Archives
Claudia Cardinale in Almería
In Sergio Leone’s epic ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ (1968), Jill McBain (Claudia Cardinale) arrives at Sweetwater Ranch after a long journey by train and horse-drawn carriage through the Western landscape (including some shots of Monument Valley). She plans to join her new husband and his children, but […]
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Alex Cox’s Last Movie in Almeria 1
Alex Cox is currently at work on what he is calling his ‘last movie.’ And, of course, it involves shooting in Almería. Last month I had the extraordinary opportunity to visit the set.
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Nelson Algren and Simone De Beauvoir’s Road Trip Through Franco’s Spain
Only a handful of photographs exist of Simone de Beauvoir and Nelson Algren together from a love affair that persisted, mostly across the Atlantic ocean, for over a decade. Possibly the last photograph of them together is from a visit to Spain in May 1960. In the photograph, they stand […]
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Spartacus: Between Spain and Hollywood
Spartacus was supposed to be filmed entirely in California. By 1960 there was growing alarm about the impact of “runaway” productions, which sought to cut costs by filming overseas, on Hollywood. Edward Muhl, longtime production director for Universal Studios, which was financing Spartacus, sought to demonstrate that an epic film […]
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The Attack on Aqaba 1
“In May 1962, an isolated beach on the barren southeastern coast of Spain suddenly bustled with activity. Hundreds of local farm hands had been hired to construct a replica of the Red Sea port of Aqaba, circa 1917. It took them three months to build over 300 false front buildings. […]
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El Condor
Originally an elaborate fortress constructed in 1969 for the film El Condor, this site was reused over the years for a variety of films, usually involving lots of dynamite. Titles include Blindman (1971) —with Ringo Starr as a love-struck Mexican thief—A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die (1972), Get […]
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Solarbabies and the Denver Mine
The surviving structures of the Denver mining plant hang precariously off the hillside above the town of Rodalquilar, inside the Cabo de Gata Natural Park. When the mine was constructed during the 1950s, it was believed there were vast gold deposits hidden under ground. But the state-sponsored enterprise failed to […]
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Cortijo del Fraile
Federico Garcia Lorca based his play Blood Wedding on actual events that occurred in 1928. The ill-fated wedding was to take place at the Cortijo where the bride lived with her father. Hours before the wedding, she attempted to elope with her cousin instead, but he was shot and killed […]
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Mini-Hollywood
Following the success of A Fistful of Dollars (1964), Sergio Leone commissioned Carlo Simi to construct an entire western town for the second title in the trilogy, For a Few Dollars More. Two rival bounty hunters, (Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef), both in pursuit of the fugitive El Indio, […]
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The Saloon in ‘Straight to Hell’
“Nothing remains but a fragment of the back wall and some wooden beams. But thirty years ago, when we went STRAIGHT TO HELL, this was our saloon where Strummer snarled at Courtney Love, and Sy Richardson and Dick Rude gunned down the Weiner Kid, and Grace Jones barred Dennis Hopper […]
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