Great thread Mista Kudu.Greatkudu wrote: ↑05 Dec 2020, 13:30 I am a big film buff, but have a real passion for Westerns, I love the classics with The Duke etc, but also the Spaghetti Western to pioneered by the late great Sergio Leone, Fist Full of Dollars was a game changer with Clint being an anti hero, not good or bad but in between, my Fave at the moment is probably Pale Rider a fucking sublime piece of work, Westerns or films do not get much better than that IMHO. Rowdy kudu.
All the Clint Eastwood/Sergio Leone/Ennio Morricone ones, a perfect combination. Never beaten (IMHO)
Since a kid Clint’s been one of my fave actors (certainly not the best but he’s just so f’in cool) along with one of my fave Soundtrack composers - Mr Morricone. Sergio Leone ain’t a bad director either!
Let’s not forget Sergio’s ‘Once Upon A Time In The West’, an incredibly beautiful directed piece of art with another gorgeous soundtrack from Ennio.
Along with the Dollars Trilogy of Westerns - A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) one of the finest IMHO.
Ennio had recorded the soundtrack before Sergio directed the film and Sergio built his film around Ennio’s soundtrack.
The first music vid?
Wikipedia-
“The music was written by composer Ennio Morricone, Leone's regular collaborator, who wrote the score under Leone's direction before filming began. As in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the haunting music contributes to the film's grandeur, and like the music for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, is considered one of Morricone's greatest compositions.
The film features leitmotifs that relate to each of the main characters (with their own theme music), as well as to the spirit of the American West. Especially compelling are the wordless vocals by Italian singer Edda Dell'Orso during the theme music for the Claudia Cardinale character. Leone's desire was to have the music available and played during filming. Leone had Morricone compose the score before shooting started, and played the music in the background for the actors on set.
Except for about a minute of the "Judgment" motif, before Harmonica kills the three outlaws, no soundtrack music is played until the end of the second scene, when Fonda makes his first entry. During the beginning of the film, Leone instead uses a number of natural sounds, for instance, a turning wheel in the wind, sound of a train, grasshoppers, shotguns while hunting, wings of pigeons, etc., in addition to the diegetic sound of the harmonica”
Gotta mention Alan Ladd & Jack Palance in Shane too, it always brings a tear to my eye that film at the end, “Shane, come back!, come back Shane!”. just so wonderful and the guns in that - wow, when they go off, sound like canons!