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Description

Spaghetti Western, also known as Italian Western, is a broad sub-genre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. It was used by critics in USA and other countries because most of these Westerns were produced and directed by Italians. According to actor Aldo Sambrell, the phrase 'Spaghetti Western' was originally created by Italian journalist Alfonso Sancha[1]. In the beginning the term was used in a derogatory sense, but over time it has become accepted as descriptive. The denomination for these films in Italy is western all'italiana (Italian-Style Western). Italo-Western is also used, especially in Germany. The term Eurowesterns may be used to also include Western movies that were produced in Europe but not called Spaghetti Westerns, like the West German Winnetou films or Ostern Westerns. The majority of the films were international co-productions between Italy, Spain, and sometimes France, Germany, Yugoslavia, and the United States. These movies were originally released in Italian, but as most of the films featured multilingual casts and sound was post-synched, most "western all'italiana" do not have an official dominant language.[2] The typical Spaghetti Western team was made up of an Italian director, Italo-Spanish[3] technical staff, and a cast of Italian, Spanish, German and American actors, sometimes a fading Hollywood star and sometimes a rising one like the young Clint Eastwood in three of Sergio Leone's films.