Once Upon a Time in the Italian West

Subtitled "The Filmgoers Guide to Spaghetti Westerns" this new volume by Howard Hughes, author of the useful Spaghetti Westerns 'Pocket Essentials' volume, takes a chronological view of the genre, devoting a chapter to 20 different films from 1964's A Fistful of Dollars – the film that broke the Italian western on the international market, while establishing Sergio Leone as its foremost practitioner – to 1973's My Name is Nobody – directed by Leone's former assistant Tonino Valerii and offering a wistful farewell to the form.

Besides Leone and Valerii, futher represented by the other films of the Dollars trilogy and Day of Anger respectively, other film-makers featured include the prolific Sergio Corbucci, with no fewer than five entries (Django, Navajo Joe, The Hellbenders, The Great Silence and The Mercenary), Sergio Sollima and Duccio Tessari with two each (The Big Gundown and Face to Face for the former, A Pistol for Ringo and The Return of Ringo for the latter) and an assortment of entries from Carlo Lizzani (The Hills Run Red), Damiano Damiani (A Bullet for the General), Giulio Questi (Django Kill), Giulio Petroni (Death Rides A Horse), Gianfranco Parolini (Sabata) and Enzo Barboni (They Call Me Trinity).

It's a decent selection, with only a few notable omissions. One assumes, for instance, that Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West wasn't included because it's a great western rather than merely a great Italian western while the exlcusion of Giu La Testa – which Hughes is less favourable towards – is arguably justifiable on grounds of its being a post-western, set in 20th century Mexico and devoid of cowboys.

The format for each chapter/film is broadly the same: A concise credits list (inlcuding pseudonyms) followed by a combined synopsis/critique that typically discusses cast and crew, intertextual connections, the significance of the film in terms of the development of the western all'italiana, domestic and international reception and – an area Hughes is particularly strong on – the musical score. Not that this will appease fans of Sartana who wonder why their black-garbed hero got short shrift in favour of Sabata…

The most obvious weakness is that, especially with the selection of films, these write ups too often read like more expansive versions of those in the Pocket Essentials volume – or those read like summaries of these.

Thus, for instance, whereas the Pocket Essentials entry on Django devotes a paragraph to Django's unofficial offspring, the chapter here spends three pages. It's useful to know that of the 50+ films to feature Django only four are worth watching – especially when one already has already seen two of these, Django Kill and Django the Bastard – and that the best of these is apparently Django Get a Coffin Ready, but a little more detail wouldn't have gone amiss.

Against this, one can appreciate Hughes' dilemma in writing about the Italian western. After all, hundreds were produced and only a minority were ever distributed internationally, with a strong sense that for every unacknowledged minor classic there are plenty of other films best left forgotten. It's a classic case of diminishing returns: Yes someone out there might well be interested in an in-depth discussion of the films of Demofilo Fidani, an in-depth profile of Al Muloch or Fernando Sancho, or of the kung-fu and musical crossovers, but they aren't the target audience here and would undoubtedly be better off with fanzines and web boards.

Indeed, it's worth remembering that of the 20 titles that Hughes does discuss, several are as of this writing still unavailable on DVD in their original form unless one can afford to buy expensive Japanese import DVDs or has the enthusiasm to track down grey market fan subbed reconstructions.

In sum, a useful 'post-beginners' guide.