Wallach also mentioned that director Sergio Leone was notoriously careless regarding the safety of his actors during dangerous scenes.

He was not Paramount's first choice to direct the movie ; Italian director Sergio Leone was initially offered the job, but declined in order to direct his own gangster opus, Once Upon a Time in America.

Sometimes dismissed as low-quality escapist fare, the Peplums allowed newer directors such as Sergio Leone and Mario Bava, a means of breaking into the film industry.

The most popular Spaghetti Westerns were those of Sergio Leone, whose Dollars Trilogy ( A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ), featuring Clint Eastwood and scores by Ennio Morricone, came to define the genre along with Once Upon a Time in the West.

Italy has produced many important cinematography auteurs, including Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, Ettore Scola, Sergio Leone, Dario Argento, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bernardo Bertolucci, Franco Zeffirelli, Mario Bava, Sergio Corbucci, Lucio Fulci, Mario Monicelli, Marco Ferreri, Elio Petri, Ermanno Olmi, Umberto Lenzi, Lina Wertmüller, and Luchino Visconti.

Although not entirely Italian, Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, winner of 9 Oscars, and Once Upon a Time in America of Sergio Leone came out of this period also.

His career revival began when the young Italian director Sergio Leone boldly cast Van Cleef, whose career was still in the doldrums, as one of the two protagonists, alongside Clint Eastwood, in Leone's second western, For a Few Dollars More.

* In the 1973 Sergio Leone / Tonino Valerii spaghetti western My Name is Nobody, the characters Jack Beauregard ( Henry Fonda ) and " Nobody " ( Terence Hill ) meet at a cemetery.

* In Once Upon a Time in America ( 1984 ), a Sergio Leone film, the young Deborah Gelly ( Jennifer Connelly ) recites it to Noodles ( Scott Tiler ).

The best-known Spaghetti westerns were directed by Sergio Leone and scored by Ennio Morricone: the " Dollars Trilogy " ( A Fistful of Dollars ( 1964 ), For a Few Dollars More ( 1965 ), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ( 1966 )) and Once Upon a Time in the West ( 1968 ).

It was in fact directed by Vincenzo Leone, father of Sergio Leone, and starred his mother Bice Walerian in the title role as Indian princess fatale.

Beside the first three Spaghetti Westerns by Leone, a most influential film was Sergio Corbucci's Django starring Franco Nero.

* Sergio Leone

Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio Leone.

* Frayling, Christopher: Sergio Leone: Something to Do with Death ( London: Faber, 2000 )

Another example is the Dollars Trilogy by Sergio Leone ; no continuity between the three movies was intended by Leone, but American marketers advertised the Clint Eastwood character in each film as being the same " Man with No Name ".

Category: Films directed by Sergio Leone

* Sergio Leone

** Sergio Leone, Italian director

** Sergio Leone, Italian film director ( b. 1929 )

Sergio Leone (; January 3, 1929 – April 30, 1989 ) was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter most associated with the " Spaghetti Western " genre.

The film's script was written by Leone and his longtime friend and collaborator Sergio Donati, from a story by Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento, both of whom went on to have significant careers as directors.

He rose to fame for playing the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy of spaghetti westerns ( A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ) during the late 1960s, and as Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry films ( Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Enforcer, Sudden Impact, and The Dead Pool ) throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1971, Coburn starred in the spaghetti western Duck, You Sucker !, directed by Sergio Leone, as an Irish explosives expert and revolutionary who has fled to Mexico during the time of the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century.

His most notable work was for Sergio Leone ; he and Bernardo Bertolucci collaborated on the story for the spaghetti western classic Once Upon a Time in the West.

Nero's first film role was a small part in La ragazza in prestito ( 1964 ), and he had his first lead role in Sergio Corbucci's Django ( 1966 ) a spaghetti western and one of his best known films.

Once Upon a Time in the West () is a 1968 Italian epic spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone for Paramount Pictures.

In 1964, Yojimbo was remade as A Fistful of Dollars, a spaghetti western directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood in his first appearance as the Man with No Name.

A Fistful of Dollars () is a 1964 Italian spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood, alongside Gian Maria Volonté, Marianne Koch, Wolfgang Lukschy, Sieghardt Rupp, José Calvo, Antonio Prieto, and Joseph Egger.

For a Few Dollars More () is a 1965 Italian spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Gian Maria Volonté.

It marked a significant departure for Morricone, who usually provided the film scores for spaghetti westerns directed by Sergio Leone, while Days of Heaven was a tragic love story.

In 1968 Reeves appeared in his final film, a spaghetti western that imitated the Sergio Leone epics, which he also co-wrote, titled I Live For Your Death!

Heavily influenced by Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns and Japanese samurai films, Cheh brought elements from these movies into his own work, revolutionizing Hong Kong filmmaking.

In 1960, Italian movie director, Sergio Leone, came to consult Aldo Uberti to find the Old West guns he needed for what would become known as “ spaghetti westerns ”.

Critics often made comparisons to the early spaghetti western pictures made by filmmakers such as Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah, hailing the film for its action sequences and dark humour.

Stander stayed in Europe and eventually settled in Rome, where he appeared in many spaghetti Westerns, most notably playing a bartender named Max in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West.

Another notable part was as a gunslinger in the opening sequence of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West ( 1968 ); after this, he appeared in several other spaghetti Westerns of lesser quality.

The movie had a relatively positive reception from movie critics, often being compared to Sergio Leone's stylish spaghetti westerns.

Debuting with director Dino Risi, he then played some minor roles in Sergio Leone's spaghetti western movies: A Fistful of Dollars, as Chico ; For a Few Dollars More, as Niño ; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as Corporal Wallace ; and also as a gangster in Once Upon a Time in America.

Not technically a " Spaghetti Western ", Man was filmed in the rugged highlands near the desert-like Spanish terrain seen in many of Sergio Leone's Italo westerns.

Other Spaghetti westerns, namely, Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ( 1966 ) and Once Upon a Time in the West ( 1968 ), contained more subtle political elements which were not the driving part of the main story.