Film locations: A fistful of fantasy on Spain's dusty Costa Clint

By ANNIE CAULFIELD

Horse play: A rider takes part in the cowboy shootout


We swaggered past livery stables, gallows and a sheriff’s office and came to a saloon where a man with guns and spurs was leaning in the doorway. He seemed to be asleep on his feet – but the entrepreneurs who’d thought of making money out of old film locations in Almeria in southern Spain had been far more alert.

This was the desert setting where A Fistful Of Dollars and other ‘spaghetti Westerns’ starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Sergio Leone were filmed in the Sixties. The extras had asked Leone to leave the set behind for them to develop as a tourist attraction. These enterprising folk sold out to commercial interests, who have created several Western-themed attractions in southern Spain.

Everyone sauntered around, narrowing their eyes and pretending to be Clint, even if Dolly Parton was playing loudly through speakers on the streets, rather than the haunting Western film music of Ennio Morricone.

We tapped the walls of Mexican churches and found they were just plaster. We peered into the windows of the jail and saw it was a storage place for horse feed. Not brave enough to take up the offer of horses for hire, we settled for a buggy ride, going up and down the streets of wooden shop fronts and out past Boot Hill.

Back at the saloon, the barmaid didn’t slide our drinks down the long wooden bar, but there was excitement as a saloon girl and a cowboy sitting at a table bickered loudly (although this seemed to be not the traditional poker argument but a disagreement about a timesheet).


Barrel of fun: Actors re-create Western scenes at Mini-Hollywood


Suddenly the music stopped. The couple ran outside, shouting: ‘Five o’clock gunfight, quick!’ Two cowboys were brawling in the street, the saloon girl was screaming and tourist families gathered to watch. A gunman leapt down from the stable roof.

Another man on a horse galloped by to rescue the girl. The man who had jumped was shot and he staggered, clutching his chest, before falling – carefully – into the dust. The two remaining cowboys paced out the distance for a gunfight, twirling their weapons expertly. It ended quickly, with both dying dramatic deaths. The show was over.

As children acted out gunfighting, I realised that more than the show, it was the dusty wooden buildings and dry, gaunt hills that made us feel we were in a film. We felt we had lived out a little bit of fantasy – even if we were only driving off into the sunset to stake a claim on the beach rather than a gold prospector’s mine.


Travel facts
Visit www.unique-almeria.com/mini-hollywood.html for more details


source: dailymail