Spaghetti Westerns: 0 - Tapa blanda

"A deftly written collection of essays, full of fascinating insight, this will be a must for fellow travellers on the sagebrush trail." --Film Review on Stagecoach to Tombstone

"A well-researched, detailed, no-nonsense and above all enthusiastic guide . . . He has aimed for the heart, and unlike the bad guy in Fistful, he has hit it." --Christopher Frayling, author, Spaghetti Westerns, on Once Upon a Time in the Italian West

"Howard's take on these films is consistently fresh and intelligent . . . an excellent read." --Alex Cox, filmmaker, on Crime Wave

They are tough. They are mean. They are the fastest, coolest gunslingers of the 1960s, and they don't talk much. They are the heroes of the Italian Spaghetti West and they changed the Western forever. Clint Eastwood's poncho-clad, cigar smoking Man With No Name is the enduring symbol of the genre and his Dollars trilogy with Sergio Leone reinvented action cinema, adding a European freshness to the time-worn Western myths. But Leone and Eastwood weren't the only hombres to saddle-up and head west, and this guide rounds-up and reviews the best of a very wild bunch, including perennial cult classics Django, The Big Gundown, Django Kill, and They Call Me Trinity. He also charts the Spaghetti Western careers of actors like Lee Van Cleef, Terence Hill, and Klaus Kinski as they rode the trail to international success. As well as an introduction to the genre, 31 of the best Spaghetti Westerns are analyzed in detail and there is a comprehensive multi-media reference section.