Once upon a time in Almeria
And ... Action! Ray Murray gallops into Fort Bravo in a scene straight from a spaghetti Western. This region of Spain was used for filming many Westerns featuring Clint Eastwood. |
It was here that Italian director Sergio Leone popularized the spaghetti Western (his father had made Italy's first Western, in 1913) and filmed his operatic Dollars Trilogy: A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and cue the Ennio Morricone score The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, as well as his classic Once Upon a Time in the West.
In the process he rewrote the rules of how the Western was made, revived a stale genre and made a young TV actor named Clint Eastwood a movie star.
Three sets/towns Western Leone, Mini-Hollywood, and Fort Bravo lie within a few miles of one another in the heart of the desert.
My first stop is Western Leone. I see the large red homestead that sheltered Claudia Cardinale and was so central to Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West.
The quiet of Playa de Monsul at sunset belies the beach's role in films like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. |
On this day, Western Leone is deserted, save for a man, dressed as a Union Army sergeant, asleep outside the homestead, from which hangs a sign, "Saloon". Upon discovering my presence, he slowly rouses and disappears inside. The sound of an old generator sputters to life. The theme music from For a Few Dollars More swells from a massive speaker. He offers, without much conviction, to photograph me period-style in hat, spurs and a six-shooter for a mere seven euros.
My next stop: Mini-Hollywood, where much of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly was shot. It is now a theme park. Costumed cowboys and "working girls" parade its paved walkways. There's a video arcade, and storefronts tout cheap trinkets. Mini-Hollywood is clearly courting the package-tour trade, as evidenced by the huge parking area with spaces built for buses. I don't linger long.
Upon arrival in Fort Bravo, I relax. Maybe it's the classic Western Main Street, with blacksmith, jail and hotel. Maybe it's the fully operational saloon with horses loitering out front. It even boasts its own gallows.
The town stages espectaculos mock shoot-outs and barroom brawls. The shows are kitschy, but they allow my outlaw fantasies free rein. Late in the day, with most everyone gone, with the desert still and the shadows long, I walk slowly down the middle of the street, hands hanging by my sides, wanting to see, maybe, Eli Wallach's menacing "Tuco" exit through those swinging doors, or Lee Van Cleef's "Angel Eyes" crouching on that rooftop.
Ray Murray and I are on horseback, riding into the badlands of the Tabernas desert. A police sergeant in England, Murray came to Spain 11 years ago. He runs a local school that promotes ethical business practices, as well as a horse-riding concern out of Fort Bravo.
As we move through the desert, conversation drifts easily in and out of silence, our topics ranging from sustainable living to children and, invariably, to the movies and how they affect our lives. Of course, we talk about the Western. "I don't think I'd be the man I am if I'd never seen High Noon," says Murray. "It gave me the ethics I have."
As we crest a ridge, he gazes out over the valley.
"Look familiar?" he asks.
"Should it?" I ask. "We're standing right where Leone did the famous first shot of For a Few Dollars More, where the rider is shot off his horse."
We ride on, into a ravine, and come upon a spring bubbling out of the earth. It's the only water we've seen, and the horses stop to drink.
"Maybe Leone wasn't that crazy after all," I offer. Murray considers me and nods.
Then, up ahead, I see a strange sight. The dry riverbed opens out and I spot several sun-blasted palm trees, swaying just slightly in the faintest of breezes. It's the last thing I expected in the middle of the desert. "An oasis?" I ask.
"They created it for Lawrence of Arabia," Murray says. "I've heard about it for years. I knew it was back this way."
In 1961, filming for director David Lean's classic Lawrence of Arabia was forced to relocate from Jordan in mid-production to Tabernas.
Eddie Fowlie was Lean's location scout, prop man, special-effects expert and all-around right hand. At 85, he's still a lion. "The big thing we needed was Aqaba," Fowlie says. "We needed a spot where the desert came right down to the sea. The minute I saw this place, I knew we had something, and we built Aqaba right here."
He liked the location so much, he bought the land, built this hotel, and never left.
Fowlie was beside Lean for all the big ones. Doctor Zhivago, Ryan's Daughter, The Bridge on the River Kwai.
"One day David Lean said to me during Lawrence, 'We need an oasis'," Fowlie says. For the scene with Anthony Quinn. We couldn't find one, so I built one. That's what you saw. I'd heard it was still there. They even had it on maps for a while. We blew up the trains for Lawrence down the beach in Cabo de Gata."
It's a short hop along the coast into Cabo de Gata Natural Park, where the desert extends over the coastal mountains and down to the Mediterranean. These beaches aren't the white, velvety blankets of sand found in the Caribbean. Eastwood's Man with No Name tumbled down these same dunes, broken with thirst and sunstroke in what looked on film like the heart of the desert. But had Leone turned his camera in the other direction, we would have seen the broad vista of the Mediterranean just a few yards away.
The New York Times Syndicate
(China Daily 04/12/2007 page19)
