Death in the Desert

European westerns, the unabridged story , featuring over 500 films

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Instantly recognisable from their music and visual style, spaghetti westerns are a magnificently popular cult film genre. Through home media, they've stayed alive and available to an avid audience, enjoying remarkable influence and lasting success. In over 500 detailed film reviews covering 20 years of westerns in Europe, genre expert Howard Hughes takes a fascinating snapshot of European western films and filmmaking during their frenzied, popular heyday. He narrates the spaghetti western story from the genre's early, tentative days to its explosive golden era following the success of A Fistful of Dollars and the mass-produced scramble of films that swamped cinemas in the late 1960s, before the gradual falling off of enchantment with the genre. Death in the Desert also looks at other westerns made in Europe in the 1960s and '70s: the early West German 'Winnetou' westerns, swashbuckling Spanish 'Zorro' movies, kung-fu westerns, German musical and comedy westerns, American and British westerns filmed in Spain, and the then East Germany. This essential read for cinephiles, collectors and completists, is fully illustrated with rare posters and stills.