The palm trees seeded and remained, thus the site became known as L'Oasis and was featured in a number of subsequent SWs (it appears in FAFDM--it is the place Indio's men rendezvous after the Santa Fe bank job).

Leningrad. A film project left uncompleted at the time of Leone’s death.

Leone, Carla. Mrs. Sergio Leone. Claims to have added the words "Sean, Sean, Sean" to Morricone's DYS theme.

Leone, Francesca. Sergio's talented and beautiful daughter. As a child she sometimes appeared in her father's films. In FAFDM she's the infant murdered with her mother by Indio's gang as part of a revenge killing, and in OUATIA she's the date of Secretary Bailey's son during the Long Island party sequence. She is now a successful painter.

Leone, Sergio. (3 Jan 1929-30 Apr 1989). Italian film director who was born, lived and died in Rome. Son of silent film director Roberto Roberti (Vincenzo Leone) and actress Bice Waleran, SL entered the film industry in 1946 as a director's assistant.  Later promoted to director, he eventually also became a film producer. As a director he is credited with seven films.

The Leopard/Il Gattopardo (Luchino Visconti). A monumental influence on cinema and the chief inspiration for many of Carlo Simi’s set designs. Both Paulo Stoppa and Claudia Cardinale, who appear in OUATITW, are Il Gattopardo alumni, as is Mario Girotti, who would later become Terrence Hill.

Lewis, James. The author of the DYS novelization. The book contains many scenes not in the finished film. http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=11519.0

Llanos del Duque, Almeria. Location for the opening shot in FAFDM.

Lorenzon, Livio. Baker in GBU.

Los Albaricoques, Sierra de Gatta, Spain. Agua Caliente in FAFDM.

Lowell, Mark. Supplied dialogue for the English version of AFOD.

Lozano, Margarita. Consuelo Baxter in AFOD.

Lukschy, Wolfgang. John Baxter in AFOD.

[dave jenkins]

McGovern, Elizabeth. Adult Deborah in OUATIA. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001527/

Macaroni Westerns. The term used in Japan for Italian Westerns.

The Magnificent Seven (John Sturges). The most famous American Western of the 60s (with the most recognizable Western score ever), based on Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. It proved a considerable influence on Leone's Westerns. Eli Wallach played the villain, Calvera, a role that prefigured his later turn as Tuco (both characters wear the same rings). Interestingly, two other Mag7 alumni appeared in Leone films: Charles Bronson (OUATITW) and James Coburn (DYS). As early as AFOD, SL considered both Bronson and Coburn for the part of Joe (Bronson turned the offer down, Coburn wanted too much for the role).

Il Magnifico Straniero/The Magnificent Stranger The working title for A Fistful of Dollars.

Major Dundee (Sam Peckinpah). A Western set during the Civil War, starring Charlton Heston and Richard Harris.

Mallory, John (James Coburn). Possibly also known as “Sean” (see Sean, Sean, Sean). In DYS, disillusioned ex-IRA man working for revolutionaries in Mexico. (“Once I believed in many things. Now I believe only in dynamite.”)

Mancini, Claudio. Leone's production manager on OUATITW, he played Harmonica's elder brother in the final flashback. Later a partner in Rafran Cinematografica and a producer ("executive producer" on OUATIA).

Man of the West (Anthony Mann). Gary Cooper plays a man who tries to live down his wild past by confronting his outlaw father.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford).

The Man With No Name campaign. An attempt by United Artists to market the three SL films starring Clint Eastwood as a trilogy. (“This short cigar belongs to a man with no name. This long gun belongs to a man with no name. This poncho belongs to a man with no name. He’s going to trigger a whole new style in adventure.”) In fact, the films were not conceived as a trilogy, and the three characters Eastwood plays have names, a different one for each film (Joe in FOD, Monco in FAFDM, and Blondie in GBU). In 2007 The Man With No Name became a comic-book character (http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=120536).

The Mao Tse Tung quote in DYS. The epigraph that opens the film (cut from American and English first-run prints, subsequently restored on home video versions), white capital letters on a black background:

THE REVOLUTION
IS NOT A SOCIAL DINNER,
A LITERARY EVENT,
A DRAWING OR AN EMBROIDERY;
IT CANNOT BE DONE WITH
ELEGANCE AND COURTESY.
THE REVOLUTION IS AN ACT OF VIOLENCE

As Frayling points out, Mao's original continued with the words "by which one class overthrows another" which Leone abridged for "fairly obvious reasons." (320)

Marco Polo project. "At the 1978 Cannes Film Festival Leone referred to a co-production deal between Italian television and the People's Republic of China" to make a serial about the life of the Italian adventurer, with exteriors to be shot in China, and all the interiors to be done in an Italian studio. Leone never did the project. Giuliano Montaldo and Franco Giraldi eventually directed the series (Frayling 376).

Martin, Daniel. Julio in FoD.

Martin, Jean. Sullivan in My Name is Nobody. Although his career in TV and film has been a long one, he is most famous for his role as Col. Mathieu in Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers (1966).

Massari, Lea. Female lead in The Colossus of Rhodes. Best known outside Italy as the women who goes missing in Antonioni's L'avventura.

McSorley's. A Manhattan public house, established 1854 by John McSorley, and featured in OUATIA (the roll-the-drunk scene). Today, it is a meeting place for Leoneasts and tourists. Two kinds of beer are served on the premises, and the home entertainment versions are called Irish Pale Ale and Irish Black Lager. The brewery is in Utica, N.Y. In 2017 a memoir by the son of the current owner was published.

melancholy A tone found in later films by SL, not apparent in his earlier work. In his final trilogy, SL introduces a sense of longing for a vanished past. OUATITW is about the Death of the American west; DYS features the loss of an edenic Ireland; OUATIA concerns itself with the non-endurance of youthful friendships.

Menage a trois. In DYS, Mallory and Nolan seem to share the affections of a colleen in the flashbacks to Ireland. The symbol (along with the verdure) of  prelapsarian bliss.

Mendizabal, Sergio. Tucumcari bank manager in FAFDM, Confederate recruiter in the deleted Socorro sequence in GBU.

Meniconi, Mario. Train conductor in FAFDM.

Mesa Verde. The town in which Juan Miranda in DYS intends to rob the bank. The words literally translated into English mean "Green Table," hence the appearance of that title on US soundtrack cues.

Milchan, Arnon. Producer of OUATIA, made a cameo as a chauffeur.

Millard, Joe. Author of the FAFDM and GBU novelizations, also other novelizations, and original adventures based on the GBU characters: http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=5880.0

Miranda, Juan. Mexican bandit who befriends Mallory in DYS and inadvertently becomes “a grand, glorious hero of the revolution.”

mirrors.In OUATITW, Jill relies on them . . . as does Leone.

Monco or il Monco, also sometimes Manco (Clint Eastwood). The young bounty hunter in FAFDM. His name apparently means One Arm, and although he has two, throughout the film he favors his right, which is the one he shoots with. He frequently wears a leather gauntlet on it, presumably to protect his arm when quickdrawing.

Montreal as New York, for some exteriors, in OUATIA.

Monument Valley. Iconic location used by John Ford in several films, it has a cameo in OUATITW.

Morricone, Ennio. The most successful film composer in history, responsible for all of SL’s film scores and hundreds others.

Morsella, Fulvio. Producer and Carla Leone’s brother-in-law. Introduced the novel The Hoods to SL by reading it to him.

Mortimer, Col. Douglas (Lee Van Cleef).

Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti). The railroad baron dying of “tuberculosis of the bones” in OUATITW. The name, of course, contains mort, the French word for death.

Muloch, Al. A one-armed bounty hunter in GBU, one of the three killers (Knuckles) waiting for the train at the beginning of OUATITW (the guy hung up on the birdcage). Muloch’s craggy face is the first to be thrust into the frame at the beginning of GBU. Even as the OUATITW scene was being shot, Muloch committed suicide by jumping out of his hotel room window. SL had to make do with the footage on him he already had.

Murder Inc. (film).

My Darling Clementine (John Ford). The Earp brothers saga according to Ford, with Henry Fonda as Wyatt. Leone took several touches from this for his own Westerns, notably the use of dusters. The climactic shoot out at the OK Corral unfolds with sound effects but no music, undoubtedly a precursor to the opening sequence in OUATITW.

“My Kingdom” (song). Future Sound of London 1996 single featuring a sample of the pan flute from "Cockeye’s Song."

My Name is Nobody (Tonino Valerii). Presented by SL, produced by SL (uncredited) from an idea by SL, a Tonino Valerii film.

[dave jenkins]

The Naked Spur (Anthony Mann). Western about an obsessed bounty hunter played by Jimmy Stewart.

Nannuzzi, Armando. Cinematographer for MNIN (excluding Spanish locations).

Natale, Nazzareno. Paco (Indio gang member) in FAFDM (uncredited), and a Mexican bounty hunter in GBU (uncredited).

Navajo Indians. SL's favorite tribe, apparently, as they are present in both OUATITW and MNIN.

Neorealismo/Italian neorealism. A film movement that emerged at the end of WWII that featured proletarian subjects and eschewed studio productions for the authenticity of real locations (for practical reasons, also--they were cheaper to film). Early practitioners included Rossellini, Visconti, and De Sica; SL worked as an unpaid fifth assistant on one of the most famous of these (and even has a cameo in it), De Sica's Bicycle Thieves. Although paying lip service to the movement, SL developed a personal filmmaking style that could be described as "hyper-realism," or "ultra-realism," the very opposite of neorealismo.

New Mexico Campaign. A military operation of the American Civil War from February-March 1862 in which the Confederate Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley invaded the northern New Mexico Territory in an attempt to gain control of the southwest, including the gold fields of Colorado and the ports of California. The victorious Union forces were led by Colonel Edward Canby. The campaign is regarded by historians as the most ambitious attempt by the Confederates to establish control of the West, and to open an additional theater in the war. The campaign is part of the backdrop of early events in GBU.

New Orleans. Setting and location for portions of MNIN. Also the city where Jill worked as a prostitute prior to her marriage to Brett McBain.

New York, New York. Setting for OUATIA. Although some exteriors were filmed in Montreal and on the Cinecitta backlot, a surprising amount of the film was shot on NYC locations: http://msb247.awardspace.com/contents.htm

NYT's Obit. On his death, SL got a thorough write up in the New York Times: http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=7434.0 Listing his survivors at the end, the "paper of record" got the gender of Leone's third child wrong.

Nino (Mario Brega). Indio's lieutenant in FAFDM. Indio treats him with special deference, possibly indicating they have a blood tie.

Nobody (Terrence Hill). Lead in MNIN. The name is a hold-over from an earlier conception of the film about a kind of Odysseus figure who traveled around the West. In The Odyssey, Odysseus adopts the name Nobody (or No-man) to confuse the cyclops Polyphemus.

Nobodys the Greatest (Un Genio, due Compari, un Pollo). Disappointing sequel to MNIN.

Nolan (David Warbeck). Mallorys friend in the flashbacks to Ireland in DYS. Believed by some to be Sean Nolan (see Sean, Sean, Sean).Considerable speculation has been devoted to the reason for Nolans betrayal of Mallory and the Irish cause. A prior betrayal of Nolan by Mallory has been suggested (perhaps over the girl in their menage a trios), but there is no warrant for such an idea in the film. A simpler explanation is at hand, however: from the marks on his face, we know that Nolan has been tortured. Dr. Viellga, who also betrays his comrades, makes the point that people need no other motivation to turn traitor. Another question arises over the reason for the nod he gives to Mallory in the pub scene. Is he acquiescing in Mallory's act of vengeance? If so, he would not be the first or last character in a Leone movie to seek his own death. Support for this idea is provided by Warbeck himself: http://wconnolly.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/david-warbeck-acting-without-words-on.html
 
Novi, Angelo. Stills photographer turned Monk for GBU. Also appeared in MNIN.

Oasis de Rambla Viciana, Tabernas, Almeria. Location used for the scene where Indio and gang tries in vain to open the safe after the El Paso bank job. The palm trees there are not native, but were accidentally seeded by the props department when they imported trees for the Oasis scene in Lawrence of Arabia.

Once Upon a Time in America (1984). SLs seventh and final feature film, the third photographed by Deli Coli.

Once Upon a Time in America, Chronological version. The 144-minute cut of the film with the flashback structure removed. According to Frayling, this version "began with Deborah's dance in 1923, removed some of the childhood escapades with the gang, as well as all of Deborah's 1968 scenes, had characters cropping up without explanation, dubbed in a few explanatory lines, and ended with a gunshot on the soundtrack as Senator Bailey unambiguously committed suicide. The telephone rang only once." (461)

Once Upon a Time in America, Television version. A longer cut of the film intended for Italian television, never completed. According to interviews, Leone envisioned the TV version to run 4 hours and 30 minutes.

The OUATIA writers. The development of the screenplay was quite complex; an attempt to unravel its many strands begins here: http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=4593.0

Once Upon a Time: Sergio Leone (55 min.) A documentary commissioned by FilmFour that was first broadcast in 2000. A portion appears on the OUATIA DVD but the complete version is available on Youtube.

Once Upon a Time . . .the Revolution. Alternate title for Giu la testa.

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). SL’s fifth feature film, sometimes considered a “meta-Western” because of its appropriation of elements from as many as thirty American Westerns. Differences between the Italian cut and the so-called International version are detailed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4SfvaWt07k
The history of the different cuts of the film prepared for U.S. release is here: https://imgur.com/a/2DqWW

Once Upon a Time. . . trilogy. Supposed grouping of OUATITW, DYS (aka Once Upon a Time . . . the Revolution), and OUATIA together. There is evidence that Leone himself supported the notion as early as the completion of DYS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgramxuvfVo at the 0:54 mark). However, other than the title, OUATITW has little in common with the films that followed. DYS and OUATIA brilliantly fulfill genre tropes, while OUATITW is a trenchant example of Postmodernism. Both DYS and OUATIA share a theme (male friendship and betrayal and their consequences) and these could form a unit with GBU which also includes such a theme, although it's presented humorously there.


Papadopolous, Panos. Sancho Perez in FAFDM.

Papi and Columbo. Poverty-row producers of AFOD, they financed Leone's film by piggy-backing it on another of their productions, Bullets don't argue/Le pistole non discutono.

Pastures of Plenty (Woody Guthrie). Inspiration for the titoli of FOD.

Peckinpah, Sam. SL offered him the opportunity to direct Giu la testa but he turned it down. Despite some rumors, they were friends rather than enemies. SL claimed that Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch wouldn't have been possible without the Dollars films. Jokey references to Peckinpah and his films found their way into MNIN.

peplum films. Also known as sword & sandal pictures, these are movies set in the ancient world. SLs first film, The Colossus of Rhodes, is an example.

Perez Giner, Jose Antonio. Production designer for GBU. May have suggested the location for Sad Hill as he had worked there on an earlier film.

Pesci, Joe. Frankie Minaldi in OUATIA. Pesci went on to become identified with gangster roles, particularly in Martin Scorsese's pictures (Goodfellas, Casino).

Petito, Enzo. Shopkeeper in GBU.

Pistilli, Luigi (1929-1996). Groggy in FAFDM, Father Pablo Ramirez in GBU. A prolific actor of Italian stage and screen (both large and small), Pistilli took his own life at age 66.

A Place Only Mary Knows (projected film).

Plaza de Toros, Almeria. Location used in FAFDM for Indio's prison break.

Poncho. Eastwood wears one in all the Dollar films. Proof that it is the same poncho is established here: http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=2360.0 The fact that it is the same poncho lends credence to the idea that the films make a linked narrative (Blondie finds the poncho beside the dying Confederate soldier near the end of GBU, which is correct chronologically; although shot last, GBU portrays events which must precede those depicted in the other two films).

Postmodernism.A literary approach to texts (which includes films) that foregrounds artifice and treats it as a subject of study. Famously, Jean Baudrillard called SL "'the first post-modernist director'--the first to understand the hall of mirrors within the contemporary 'culture of quotations.'" (Frayling 492). OUATITW, with its many quotations from famous and not-so-famous Westerns, can be considered a particularly postmodern work.

Post-synchronization. Adding dialog to a film after principle photography is done, the standard practice of the Italian film industry in the 1960s.

Prieto Puerto, Antonio (1914-1965). Spanish actor who played Don Miguel Rojo in FoD. Not to be confused with the Chilean singer-actor Antonio Prieto.

Produzioni Europee Associati (PEA). Italian production company that provided some of the funding for FAFDM and GBU (together with their German and Spanish partners).


Pursued (film). A Noir Western. The device of a flashback of an incomplete childhood memory was later reused in Death Rides a Horse.

[dave jenkins]

The Quiet Man (John Ford). John Wayne goes to Ireland and courts Maureen O’Hara. Wayne plays a fighter who retired after killing a man in the ring. In a highly stylized flashback, we see the tragic event enacted. The techniques of the flashback were later employed by SL for the final flashback in OUATITW. The film’s setting was also the inspiration for some of the Irish flashbacks in DYS.

Quo Vadis? (1954).

Rafran Cinematografica. SL’s production company, an acronym derived from the names of his children (Raffaella, Francesca, Andrea).

Rancho Notorious (film).

Rapp, Larry. Moe Gelly in OUATIA. Suggested for the part after Joe Pesci worked with him in Dear Mr. Wonderful (1982). Outside a couple uncredited film appearances and a role in another Pesci project, Half Nelson (1985), for TV, Rapp has subsequently had no film career.

Rassimov, Rada. Maria, “a fresh young whore in the territory” in GBU.

Red Harvest (1929). A novel by Dashiell Hammet, considered by some the source for Yojimbo (thus, indirectly, the source for FoD also).

Red River (Howard Hawks). A film about a cattle drive from Texas to Abilene, Kansas. A kind of Mutiny On the Bounty on land, the film stars John Wayne in the Captain Bligh role opposite Montgomery Clift’s Mr. Christian. Notable for an atypically dark performance by Wayne. There is a moment in the film when Clift slides a lantern across a darkened room to dramatically reveal Joann Dru’s face, an effect later used by Leone--when Cheyenne first confronts Harmonica-- in OUATITW.

Religious imagery.

Revenge. A constant in SL’s films. It is the motivation for Mortimer in FAFDM, Harmonica in OUATITW. It is, however, repudiated by Firecracker in DYS, and Max's attempt to incite it in Noodles in OUATIA is ineffectual.

Ride the High Country (1962). A film by Sam Peckinpah that teamed Joel McCrae with Randolph Scott as a pair of aging gunmen no longer at home in a changing West. This theme, common to many Westerns, would recur in OUATITW and MNIN.

Ride Lonesome (1959). A Budd Boetticher Western starring Randolph Scott. Boetticher's inventive use of Cinemascope framing was undoubtedly an influence on SL--as was the casting of Lee Van Cleef as the baddie.

Rio Bravo (film). Howard Hawks' riposte to High Noon. It probably played a large role in the gestation of SL's Dollars pictures. Poster Leonardo writes:

Rio Bravo was released in Italy under the title "Un dollaro d'onore" late 1959 and it was a massive hit here. To the best of my knowledge, there was no other movie released in Italy after WW2  with the word dollar in the title which had such a great success as "Un dollaro d'onore".
So my bet is that whoever changed the title  from "The magnificent stranger" to "FOD",  must have thought about "Un dollaro d'onore". Last but not least, don't forget that Leone when discussing the soundtrack for FOD with Ennio, asked him to create a trumpet sound similar to the deguello in "Un dollaro d'onore" and "The Alamo" (score by Dimitri Tiomkin).

rivers. The one Tuco and Blondie cross in GBU may have mythic associations (the Styx, Jordan, et. al.)

Robards, Jason. Cheyenne in OUATITW.
 
Robertson, Bob. AKA for Sergio Leone.

Robledo, Lorenzo. Tamaso in FAFDM, Angel Eyes’ gang member in GBU, member of Cheyenne’s gang in OUATITW.

Rodriguez, Luis. Member of Indio's gang in FAFDM.

Rojo, Antonio Molino. Rojo gang member in FoD, Indio gang member in FAFDM, Captain Harper in GBU.

Rojo family.

Ruiz, Antonio. Fernando in FAFDM (uncredited), Stevens’ youngest son in GBU.

Run of the Arrow (film). Charles Bronson plays a mute Indian boy who communicates by playing his harmonica. A possible inspiration for the character Harmonica in OUATITW.

Rupp, Sieghardt. Esteban Rojo in FoD.

Ruzzolini, Giuseppe (b. 1930). Cinematographer on DYS and Spanish locations for MNIN. A veteran of Pasolini’s films.

Sad Hill Cemetery. Blondie and Tuco's destination in GBU. Designed by Carlo Simi, it was built in its entirety on location in Burgos, Spain.

Sad Hill Unearthed 2017 documentary about the work done on Sad Hill to restore it to past glory. Includes testimonial interviews with Eastwood and other creators present during the shooting of GBU; also comments by Leone scholars such as Frayling and Hanley.

Salerno, Enrico Maria. Italian actor often cast as an official or police inspector--he was Inspector Morosini in Bird With the Crystal Plumage--who provided Clint Eastwood's voice for the Italian dubs of the Dollars films.

Salizzato, Claver. From 1990-92 restored footage to the Italian cut of OUATITW, bringing the film's running time up to 175 minutes.

Salvati, Sergio. Asst. cameraman on GBU, 2nd Unit DoP on Nobody. Oversaw the 2014 restoration of GBU and so is responsible for its "yellowed" look.

Sambrell, Aldo. Rojo gang member in FoD; Cuccillo (“Knife”), a member of Indio’s gang, in FAFDM, Angel Eyes’ gang member in GBU, and Cheyenne’s lieutenant in OUATITW (“Two tickets, amigo, to the next station. One way only.”)

Santaniello, Simonetta  Maureen McBain in OUATITW. The actress made only two other movies.

Santi, Giancarlo. Best known for directing The Grand Duel, Santi also served as assistant director to Sergio Leone on GBU, OUATITW, and DYS. Before SL agreed to direct DYS, he had intended to produce the picture with Santi directing. Frayling reports that principal photography had begun before protests from Steiger and Coburn forced SL to make the change, but a 2007 interview conducted with Santi by John Exshaw (http://www.cinemaretro.com/index.php?/categories/30-John-Exshaw) revealed that Santi had been unaware of SLs intentions, had arrived on set expecting to be Leone's assistant, and only learned about the original plan later.

Scarchilli, Claudio. Bounty hunter in GBU.

Scarchilli, Sandro. Deputy in GBU.

Scorsese Restoration of OUATITW. Represented currently on Blu-ray in the U.S.

[dave jenkins]

Schickel, Richard. http://www.richardschickel.com/

Schutzman, Scott. See Scott Tiler.

The Searchers (John Ford). Well regarded John Wayne vehicle shot largely in Monument Valley. Elements of the massacre of the farm family later found their way into the massacre of the family in OUATITW.

“Sean, Sean, Sean.” Refrain sung in the DYS theme, a suggestion of Carla Leone’s. Some feel that the name refers to Mallory’s Irish friend, called Nolan in the script. This seems lless persuasive than the idea that Coburn is actually Sean. The many references in the film to Coburn as John are easily explained, as John is the anglicized form of Sean. For example, the newspaper article that identifies Coburn's character as John Mallory may have had an editorial policy to render all Irish names as English ones. Or Sean may have even used John as an alias while on the run. Clearly, Sean uses John with Juan because he knows the peasant will be more familiar with that form of the name. The crucial fact regarding this matter is the lyric added to the music by Carla Leone: "Sean, Sean, Sean." If we did not have SL's other movies, and had only DYS to go by, we might possibly be tempted to imagine that these words refer to the dead friend. But we do have the other movies, and so know that Leone NEVER used music in this way. By the time of OUATITW, SL (in collaboration with Morricone) had developed a fairly consistent approach to film scoring, one that borrowed from operatic techniques. Specifically, he assigned leitmotifs to each of the major characters in his Once Upon a Time trilogy. This is easily seen in OUATITW, where Jill, Cheyenne, and even Morton get their own themes. Harmonica and Frank share a theme, or rather, both are identified by complementary phrases that combine to form a single theme that is only revealed in its entirety at the final gundown. In DYS the two main characters certainly get their themes: Juan gets the one that is sometimes called (by Frayling) "The March of the Beggars." The character played by Coburn gets the "Sean, Sean, Sean" theme. That is HIS theme, and it always plays when he is present on screen or just about to appear (there are two exceptions, the first at the very beginning of the film where the motif serves as foreshadowing, the second at the end after the explosion as a kind of memorial for the dearly departed). This theme is not restricted to thoughts of Ireland, or of the dead friend. The music is always with Coburn whatever he is doing or thinking. It is, in fact, an element of his character. So it is unlikely that a dead character who we only see in flashback is the focus of one of the two major musical motifs of the picture. It seems more logical that the motif should be seen as applying to Coburn, and that it is referring to him by name. That having been said, it makes sense that John/Sean's friend might also be called Sean ("They Shared a Revolution, A Woman . . . And a Name!") for the reasons stated above. There is an obvious parallel between the two revolutions and the two friendships, and that parallel is reinforced if the first friendship is between Sean and Sean and the second between John and John. And since Sean and John are variants of the same name (as are Jean, Jan, Johan et. al.) the secret title of DYS could be "My Three Seans." That would mean that the "Sean, Sean, Sean" lyric is not referring to any one person: the repetition actually names each of three characters in turn. And Morricone's score supports this: after the Mesa Verde job, which ends with a complete presentation of "The March of the Beggars" theme, that theme almost disappears from the movie (it recurs once after Juan has killed Governor Jamie). Instead, Juan begins to be associated with the more melancholy passage from the main DYS theme. It is the main DYS theme that contains (elsewhere) the "Sean, Sean, Sean" motif, so John and Juan become musically connected. One more thought on the Sean/John issue: the use of the dual names may be yet another tip of the hat to John Ford, who claimed to have been born Sean O'Feeney, and took on a new identity after traveling a considerable distance from the place of his birth (Portland, ME). The change of "Sean" to "John" is therefore a venerable American film tradition, one SL was aware of.

Sentenza. The name for Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef) in the Italian version of GBU.

Shane (film). SL quotes from the film in OUATITW (the deer stalking scene).

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford). John Wayne cavalry picture, about an officer’s last week before retirement. The film opens with a runaway coach: troopers pull it to a halt and find a dead paymaster aboard and the paybox missing. This was possibly the inspiration for the Carriage of the Spirits sequence in GBU.

Sibley. Confederate officer responsible for the failure of the New Mexico campaign, due to his drinking, some say. In GBU he is glimpsed on a wagon in a troop column moving through a town.

Sierra Alhamilla, Tabernas, Almeria. Location with a hump-like feature where Mortimer wounds Manco in AFDM. Reappears in GBU when Tuco is tracking Blondie.

Simi, Carlo. Production designer on all SL’s films (except DYS, for which he was unavailable), he played the El Paso bank manager in FAFDM. He also designed the costumes on all the films on which he was production designer, with the exception of OUATIA.

The smile at the end of OUATIA. Mysterious, no?

The Socorro sequence in GBU. A scene that was scripted and shot, but never appeared in any print of the film (and is, according to producer Grimaldi, lost forever). It begins with a Confederate spokesman standing on a train platform speaking for the south.

 Meanwhile, Blondie is in bed with a girl (Silvana Bacci), a shot that survives in a famous still (above). Tuco emerges from the station, begins passing the hat, ostensibly for the Confederate cause, but actually to extort money from the townspeople. He places the money in his sombrero and leaves it on the platform, knowing no one will dare touch it. He interrogates a bartender about Blondie's whereabouts. Meanwhile, while Blondie escapes, Blondie's girl takes the money from Tuco's hat and replaces it with one of Blondie's trademark cigars. When Tuco realises what has happened he stubs the cigar out on the bartender's arm. This sequence would have come after AE's visit to the Confederate fort and before the Tuco-tracking-Blondie sequence starts.

Sodom and Gomorrah (Robert Aldrich). American peplum picture SL worked on as second-unit director in 1961. According to Glen Erickson: 

In some reference sources, Italian Sergio Leone was erroneously listed as a co-director of The Last Days of Sodom and Gomorrah. According to interviewer Pierre Sauvage's account in Alain Silver and James Ursini's book What Ever Happened to Robert Aldrich? Leone was an assistant director only briefly. Aldrich visited the second unit, found nothing happening and Leone "loafing", and fired him on the spot. Although Leone was known to embellish his accomplishments to interviewers, so did most everyone else in movies...

Something To Do With Death (2000). Christopher Frayling's biography of SL, it also serves as a series of production histories for each of Leone's films. At 494 pages (570 with Notes, Filmography, and Index) it is the most comprehensive work on Leone in English.

Spaghetti Westerns. Once a derogatory reference to Westerns produced in Italy (that were in fact shot largely in Spain), now a helpful genre marker for a series of Euro-Westerns produced between 1963 and 1977(?). Although SL did not pioneer the trend, he made it enormously popular with the release of Per un Pugno di Dollari in 1964. By the time the series had run its course, more than 300 films had been produced. Known as Macaroni Westerns in Japan.

Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod (1968) Leone, but in the language of Heine and Rilke. Wo ist Frank?/ Frank hatte keine Zeit./ Habt ihr ein Pferd fur mich?/ Sieht aus, als ob wir ein Pferd zu wenig hatten./ Ihr habt zwei zu viel. Suddenly everything is elevated: it's the Twilight of the Archetypes. Yes, there are intimations of Wagner. The arias may be stared, but Morricone's leitmotifs get the full orchestral treatment. Not ponderous, the film nonetheless allows us time to ponder the eternal verities. What matters in the end: Das Land, das Geld, die Frau? No. Leone, the poet-philosopher of cinema, posits instead: Ewigkeit.

Staenburg, Zach. Editor who assembled the 144-minute chronological cut of OUATIA.

Stagecoach (1939, John Ford). John Wayne action spectacular that set the mold for all the Westerns that followed. Sometimes called Grand Hotel on wheels, it has the added attraction of pursuing Indians and a gunfight at the end. Great shakes in its day, the film appears dated now.

Stander, Lionel. Trading post proprietor in OUATITW.

Stefanelli, Benito. Rubio in FoD, Yuri/Huey (Indio gang member) in FAFDM, Angel Eyes’ gang member in GBU, Frank’s lieutenant in OUATITW, barfly in MNIN.

Steiger, Rod. Juan Miranda in DYS. The first SL actor to use direct sound, rather than postsynchronization, for (at least some of) his line readings. Reportedly modeled Juan’s habit of making fists when excited on a habit of Leone's.

Stoppa, Paolo(1906-1988). Sam in OUATITW, he gives Jill a lift out to Sweetwater. A veteran of over 150 Italian films, he played Claudia Cardinale's father in The Leopard.

[dave jenkins]

“The Story of a Soldier”(song). Sung during the Betterville Camp sequence in GBU (Music by Ennio Morricone, Lyrics by Tommie Connor):

Bugles are calling from prairie to shore,
Sign up and ‘fall in’ and march off to war;
Drums beating loudly, hearts beating proudly
March blue and gray and smile as you go.

Smoke hides the valleys and fire paints the plains,
Loud roar the cannons ‘till ruin remains;
Blue grass and cotton burnt and forgotten
All hope seems gone so, soldier, march on to die.

Count all the crosses and count all the tears,
These are the losses and sad souvenirs;
This devastation once was a nation
So fall the dice, how high is the price….

There in the distance a flag I can see,
Scorched and in ribbons but whose can it be;
How ends the story, whose is the glory,
Ask if we dare our comrades out there who sleep.

Count all the crosses and count all the tears,
These are the losses and sad souvenirs;
This devastation once was a nation
So fall the dice, how high is the price … we pay.

Strode,Woody. African-American actor who plays one of the killers (Stony) waiting for the train at the beginning of OUATITW. No doubt he owes his casting to his presence in a number of John Ford films (particularly Sgt Rutledge).

Sweetwater. A city in Utah and the name of Brett McBain’s projected town in OUATITW. Also the name of towns in two Westerns that antedated SL’s film, including Michael Curtiz’s Comancheros.

Tabernas, near Almeria, Spain.

Taco, New Mexico. Navajo village used for scenes in MNIN.

Taxi . . . Signore? (1953) Ten minute short made by SL.

Techinscope. The widescreen format all SL's Westerns were composed for. "Techniscope was a development of the Technicolor Corporation. The purpose of the system was to provide the most economical use of the camera negative. . . . " http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingts1.htm

Terrón, José. Guy Calloway in FAFDM, Thomas "Shorty" Larson in GBU. Ferret-faced actor with hideous teeth.

Testi, Fabio. One of Frank’s gang members at the auction in OUATITW.

Three Godfathers (John Ford). Inspiration for GBU, not only the desert scenes but also for some elements of Tuco's costume.

3:10 To Yuma (Delmer Daves). A film starring Van Heflin and Glenn Ford. A number of devices in the film were later used by SL in his films, especially in OUATITW.

Tiler, Scott. Young Noodles in OUATIA.

Timepieces. Clocks and watches often serve important functions in Leone's narratives. The pocketwatch in FAFDM, for example, serves to link Mortimer with El Indio, but also sometimes cues flashbacks. In OUATITW, the clock at Flagstone station not only gives the local time, it also heralds a time jump of two hours and 15 minutes. Later, a clock without hands will suggest that the men in the protracted duel with Frank have run out of time. And finally in OUATIA timepieces are used to signal period shifts, but also, in the case of re-winding the old clock that has ceased running for years, that time is moving again.

The Tin Star (film). A film starring Henry Fonda as an experienced lawman who takes a fledgling sheriff (Anthony Perkins) under his wing. At the film’s climax, Fonda uses a shotgun to oversea a duel between Perkins and the villain (Neville Brand). This scene perhaps inspired the ending of FAFDM.

Toners Pub in Baggot Street, Dublin. Location for pub scenes in DYS.

Torre de los Alumbres, Almeria. Exterior for the church where Indio's gang meet in FAFDM. Also the tower containing soldiers killed when Firecracker destroys it in DYS.

“The Trio”/ “il Triello” (Ennio Morricone). The music for the final three-way duel at the end of GBU. Not only the musical climax of the picture, it sums up the Dollars pictures as a whole, incorporating the deguello first used in FoD and reprised in FAFDM. Oddly enough, most soundtrack albums do not include the complete track as heard in the film.

Tuco (Eli Wallach). The “Ugly” in GBU. Full name: Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez. Also known as The Rat, at least in the English-language version; in the Italian dub his AKA is The Pig. Tuco is the most developed character in GBU, the only one of the three major roles to have anything like a backstory.

Tuco’s list of crimes. In fact, there are two lists. The first: “The condemned is found guilty of the crimes of murder, armed robbery of citizens, state banks, and post offices, the theft of sacred objects, arson in a state prison, perjury, bigamy, deserting his wife and children, inciting prostitution, kidnapping, extortion, receiving stolen goods, selling stolen goods, passing counterfeit money and, contrary to the laws of this state, the condemned is guilty of using marked cards and loaded dice.” The second includes but is not limited to:
•   murder
•   assaulting a justice of the peace
•   raping a virgin of the white race
•   statutory rape of a minor of the black race
•   derailing a train in order to rob the passengers
•   bank robbery
•   highway robbery
•   robbing an unknown number of post offices
•   breaking out of ….
•   promoting prostitution
•   counterfeiting and passing….
•   marked cards, loaded dice
•   illegal postal pickups
•   detention and selling of fugitive slaves
•   …and the sheriff’s office in Sonora
•   The condemned hired himself out as a guide to a wagon train. After receiving his payment in advance he deserted the wagon train on the hunting grounds of the Sioux Indians.
•   …supply Indians….
•   Throwing the pilot overboard
•   Misrepresenting himself as a Mexican general in order to draw a salary and living allowance from the Union army.

Tucumcari, New Mexico. A city in the American southwest. This is the town in which Col. Mortimer kills the fugitive Guy Calloway at the beginning of FAFDM.

The Two Magnificent Tramps. See I Due Magnifici Straccioni.

UA Logo. The Dollars trilogy films were distributed in the U.S. by United Artists. Was the UA logo applied to each release on their original theatrical runs? And if so, which one? Join the discussion and choose from this list: http://www.closinglogos.com/page/United+Artists

Unforgiven. 1992 Clint Eastwood Western partaking (slightly) of the style of SL (the English Bob digression is somewhat Leonine). Famously, the film ends with the title "For Don and Sergio," a dedication to Don Siegel and SL, the two filmmakers who can be said to have mentored Eastwood as a director. NB: The 1960 Western by John Huston titled The Unforgiven, starring Burt Lancaster and Audrey Hepburn, is not related.