Between decline and oblivion, I worm myself in. I wanted to stop the time that, inexorably, erases from men's memory, the set, « actors » in Leone's movies. For the most known, others have done it, before the time's claws, out of camera shot, played their own partition. As for the least known, neglected or forgotten, they had to be discovered. With all of that, I made a remake in order to engrave the complete works.
In august 2007, as we made a trip in Spain, my wife, my two daughters and I, we found, without any preparation, a few film locations. I simply remembered village names mentioned by Christopher Frayling : Los Albaricoques, Western Leone, La Calahorra, Guadix, Covarrubias. The most frustating thing is that while biking a sixty kilometers ride in the Natural Park of Cabo de Gata : Las Negras, Rodalquilar, Los Albaricoques, San José and return to Las Negras, I missed six places where Sergio Leone made some shots. Innocently, I even took pictures of the « Castillo de Rodalquilar ». After that failure, the idea of going back there sprang out.
To find thoses places, I had spent a lot of time in research. To start with, the Christopher Frayling's books « Something to do with death » and « Once upon a time in Italy » were of a great help. They give more or less precise indications, but sometime none I must say. On the other way, tools like « Internet » and « Google Earth », that are extraordinary, from a certain point of view, give you the location of the most known places. For others, you can find pictures but not the maps. And then, there were all the forgotten sequences that had to be unearthed. On the fields, if it was easy to reach some places, for others it was a tremendous headache. Many thanks to all the people who posted informations, pictures more or less in connection with the subject. Sometime, a picture alone drive you in the right direction. The chance factor, also, invites itself; it appened to me several times on the fields. The places showned here in after are not complete. I hope to have new occasions to go back there; some of the pictures are not exactly at he right place. I must say, it is not always easy to shoot photos with the frame used forty years ago; a fence, a bush, a high grass, a construction, a highway, a private place and others can prevent you to do so.

Today, it seems to me, I must bring my own contribution in publishing the position of thoses known and un unknown places and give some informations about how to reach them. For each place, I recorded the longitude and latitude, then translated them on appropriate maps and a page recap.

With this publication, I want to pay homage to Sergio Leone for his artful way of filming and influence in world cinema. Also, I do not forget art directors Carlo Simi et Dario Micheli who found thoses places.

I must emphasize this personal website is a non-profit-making. The film pictures shown here in after are the property of Paramount (« Once upon a time in the west ») and United Artists (« For a fistful of dollars », « For a few dollars more », « The Good , the Bad and the Ugly », « Duck, you Sucker »).

I wish you a good visit.

Régis CLUSEAU                                                     

External links

Hervé Attia's wonderful work (USA)

• For a few dollars more

• The good, the Bad and the Ugly

• Once upon a time in the west

• Duck you sucker

Yoshi Yasuda & Michel Commes (Japan)

• Spaghetti Western

Régis Cluseau (in french)

• Le vieux fusil, lieux de mémoire

Florian Menotti

• Once upon a time in Almeria

Usage of pages

To get the web pages in french, clic on the appropriate flag on top of this page.
Pour avoir les pages en français, cliquez sur le drapeau approprié en haut de cette page.

Each page is design as follow :

• Left column : few comments, short dialogs from the film and one or two small maps with a blue rectangle frame. The longitude et latitude of a site position are given in degrees, minutes & seconds.

• Right column : alternate pictures of the film et thoses shot by myself in september 2008 or august 2007.

  The blue rectangle framed pictures are linked (hypertext link) to an independant page, showing the object with greater dimensions. To perform this, just clic on the object you want to select.

• Link to a map : In order to get a better resolution, you can swap in full screen mode by pressing the <F11> key. To go back to normal screen mode, press again the <F11> key.

Legend :

Most pictures were taken in september 2008, a few in august 2007. Those are the one with no date mentioned. Regarding the web pages with no date, they have been created end of 2008.

: New page (example pictures of june 2009)

: Page updated (example pictures of june 2009)