Remembering Sergio Leone. | Cinema Distraction Movie Blog

Sergio Leone was born on the 3rd of January 1929 in Rome, Italy.
He was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter known for being the pioneer of the “Spaghetti Western” genre of film.

Sergio was the son of cinema pioneer and director Vincenzo Leone who worked under the name,

“Leone Roberto Roberti”

and silent film actress

Edvige Valcarenghi.

As a child Sergio Leone was a schoolmate of his later collaborator the musical maestro Ennio Morricone. Sergio had grown up being on and around film sets but it was when he was 18 years old he decided to drop out of university where he was studying Law to pursue a career in the film industry.

Sergio began his career in Italian cinema as an assistant to the director Vittorio De Sica during the production for the film “Bicycle Thieves” (1948).

In the 1950’s Leone began writing screenplays primarily in the "peplum" genre of films that were really popular in Italy at the time historical epics that the UK and the USA would call a "sword and sandal" movie.

He wrote, “Aphrodite, Goddess of Love” (1958), “Sign of the Gladiator” (1959), “The Last Days of Pompeii” (1959), “The Seven Revenges” (1961), “Duel of the Titans” (1961) these films were directed by Mario Bonnard, Guido Brignone, Primo Zeglio & Sergio Corbucci.

He also started working as an assistant director working on 11 films between 1950 and 1959 he also worked on several large-scale international productions shot at the Cinecittà Studios in Rome, most notably “Quo Vadis” (1951) and “Ben-Hur” (1959), financially backed by the American studios.

When film director Mario Bonnard fell ill during the production of the film “The Last Days of Pompeii” starring Steve Reeves (which Leone had co-written), Leone stepped up took the reins and completed the film which wonderfully set him up to make his solo directorial debut with

“The Colossus of Rhodes” (1961.

By 1964 the “Peplum” or “Sword and Sandal” pictures were falling out of favor with audiences but Leone had shifted to making a different kind of film.

Sergio Leone was a big fan of the American western and even though he could not speak English and he had never visited America he still knew a great deal about the American Old West. This was a topic and a period in history that fascinated him as a child and he maintained an interest in adulthood. Sergio took on the western genre through his unique European perspective. What Leone did was strip away many of the tropes that had been established during the “Golden Age” of the Hollywood western.

Leone's vision was a gritty, violent and morally complex vision of the Old West. He moved away from the story lines, plots, characterisations and the general mood of a traditional western. In Leone’s west heroes and villains look alike both are unkempt and unshaven, dirty and everyone is morally ambiguous.
An American western would have bad guys who were grizzly, dirty and dressed in black and the heroes were clean shaven sporting a white hat.

Now in a Euro western anyone could be a baddie and crimes that would never had featured in the plot of a Warner Brothers or MGM western such as Infanticide or sexual assault was now possible plot points extending beyond corrupt mayors and stolen cows.

This new form of Euro western would eventully be dubbed by many as “Spaghetti Westerns”

Which is a misnomer due to the majority of these films were international co-productions by Italy and Spain, and sometimes France, West Germany, The UK, Portugal, Greece, Israel, Yugoslavia and The US.

Amusingly this international approach was carried over to many productions due to having a very multi-national cast. This may have been an issue for some productions but films of this nature were shot with no sound and all dialogue and sound effects would be overdubbed along with the foley and musical score so on set there was a "Tower of Babel" approach to filming where actors would deliver their lines in their native tongue regardless if other actors would understand and the voices were just replaced. First out of the gate...

“Per un pugno di dollari” (1964)

AKA “A Fistful of Dollars”

Directed by Sergio Leone, Based on the film “Yojimbo”

by Akira Kurosawa & Ryūzō Kikushima, Produced by Arrigo Colombo & Giorgio Papi, Music by Ennio Morricone, Cinematography Massimo Dallamano & Edited by Roberto Cinquini, Starring Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, Josef Egger, Wolfgang Lukschy, Gian Maria Volonté, Daniel Martín, Bruno Carotenuto & Benito Stefanelli.

Wandering gunfighter “Joe” arrives in the Mexican village of San Miguel in the midst of a power struggle among sheriff John Baxter and the three Rojo brothers. When a regiment of Mexican soldiers bearing gold is waylaid by the Rojo brothers, Joe is hired by Esteban to join the gang, but he plays one side against the other.

This film is not the strongest of Leone's westerns, The plot is lifted from Akira Kurosawa’s film “Yojimbo” the film still lets Leone start to hone his new unorthodox Euro western style and really lays the foundation for the truly great films to come. But saying that!

A Fistful of Dollars is notable for a few reasons, In the film we saw a gun fired and the bullet hitting its target in the same frame, a presentation that had been forbidden by MPAA censorship board up until this film. The film also established Clint Eastwood as a movie star. Eastwood had been an American television actor with few film credits.

The film was made with a budget of $225,000 ($2.2m in 2024) and grossed $20m ($212m in 2024) it was a phenomenon and Sergio Leone with “A Fistful of Dollars” kick-started a genre that gave birth to over six hundred "European Westerns" between 1960 and 1978.

Straight off the back of that success Leone made...

"For A Few Dollars More" (1965)

Directed by Sergio Leone, Screenplay by Luciano Vincenzoni & Sergio Leone, Story by Sergio Leone & Fulvio Morsella, Produced by Alberto Grimaldi, Music by Ennio Morricone, Cinematography Massimo Dallamano, Edited by Eugenio Alabiso & Giorgio Serrallonga,

Starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volonté, Mara Krup, Luigi Pistilli, Klaus Kinski, Josef Egger, Panos Papadopulos, Benito Stefanelli, Robert Camardiel, Aldo Sambrell, Luis Rodríguez & Mario Brega.

a murderous outlaw known as El Indio and his gang are terrorising and robbing the citizens of the region. With a bounty on El Indio's head, two bounty hunters, Monco and Col. Douglas Mortimer, came to collect the prize. Upon their first meeting, the two men view each other as rivals, but they eventually agree to become partners in their mutual pursuit of the vicious criminal.

This film was another serious hit with a production budget of $600,000 and it took $25.5 million at the box office. Leone had a winning formula that was really resonating with

film goers in Europe and America. This formula was added to with the addition of actor Lee Van Cleef to the cast. Van Cleef had been a movie actor since 1952 and had appeared in many Hollywood westerns including "High Noon" (1952), "Arrow in the Dust", "The Yellow Tomahawk", "The Desperado" (1954), "The Quiet Gun", "The Badge of Marshal Brennan, "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral", "The Tin Star", "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962)...You get the idea!! He was a proper Hollywood western actor but it was his performances in Sergio Leone's movies elevated him to having a cult status as an actor.

Part of Leone's film-making style included juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots. Immersing you in the terrain and showing you every bead of sweat, facial scar and piece of stubble on his characters.

In 1966 Sergio made and released arguably the most famous western ever made...

"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1966)

Directed by Sergio Leone, Screenplay by Agenore Incrocci, Furio Scarpelli,
Luciano Vincenzoni & Sergio Leone, Story by Luciano Vincenzoni & Sergio Leone.
Produced by Alberto Grimaldi, Music by Ennio Morricone, Cinematography Tonino Delli Colli, Edited by Nino Baragli & Eugenio Alabiso, Starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach, Aldo Giuffrè, Antonio Casas, Rada Rassimov, Aldo Sambrell, Enzo Petito, Luigi Pistilli, Livio Lorenzon, Al Mulloch, Sergio Mendizábal, Antonio Molino Rojo, Lorenzo Robledo, Mario Brega.
In the Southwest during the Civil War, a mysterious stranger, Joe, and a Mexican outlaw, Tuco, form an uneasy partnership. Joe then turns in the bandit for the reward money, then rescues him just as he is being hanged. When Joe's shot at the noose goes awry during one escapade, a furious Tuco tries to have him murdered. The men re-team abruptly, however, to beat out a sadistic criminal and the Union army and find $20,000 that a soldier has buried in the desert.

This film is a true masterpiece in the original meaning of the word. With "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly" Leone cracked the code and perfected the "Euro Western" genre he pioneered.

The film is set during the death throws of "The Wild West” in a country torn apart by civil war that is about to be civilised and opened up by the railroad.

The protagonist played by Eastwood is our hero but is no hero, He is a criminal, who robs, lies and kills yet we sympathise with him. This is such a significant shift in the paradigm in the movie western presenting us with an "anti-hero" and one that still looms large in pop culture to the day 58 years later.

The film was shot mainly in Spain and the film is is set in landscapes that are almost surreal the ghost towns, a lonely house in the middle of nowhere, a huge cemetery. The films central motif is Death.

Lonely houses aren’t unusual in Westerns but they are normally homesteads surrounded by crops and livestock but in Leone's "Wild West" these buildings are surrounded by dry baron land. In the opening of the film we see broken down wagons, broken barrels, torn posters showing decay and a civilisation ending. Leone constantly shows us imagery of nooses, guns, graves and dead people. Saying that! it is amazing how light-hearted the film is with the comic relief provided by Tuco played by Eli Wallach.

Eli Wallach was an American film, television, and stage actor from New York City. He received a BAFTA, a Tony and an Emmy Award. He also received an honorary Oscar in 2010. He was originally trained as a stage actor but he accrued over 90 film credits in his career that spaned over six decades. Wallach initially studied method acting under Sanford Meisner and later became a founding member of the Actors Studio, where he studied under Lee Strasberg. He played a wide variety of roles throughout his career, primarily as a supporting actor.

I can only speak for myself but when I think about Eli Wallach I think of him as Tuco!

Just to get something off my chest...

These films are called "Dollars Trilogy" they are not a trilogy of of films the films are three different unconnected stories Eastwood is playing different characters and Lee Van Cleef plays Angel Eyes in "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly" but he is not Angel Eyes in "For a Few Dollars More" Also Eastwood's character is not "The man with no name" he is called "Joe" in two of the films and "Manco" in another.... those are names!

After the massive success of "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly" Leone intended not to make any more Westerns believing he had said all he wanted to say. He had discovered the novel "The Hoods" a fictionalised book based on the author's own experiences as a Jewish hood during Prohibition, Leone was motivated and was planning to adapt it into a feature film but Hollywood was only offering him westerns. United Artists offered him the opportunity to make a cowboy film starring Charlton Heston, Kirk Douglas and Rock Hudson, but Leone turned them down flat.

Paramount offered Leone a generous budget to make a western and added to the deal access to Sergio's favourite actor Henry Fonda whom he had wanted to work for virtually his whole career... Leone accepted that offer.

The movie he made for Paramount was "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968)

My next blog will be all about that movie.

During the production of "Once Upon a Time in the West", Sergio Leone's collaborator Sergio Donati presented him with an early treatment for a new film project. At the time, political riots had broken out in Paris, and there was a wave of activism around left-wing nationalist ideology among university students and filmmakers across Europe and there was the feel revolution in the air. Leone, who had used his previous films to deconstruct the overly romanticised image of the Old West established by Hollywood, Sergio saw the potential with this new project to deconstruct the romanticised notions around revolution that were permeated popular culture and to highlight the political instability in contemporary Italy.

"Duck, You Sucker!" (1972)

Directed by Sergio Leone, Screenplay by Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Donati & Sergio Leone, Dialogue by Roberto de Leonardis &
Carlo Tritto, Story by Sergio Leone & Sergio Donati, Produced by Fulvio Morsella, Music by Ennio Morricone, Cinematography by Giuseppe Ruzzolini, Edited by Nino Baragli, Starring Rod Steiger, James Coburn, Romolo Valli, Maria Monti, Rick Battaglia, Franco Graziosi.
At the beginning of the Mexican Revolution in 1913, greedy bandit Juan Miranda and idealist John H. Mallory, an Irish Republican Army explosives expert on the lam from the British, fall in with a band of revolutionaries plotting to strike a national bank. When it turns out that the government has been using the bank as a hiding place for illegally detained political prisoners who are freed by the hist -- Miranda becomes a revolutionary hero against his will.

The film was called "Giù la testa, lit." in Italy, Translated as "Duck Your Head", "Get Down", The film is also known as "A Fistful of Dynamite" and "Once Upon a Time ... the Revolution".

Leone never intended to direct "Duck, You Sucker!" still wanting to move away from the western aesthetic personally but he wanted the film to be directed by someone who would replicate Leone's visual style. Director Peter Bogdanovich was his first choice but Peter soon abandoned the production due to a lack of artistic freedom being tied into replicating Sergio's style. Sam Peckinpah then agreed with Leone to direct the film only to then be rejected by executives at United Artists. Leone then recruited his regular assistant director, Giancarlo Santi, to direct, with Leone only supervising and Santi was in charge for the first ten days of shooting. However, Actor Rod Steiger (who was a real character) refused to act unless Leone himself directed the actor. The producers then pressured Sergio into directing the film to keep the production on schedule. Leone reluctantly took over and Santi was relegated to second unit work.

The film was only a moderate success financially compared to Leone's previous four films "Duck, You Sucker!" failed to gain any real recognition from the critics at the time of it's release however, as with so many films it was not bad it was just ahead of it's time has received a more favourable reception from contemporary film fans and commentators,

"Duck, You Sucker is a saucy helping of spaghetti western, with James Coburn and Rod Steiger's chemistry igniting the screen and Sergio Leone's bravura style on full display".

"marvelous sense of detail and spectacular effects". "Leone's direction, Morricone's score and the lead performances ignite an emotional explosion comparable to that of Once Upon a Time in the West".

In Mexico, where the film is known as "Los Héroes de Mesa Verde", it was refused classification and effectively banned until 1979 because it was considered offensive to the Mexican people and the Revolution.

This was the last western directed by Leone and it seems to be his most overlooked film which is tragic. If you haven't seen it and you like "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly" you need to track this down and see it ASAP.

So "Duck, You Sucker!" was shot in 1971 then throughout the rest of the 1970's Sergio avoided the directors chair instead focusing on producing films one of these projects was the film,

"My Name Is Nobody" (1973) the film was directed by Tonino Valerii with Leone executive producing. It is a comedy Western poking fun at the spaghetti Western genre. It starred Henry Fonda as an old gunslinger facing a final confrontation after the death of his brother. Terence Hill also starred in the film as the young stranger who helps Fonda leave the dying West with style. Apparently to add some authenticity some scenes Serigo jumped behind the camera and directed to add to its "spaghetti Western" bonafides.

Leone's other productions included "A Genius, Two Partners and a Dupe" (1975), another Western comedy "Il Gatto" (1977) and "A Dangerous Toy" (1979) Leone also produced three comedies by actor/director Carlo Verdone. Leone also directed various award-winning TV commercials for European television and in 1978, he was a member of the jury at the 28th Berlin International Film Festival.

Leone turned down the offer to direct The Godfather, in favour of working on another gangster story. He devoted 10 years to developing the project,

based on the novel "The Hoods" by former mobster Harry Grey, focusing on four New York City Jewish gangsters of the 1920s and 1930s who had been friends since childhood.

"Once Upon a Time in America" (1984)

Directed by Sergio Leone, Screenplay by Leonardo Benvenuti, Piero De Bernardi, Enrico Medioli, Franco Arcalli, Franco Ferrini & Sergio Leone, Based on "The Hoods" by Harry Grey, Produced by Arnon Milchan, Music by Ennio Morricone, Cinematography by Tonino Delli Colli, Edited by Nino Baragli, Starring Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Joe Pesci, Burt Young, Tuesday Weld & Treat Williams.
In 1968, the elderly David "Noodles" Aaronson returns to New York, where he had a career in organised crime in the 20's & 30's. Most of his old friends, like longtime partner Max are long gone, yet he feels his past is unresolved.

We see in flashbacks Noodles rise from his hardscrabble start in Jewish slum in New York's Lower East Side, through his days as a bootlegger then Mafia boss. We see his life is marked by violence, betrayal and remorse.

The finished film was four-hours long!

Where Leone's westerns stripped away the Hollywood gloss and romance around the old West this film lifts the vale on the cruel reality of another aspect of popular American mythology, the role of greed and violence and their uneasy coexistence with the meaning of ethnicity and the pursuit "The American Dream".

The film received a raucous, then record-breaking standing ovation of nearly 20 minutes at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival which was reportedly heard by diners at restaurants across the street. Despite such a positive reception, Warner Brothers felt it was just too long.

The studio then cut 120 minutes out of Sergio's film for the American market, abandoning the flashback structure and constructing a linear narrative. This version suffered heavy criticism and flopped at the US box office. The original cut of the film was released in the rest of the world, It achieved somewhat better box office returns and a more mixed critical response. When the original version of the film was finally released on home video in the US, it gained major critical acclaim, with some critics hailing the film as Sergio Leone's magnum opus.

As you can imagine Leone was deeply hurt by the studio-imposed editing and poor commercial reception of "Once Upon a Time in America" in North America.

It was his final film.

In 1988, he was head of the jury at the 45th Venice International Film Festival.